Alexander, I Blame You

A recent review of the history of Western civilization has brought me to a single, undeniable conclusion.

This guy, right here, is the reason that humanity was set back over a thousand years in the realm of critical thinking and the advancement of humanity.

Why do I blame Alexander of Macedonia for a millennia (at least!) of stagnation in human philosophy, technology and thought?

For that, we have to do a bit of a historical roundabout. Are you ready?

Let’s start with Rome. Miserable, benighted Rome, who seized the legacy of the last great pre-Renaissance thinkers in the West — the Greeks — and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it. I’m not convinced that Rome produced a single original thought. Their victories were military and logistical, and every thought that leaned even slightly toward the philosophical was nothing but derivative. Their literature: derivative. Everything the Romans did in the realm of thought and philosophy was torn straight from the pages of the Greeks whose lands, minds and very history they stole. It’s true that Rome did a lot for advancement in the realms of logistics (aqueducts, roads, city building) but it didn’t take them long to squander all of that too.

Then, after Rome had essentially thrown their tattered legacy into the proverbial latrine, Emperor Constantine painted a pagan symbol on his warrior’s shields and attributed his subsequent victory to Christ, and so did the Christian church control every great mind for a thousand years until the Black Death finally shattered its stranglehold. All philosophy and advancement of thought was caught up in petty religious squabbles about who was more right about a carpenter who lived centuries before any of them and who was crucified by his own people for daring to preach peace and love.

So, if Rome is clearly to blame for giving us Christianity and tying up all of our brilliant thinkers for a thousand years, why do I blame Alexander?

If Alexander of Macedon had just sucked it up and named a goddamn heir, the entirety of history would have taken a different path. The Hellenistic advancements would not have fallen into ruin, but continued to grow. Philosophy, unburdened by dogma, could have continued to flourish. Mathematics and abstract thought could have continued unabated, instead of being declared heresy and wickedness. More than that, they might have been able to hold their own against or even subsumed the growing Romans under Alexander’s dynasty. Who knows what kind of advancements would have been discovered, and how much earlier, had the world not suffered under nearly five hundred years of Roman military insanity and then a thousand years of blighted Dark Ages Christianity.

Where would we be? That’s an impossible question. Somewhere out there, in the mists of the multiverse, someone knows. In fact, they’re probably so far advanced that they’ve already looked at their history and gone “Man, if Emperor Alexander I of Macedonia hadn’t named an heir, we’d be screwed.”