“Look alive down there you lazy, useless pukes. I need better metabolic performance and I need it yesterday. You losers expect to go up against infectious disease and survive? I wouldn’t take you into battle against a bunch of attenuated cold viruses.”

That sort of thing. I have a peculiar inner life.

I think you’d probably wind up spending so much time screwing with the settings that you’d never get anything done, seeking the “perfect optimum”.

Evolution has given us bodily control akin to the Apple iOs paradigm, where the programmer/designer obfuscates the controls to keep you out of trouble. I’m not so sure that the opposite approach would be better, because like my friends who are Android users demonstrate, after a bit, you spend more time screwing around with settings, icon sets, and appearance-centric skins than anything else. Yeah, you get more control, but… Does that control really do you much good, unless you’re sole focus in life is that sort of thing…?

I’d be good with a happy medium, TBH. Somewhere in between Linux, and the hand-holding “mommy knows best” of Apple’s OS offerings.

If you stop and think about it, the human body is a perfect micro-cosm of what I’m talking about: Our life “process” is so complex that it defies a lot of central management–We are, instead, a colony organism of many separate and discrete components, most of which defy central control. Imagine having to wake up every morning and change every cell’s settings or balance your hormones by conscious effort–By the time you got done screwing with everything that your independent autonomous nervous system and other control elements routinely handle, you’d be at bedtime, probably.

Civilization is the same; you want robust, lasting civilization? Quit building and relying on these massive edifices of hierarchy that are headed by and run for the benefit of control freaks. There is some need for central direction and decision-making, but overall…? We try to do way, way too much centrally and via mass hierarchy that over the long haul just becomes too attractive to the corrupt and the corruptible. You build a church hierarchy that grants powers to the priesthood, which has enormous influence over the vulnerable and tremendous power? Hey, guess what: You’ve just created what amounts to an “attractive nuisance” for the exact sort of person who is likely to abuse that very power. Not smart. You want to lower the amount of abuse of power, then the thing to do is diffuse the power instead of doing what we’re hell-bent on doing, which is centralizing it all.

That’s actually the real reason we’ve got most of the troubles we have in the United States: Centralization of power, and putting so much power into the hands of the authorities. Huge error in judgment, and instead of making things better, we’re actually making them far more fragile and likely to break.

I tend to think you are right on that. We are limited, or at least many authors and readers are, by our need for familiar terms and settings, and perhaps our false hopes of the future.

Of course, some have speculated more deeply and are probably right.

THe truth will likely lie somewhere in the general zone encompassed by cyber-modified humans, flexible decision networks, Borg hive minds, AI governance, and biological alteration of the species. To pick a few at random. Something from the Stephenson/Vinge universes.

For one thing, the scale of the things they ideate militates them ever coming into existence, right along with the idea that people will be willing to put up with the attendant bullshit that goes with that crap.

You tell me that you’re the King of England, and I’m more than likely to just point at you and laugh than go down on bended knee, because I simply don’t believe in the entire idea of inherited “right to rule” in any way, shape, or form. I wager that most of England will feel the same way after Charles III, but I digress…

The whole idea that we’re going to be playing at the game of empire a few thousand years from now strikes me as ludicrous. The current set of governmental systems we have probably won’t be around, either, regardless of whether they’re communist or capitalist. Human organization is going to warp out of recognition due to technological change here in the near future, and I don’t think anyone has really thought through the consequences of the trends we have going, right now.

I don’t think that the tendency towards centralization is going to survive, at least as far as governance goes. There is too much to try to control, and the more control you strive for, the more that a system goes out of balance, leading to collapse.

I fear for the Chinese, trying to go down the path that they are with these “social credit” schemes. They are likely to provide the rest of the human race with an inadvertent cautionary lesson about all this, and within the next couple of generations. You can’t dictate to the universe how things will go, and that’s essentially what they’re trying to do. You apply pressure to human beings the way they are with the Uighur, and something is going to come squeezing out in very unexpected ways, in unexpected places. And, the likelihood that it’s going to be benign…? LOL. I truly pity the average Chinese “just plain folks”, because they’re going to pay a tremendous price for the hubris of their leadership–Just as they did when the Emperors tried blocking out the modern world back in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

If anything, in the post-British world Napoleon is only now coming in for more respect. It was never fair to consider him a proto-Hitler, but my people, so to speak, always regarded him as a villain. The conqueror, usurper [if that's a negative for you], upsetter of balance of power and, above all, the emperor who wanted to snuff out “our” nation and it’s budding empire. That last is what it usually comes down to in history.

