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Originally Posted by ariel
Tom is subscribing to the Marxist view of history,
No, Tom is subscribing to his own view of history; Tom is fairly unfamiliar with Marx, actually. Tom finds other peoples' philosophy usually makes boring reading......
whereby everything is driven by suprahuman (economic) necessity
A meme/paradigm is not by any means neccessarily economic; individuals and peoples often do uneconomic things, because there are more reasons and drives in our lives than that. The simplest name for the concept of societies/social institutions behaving as wholes/organisms rather independantly of their individual members, much as "you" are independant from being ruled by each of your cells; even an important brain cell, is "sociology". It's all around us. It's very real. And when people are not conscious of it they tend very strongly to be ruled by it.
and the individual leader is just somebody who was there at the right place and in the right time. A marionette of objective historical forces, so to speak.
Yes, pretty much. He must, of course, possess the requisite qualities, which are not rare; primarily intelligence and ambition, and perhaps fit a social category of class or descent. Now we've had sociology. Anthropology has a teaching more similar to the great men thing; that the leaders always start wars for their own selfish reasons and lie to the people to justify it. Some anthro. texts will state this as an universal or near-universal truth.
Most of us, especially in the post-Cold War days, would only chuckle...
I consider the disaprobrium of the normal masses a badge of honor; hate to tell you. the great men theory of history is not, to my mind, very well supported by any meaningful evidence, while everything I've seen humans doing all my life supports the sociological view. I believe that "great men" are supreme goer-alongers; men who think and do for themselves often live short, outcast lives, and are rarely remembered by history. To me, these are the real great men. Christ, for instance, was an actually great man who is remembered; Julius Caesar, for instance, was a thug and a manipulator; not anything to look up to in my book. (Please, Itallian friends; do not be offended; there are thugs and manipulators in every country)
BTW, Russia is a poor country. It is an intrinsically poor country; cold and largely landlocked. It had a protracted struggle against a similarly large, but much richer country, and ended up with a collapsed economy. The idea that any of this has anything to do with communism, democracy, etc. is, well, standardized, to say the least (I've been asked to say the least; perhaps appropriately) .......
There is no doubt that Alexander was Greek,
Lots of doubt, actually; tell it to a Bulgarian; tell it to (the former) Yugoslavia; lots and lots of doubt that Alexander in particular or Macedonians in general should be considered Greek. Who's right? Not the point I'm trying to make; my point is there is doubt; there is controversy; very serious international controversy, actually, and a big land dispute. I personally consider it fairly clear that the Macedonians were and are part Greek, part North (and to the north is the border between Slavia and Tartarstan); I actually can't understand why anyone would even question this; it seems fairly obvious and inevitable.
that he was a formidable leader, and that he actively initiated
This is exactly the big question. Exactly; the initiating; a social movement or one arrogant boss? What evidence is there, or indeed, can there be for so long ago? But looking around the modern world we can study examples much more closely, and a close study does much to crush the "great men" theory of history, much as few in power/"success" (as I've said before, and for obvious self-interest reasons) will admit it,often most of all to themselves.
a chain of events that re-shaped the world. I suggest we stop here and now the silly argument " my ancestor was greater than your (his, their, her etc)...".
Was anyone saying those things? Such was not my intent, certainly. None of these people are perceptibly my ancestors, except in the aside/example about Iroquois government, in which I was pointing out that not all things commonly attributed to Ancient (primarily Attic) Greece are unique to it or directly traceable to it; that at least some of these beliefs are more mythic than historical; Ie. modern US government is fairly dis-similar to the oft-creditted Athenian democracy; more similar to Latin republican government, ruled by a council, which is not unusual for a tribe, but the multiple-"house", checks and balances tripartate structure seems closer to Iroquois, the native people of much of the region where American government arose, and who had extensive contact with the Americans in the formative stages of that nation.
It has been in the emotional, and also political interests of the American nation to deny this, and other (American) Indian contributions to technology, philosophy, law, roads, etc. etc. etc. (an interesting book? "Indian Givers" subtitle something like how the Indians of the Americas revolutionized the world), and that's just what's been done. It wasn't done, BTW, by any great man, but by a nation as a whole, and has been by no means entirely conscious. No incivility or insult is intended; this is pretty straightforward history, and no longer contradicted, even by experts.
Where does Falcatta fit here?
Do you view falcatta as seperate from copis?
Why does my beloved Laz Bicaq (Black Sea Yataghan) have a configuration resembling Egyptian Khopesh?
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