Posted on 11/26/2004 8:59:56 AM PST by SusanD
Aristotle’s dictum still stands: “He who asserts must also prove.” When you make a claim, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that claim.
Let’s ask some clear, practical questions in light of Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Did Alexander ever kiss a man on the mouth? No evidence. Did he ever play a passive or active role in same sex sexual unions? No evidence. Did he have sex of any kind with the eunuch Bagoas? No evidence. Did he ever play footsie with men or boys at a sports bar? No evidence. Did he have sex with Hephaestion or any other man, young or old? No evidence. Was he anything other than a married, heterosexual male with children who chose “power as his supreme mistress”? The answer in concert with all the primary sources is again: no evidence!
Alexander clearly distained his father Philip’s alpha male excesses and was considered something of a prig with regard to sexual matters. Interestingly enough, no one who knew them both considered Alexander either in character or in conduct to have followed in his father’s licentious footsteps. Instead it was said of him that “he gave the strange impression of one whose body was his servant.” Alexander stated that his true father figure was Aristotle, for although Philip had given him life, Aristotle had taught him how to live.
What then was Aristotle’s position on such issues. What would Alexander and Hephaestion have learned from their mentor in three years of study? In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between what is naturally pleasurable from what is pleasurable without being naturally so.
K. J. Dover explains:
“In this latter category he puts (a) things which are pleasurable because of ‘deficiencies’ or ‘impairments’ and those who find them so, (b) things which become pleasurable through habit, and (c) things which are found pleasurable by bad natures.”[xiii]
Dover cites:
“Those who are effeminate by nature … are constituted contrary to nature; for, though male, they are so disposed that part of them (sc the rectum) is necessarily defective. Defect, if complete, causes destruction, but if not, perversion (sc. of one’s nature). … it therefore follows that they must be distorted and have an urge in a place other than (sc. that of) procreative ejaculation.”[xiv]
Dover concludes Aristotle’s thought:
“The writer’s concept of nature is not difficult to understand: a male who is physically constituted in such a way that he lacks something of the positive characteristics which distinguish male from female, and possesses instead a positively female characteristic, suffers from a constitutional defect contrary to nature, and a male who through habituation behaves in a way which is a positive differentia of females behaves as if he had such a defect.”[xv]
Non heterosexual relations are contrary to nature. But again, why should anyone care? Why would Greek lawyers be threatening to sue Oliver Stone and Warner Brothers film studios with an extrajudicial note saying that the movie is fiction and not based on fact? Is it a Bible-thumping, right-wing conspiracy? No, I believe it’s only a concern for truth - clear historical facts versus Hollywood “interpra-facts”. Gay activists say that the film soft-pedals Alexander’s sexuality. Terms such as “erotic reality denyers” and “homophobic Keystone Cops” are used of anyone who dares to challenge that Alexander might actually have been just a heterosexual guy. It is interesting to me that Alexander is not even mentioned in the important studies of homoeroticism in ancient Greece by the likes of Sir Kenneth Dover, (Greek Homosexuality, 1989), John Winkler’s The Constraints of Desire, (1990), and David Halperin’s 100 Years of Homosexuality (1990).
SUMMARY
In short, regardless of the sexual mores of Alexander’s time, coupled with the clear evidence of homoerotic relationships on the part of his father Philip II, at end the question of whether there is evidence in the ancient historians to suggest that Alexander was homosexual, bisexual, homoerotic, or anything else of the sort, just isn’t there.
Personally, I don’t care. I am neither angry nor homophobic. I just appreciate historical evidence when historical claims
What can be said is that there is positive proof of Alexander's heterosexual activity: offspring.
We know very little about Aleander, let alone who he had fun with.
You use the old "lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack" argument. While true, insofar as that goes, it does not prove the positive assertion that he ever participated in homosexual activity.
For example, I could claim that Alexander was a cannibal. You could counterclaim that he never ate human flesh, but there is no evidence possible to prove this negative, short of a totally trustworthy account of every meal Alexander ever ate: an impossible standard of proof.
But, as I am the one putting it forth, it is not for you to negate my argument, but for me to support it. Likewise, it is up to the pro-homosexual theorists to support their positive assertion, or they remain only speculations, mere fantasies no more valid than one of cannibalism. It is possible, through one point of evidence, to prove a positive; it is impossible to absolutely prove a negative.
To date, neither you nor anyone else has offered a single proof that Alexander was anything but 100% heterosexual. All the available evidence indicates nothing else. Until such a proof is produced, the homosexual theory holds no more credibility than the cannibalism theory.
Yikes. "Troy" sucked. Not as bad as the truly egregious "Helen of Troy", but that still leaves room for major league suckage.
You use the old "lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack" argument. While true, insofar as that goes, it does not prove the positive assertion that he ever participated in homosexual activity.
History has done no such thing.
Do you have any contemporary source you can cite to back up this claim?.
No, he wasn't 'gay' but that has no bearing on what the Greeks of all cities considered a normal bit of buggery among army buddies. That was considered a usual part of a heterosexual life.
It is a Victorian concept to conflate that with true homosexuality.
As late as WWI Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty defined the traditions of the British Navy as "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash".
SO9
Nope, wouldn't want any reality or honesty poking through the delusional fantasy world you live in.
SO9
The word is "disdained." If the author cannot get something as simple as spelling correct, why should I consider anything else he might say?
History has done no such thing, and no, "most Greeks" did not. Homosexualist revisionists are the ones actively rewriting history, through just such unsupported assumptions as you continue to make. If you are going to make such statements, be prepared to DOCUMENT your claim.
My advice is to automatically disbelieve anything put out by these agenda historians until they produce rigorous proof of whatever they write. This goes for the Afrocentrist, Historical Feminists, Multicultural Deconstructivists, or any other school of pseudo-pop "scholarship" currently in vogue. It is as much rubbish as the Victorian "Pinnacle of History" viewpoint it proposes to supplant.
There is no such evidence other than in the deluded minds of homoadvocates mistranslating the meaning of Greek words and pushing their own agenda for the last 50 years.
It was NEVER accepted. Athens, for example, had strict anti-soddomy laws. Get caught and you die. There was no acceptance of the behavior in modern or ancient terms.
A contemporary source to back up a claim about what was written millennia ago?
(In the study of history, a "contemporary" source always refers to one contemporary with the occurrence of events being reported upon)
A source contemporary with the life of Alexander.
A metrosexual world conqueror.
Movie attendees are largely drawn from two groups: (1) Unmarried teenagers and 20-somethings (predominately male); and (2) adults accompanying children. Everyone else waits for the DVDs. Contemporary films are most definitely dumbed down -- compare the LOTR films (dumbed down with more in common with Dungeons and Dragons) with the books they were allegedly made from.
I was thinking more along the terms of Wings of Desire...
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