In the Anglo world, it was usually Americans who provided the positive take on him, sometimes even in 1960s pop culture. CAn’t be sure- something like a sitcom like I Dream or Jeannie or a drama series of the same era had a character expressing veneration for Napoleon as cementer of the revolution and bringer of modern laws and administration and freedom and equality, of sorts, to much of Europe. This was also the trad French narrative, and there’s not all lies in it. Perspective, value dissonance, interests and identity shape our reactions.

The French had their own, equally valid counternarrative in which Bonaparte squandered a couple of generations of their demographic potential and set them up for decline in the long 19th century. That was a secondary story in France, and it had truth in it too. Although why the surviving men couldn’t just overproduce required additional causal factors.

Alexander too. Was he the great commander, conqueror of Asia, or just a tyrant and killer of Asians and his Macedonian and Greek followers, seeking personal glory? For my part, I would say yes.

There are books along the way that cast him as a proto Hitlerian figure in his own right. Which strikes me as a little harsh. I don’t recall him singling out whole peoples for extermination, which was always the main bill on Hitler for me. By iron age standards, he wasn’t even a prolific massacrer of rebelling peoples. which historically was an acceptable, or at least normative practice.

There’s also the question of his proposed end state. Was it a universal empire just to glorify his own name and secondarily his dynasty? Sure. Was it to just make him the King of Asia with no benefit for the Greeks or Macs? Less clear. Did he aim to recreate under him, and with the addition of fresh Hellenic material, the already quite universal, multicultural, diverse empire of the Persians? Yes. Would it have been a despotism? Possibly, for some or all. Though Greek cities tended to have quite a lot of Greek type self government rights when he established them. As they did under his successors.

So when, at last, his Mac and Greek troops got restive about his taking Persian titles and trappings, building a joint bureaucracy, making them all take Persian wives as he had, and got uppity about their prerogatives as Macs and Greeks and as the conquering army- were they defending their liberty to stay Greeks and live Greek lives and govern themselves as Greeks, and take the prize they had hard earned, and was he imposing a new Persian tyranny on them after all that fighting? Or were they a bunch of racist nationalist Greeks wanting to stay the conquerors of downtrodden Asia while Alexander wanted to create a new, universal empire for all, even if under him?

The moment sometimes strikes me as emblematic of the last 2.5 millennia. They’re both true accounts.

The one last thing I could say on it, though, is that he gave the Greeks what they long said they wanted. He took them into Asia and led them to destroying Persia.They got something they asked for. Iranians today may not remember him fondly [I can't say- Afghans seem to remember him positively], but when you build an empire as they had, it’s churlish to resent it being overthrown by like means.

I get, even if not always agreeing with here, criticisms based on ultimate victory or defeat, or waste of soldiers’ lives. Even the importance of a military institution built by predecessors and comprising skilled persons. Although on that score some commanders and leaders would get bonus points for playing major roles in designing, shaping and training the armies they later used. Or making major reforms that improved their quality as instruments. Or even for taking specific steps to shape training, recruitment or generalship expectations. Here Bonaparte, Frederick II, and selected Roman commanders might stand out. Marius, for example.

But to stretch it so far that the highest honorific must be reserved to the individual who accomplished everything without help of predecessors or associates is a bit like Obama commenting to entrepreneurs, “you didn’t build that”. Scarcely anyone has ever, in any field, accomplished that much without assistance or foundations being laid.

Normally, when we have historically praised great achievement, we have understood this baseline to be true and the achiever’s work is being singled out with that understanding in place and its degree of excellence assessed against it.

Some on the left have either forgotten that, or tactically refuse to recognize it, or have tried to socialize us to thinking that they are the first to notice and inform us of this background as a shocking revelation, by way of decreasing recognition of standout accomplishment.

None of which proves Rommel or Lee or even Bonaparte deserved quite all, or any of their accolades, but even so. We don’t have to subscribe to a Randian theory of personal greatness to refrain from going too far the other way.

By way of tangent on this- in a long ago argument when the discussion was framed in what I now think is the wrong, “Individualism versus Collectivism” framework, one of my high school teachers tried to convince me that individual achievement is meaningless, because all anyone will ever remember is that humanity accomplished something. There’s something in that, and I’m all for collective pride and memory [...] but the example he chose was to me rather striking.

He cited Roger Bannister, who first broke the 4 minute mile in running. It had been considered a huge, unbreakable barrier. My teacher suggested that eventually his name would not matter.

I wondered about it. On one level, you have to watch what you are citing by way of what humanity in aggregate will remember. How many humans who are not followers of track and field events even know what the running records are now, what they were then, that 4 minute mile was long a barrier, or that it was broken or when? If they do, chances are they know it was by Roger Bannister. At the time, it was funny, because not being a sports guy I nevertheless knew his name. Scored a rhetorical point for that.

In future, if civilization and records don’t survive, perhaps his name will be lost, but then so will all the records of times and what was possible. Every time and place will determine again what is or is not possible, and neither the man nor the previous accomplishment will remain. It will always be a new feat for humanity, and each time it will be tied to one man’s name who “first” did it.

A tangent, granted. I’m not normally the one arguing for the great man approach, but there it is.

It is very much a mirage of the hero-worship that these figures usually get from the pundits of their times and the historians. Does Alexander truly deserve any of the disturbingly breathless adoration he gets from historians and the general public, or should we instead look at him as a tremendous vandal that used the military tools created by his father to destroy and re-order the existing order of Greece and the East?

Likewise, with Napoleon: What part did he take in creating the military machine that he used to conquer most of Europe? Was he a good custodian of that military power, or did he perform an act of willful destruction by taking it into Spain and Russia, in search of personal glory and empire…?

I would submit that both of these characters deserve a lot less adoration, and a great deal more criticism for what they did. Not to mention, let us have a look at the tools they used to do what they did: Those military forces that they mostly led to their doom, seeking their personal glory. How many good men died in Russia, under Napoleon…? And, for what, precisely? Were the Russians invading Europe? Were they a threat…?

One of the disturbing things about a lot of the adorational types is how little weight they put on the morality of it all, with regards to their sanctified heroes. Sure, Rommel talked good game, and he did some interesting things at the battalion level in WWI, but let’s look at how the man hooked himself to the tail of Hitler’s chariot, and then leveraged that into command in Poland and France, resulting in his promotion past his Peter point. Rommel had “issues”, mostly stemming from the fact that he was not a product of the German Army selection process, and was probably unlikely to have been chosen for further military education and promotion by the establishment. His writing in Infantrie Grief An was something he did as a bit of self-promotion, and there’s been some questioning of his claims in it. As well, parts of that work show clear deficiencies in his performance and conduct, things that later showed up in North Africa. By Normandy, there were signs he was maturing, but even so… His choices to move during daylight hours, without security? The one he made to go home for a birthday, taking him off the scene for the initial invasion…?

As well, Rommel was noncommittal with regards to the Stauffenberg plot. He didn’t offer to help, but he also didn’t turn in the plotters, and as Dante would have it, the deepest parts of Hell are reserved for the trimmers, those who will not commit to either good or evil. My take on Rommel is that he was a good leader, but promoted well past his level of competency and ability for that stage of his career. He might have been great, but his talent for self-promotion and, to be blunt, ass-kissing got him promoted to positions he really shouldn’t have been entrusted with–Mostly because he wasn’t ready for them.

The whole idea of “Great Captain” is functionally a non-starter, anyway. Where would Alexander have gotten, if Phillip of Macedon hadn’t built and trained the armies he led…? Similarly, the much-hyped Swedish leaders who had the fascinating Swedish Army as a tool–Without that, no “Great Captain”. And, you will note, most of these guys ceased being “Great Captains” about the time they ran out of experienced troops to lead…

Success in war is more about the system you take to it than the leadership, in my opinion. Sure, you can look like the “All-Conquering Hero”, but what’s that based on? Is it you, or is it the mass of trained and experienced troops you manage to find? How far would Caesar have gotten at Alesia, were he leading a tribe of Celts instead of stolid and stoic Roman legionaries?

I think that to truly be a “Great Captain”, you need to be able to win anywhere with anything–And, that’s a test that most of the vaunted “Great Ones” couldn’t pass. The commander gets the credit, but the victory is earned down in the ranks–And, if the guys in the ranks are incompetent and unmotivated, no amount of “Great Captaincy” is going to change that. Likewise, you can be a complete idiot leading experienced and capable troops, and it’s gonna take some serious dedication to wind up losing your battles. Varus at Teutoberg comes to mind…