Once, as he was getting on, past boyhood, he accosted a schoolteacher and asked him for a book of Homer. The teacher replied that he had nothing of Homer's, whereupon Alcibiades fetched him a blow with his fist and went his way." I believe this how teachers, most of whom are rightly called old trunes by the kids today, I believe this how teachers should be treated, especially, you want a book, they don't have it, you punch in the face. This is about ancient Greek adventurer Alcibiades. This episode, he loved to punch people so much, he got his wife in this same way. I read to you again, he once gave Hipponikos a blow with his fist. Hipponikos, the father of Callias, a man of great reputation and influence owing to his wealth and family.

Not that he had any quarrel with him, or was prey to anger, but simply for the joke of the thing, on a wager with some companions. The wanton deed was too noised about the city, and everybody was indignant, as was natural. Early the next morning, Alcibiades went to the house of Hipponicus, knocked at his door, and on being shown into his presence, laid off the cloak he wore and bade Hipponicus scourge and chastise him as he would. But Hipponicus put away his wrath and forgave him, and afterward gave him his daughter, Hipparite, to wife, who then, as his wife, as Alcibiades' wife, Alcibiades proceeded to kidnap her from court in front of the city when she tried to file for divorce. This is a man of violence. This is a very amusing anecdote, so I will read this one to you as well.

Hipparte was a decorous and affectionate wife, but being distressed because her husband would consort with courtesans, native and foreign, she left his house and went to live with her brother, who, by the way, Alcibiades basically threatened previously for a much, a double dowry, okay. So she went to live with her brother because he was seeing prosties. So Alcibiades did not mind this, but continued his wanton ways. And so she had put in a plea of divorce to the magistrate and that not by proxy, but in her own person. On her appearing publicly to do this, as the law required, Alcibiades came up and seized her and carried her off home through the marketplace, no men daring to oppose him or take her from him.

She lived with him, moreover, until her death, but she died shortly after this when Alcibiades was on a voyage to Ephesus. Such violence as this was not thought lawless or cruel at all. Indeed, the law prescribes that the wife who would separate from her husband shall go to court in person. To this very end, it would seem, that the husband may have a chance to beat and gain possession of her." I end quote, I end reading, I think this is a good law. It's much better than American family courts. It's Balkan family values, you know what I just read to you, all of this takes place in the Balkan. I'm Balkanoids, what do you think about that? Anyway, that's from Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades, which is today's episode.

Alcibiades' romantic politics, an image of a life so full of glamour and romance you might not believe if it was a modern movie or a novel, and yet it was real, a celebrated ancient Greek hero, celebrated in a way that I think no other nation, listen, no other nation would have allowed a man like this to exist to develop a kind of criminal and seductive type like him, let alone celebrate him as a statesman and a historical figure for the ages, hundreds of years later celebrated. And if I call him a statesman, it brings maybe some wrong images to mind, something stately, you know, having to do with policy and the common good or such other high-flown things in a British accent that in our time especially I think sound shallow hypocrisies, I think.

Just as if I call him a classical man instead of what I've called him so far a romantic man, you will maybe not see Napoleon or Caesar in mind as you should, who are men worthy of the most adventurous, gleaming type of Hollywood romance, who overwhelm and exceed their age in nature, maybe you will see something else associated with the word classical. There's been some brainwashing in some decades where maybe Marcus Aurelius, or stoic image, kind of pretentious image of measure and moderation, a wiggish picture, not wigger, a wiggish picture of stone pillars, Socratic moral temperance, and it's not to say that all of this was not also part of classical culture, but this edifying view is more the cure the Greeks had for their

overwhelming natural inclinations that went in a quite different direction. And it's a direction that's foreign to modern men. It's maybe the image that people have today of what means classical is a representation of how in some cases the Greeks took great measures against their own passionate volatile warlike competitive natures as a kind of you know countermeasure of what would otherwise against what would otherwise devolve into anarchic individualistic massacre which it often did anyway anyway men in early modernity and in the renaissance understood classical men in the way i mean and plutarch's histories were seen as a compendium of manly greatness greatness of soul, of ambition, real ambition, world-encompassing ambition, of vision,

of greatness, of achievement in the world, lives of passionate adventure of great men, far greater men than existed in the wretched histories and mythologies of the Near East and the Levant and so on. But these, the American founders, Rousseau, Nietzsche, many of great minds of the last few hundred years grew up on the stories of Plutarch. They didn't see it as, Oh, this image of moderation, you know, the moderation is more the seasoning, not the main course for a great statesman. But you can't imagine a man like Alcibiades or indeed many of the other ones Plutarch describes who are less, let's say, individualistic or crazy, but you can't describe, imagine almost any of them in the Orient or in the Near East.

It's crazy how it worked, crazy how nature do that, how unique the Greeks were, and how much the man I'm describing now is conceivable only in, yes, he's one of the ultimate Greeks in character, as I will show you in this episode, but more broadly, European in the old sense of this word, ultimately European. And the value he has for me is not as a champion of this or that party or policy or even as the savior of his state, although he did act in the function of savior of the state at least once. Because who remembers any of that, even after 50 or 100 years, let alone after 2,400 years? What you represent as a potential for men to be, for what life is, you know, the stupid normal fag phrase, have a life. Do you have a life? Are you having a normal one? Did you have sex today, Tovarish?

Many casual readers of my book said the part where I compared Alcibiades to Romnier was their favorite. And so, since show on Alcibiades, let me read to you from my book on Alcibiades. You know, Ken, is this possible? Is this plagiarism to read myself? I read to you. Imagine a mid-Romnier, but different. A Romnier who actually was capable of acting like he looks, who was worthy of his looks. a younger Romney who rouses the nation to a new war against India through power of charisma and speech alone. But then he lives on ship to head the armies conquering India. But then come rumors that Mitt ran a black mass Satanist dinner in New York. Also, people awaken one day and find that someone defaced the Holocaust Museum and the Lincoln Memorial.

Rumors spread that it is Mitt and his friends in preparation to overthrow the government, so he is recalled from his command to stand trial. Instead of returning, Mitt runs to Russia, where he becomes major advisor to Putin. Soon, though, he finally has to leave in a great hurry when it is discovered he's been banging Putin's wife in secret. He runs to China, where again he miraculously becomes major political force advisor, adopting Chinese customs and language with ease. After some time there, he leaves China, ends up living in Afghanistan with the tribesmen as one of them in one of their mud fortresses, where he is finally found by American special forces and he goes out fighting, charging them repeatedly with machine gun in his glorious black and gold armoured and dune-like headset.

Exactly such, and more, was the life of the ancient Alcibiades from Athens. How inconceivable, even as versatile and flashy a man as Trump is very far from this possibility in our time, though he at least makes such a type somehow believable. There's nothing like it in almost any other era of history. Someone like Talleyrand is famous for switching from the monarchy to the republic to Napoleon and back, and being somewhat successful under different forms of government, and that's rare enough to make him famous. But that was all within one country. Alcibiades' achievement is made all the more amazing by the fact that different cultures at that time were actually different, their ways of life entirely alien to one another, and yet he excelled everywhere.

I believe this is because in Athens, where he grew up, he picked the god of erotic passion as his patron. He was a very beautiful youth, admired and pursued by all the men and women. He rejected the advances of the Pelasgian pedo-pervert Socrates, a story that Plato then inverted and twisted, like the lying Kant and Phoenician ass-kisser that he was. Alcibiades excelled in athletics, and at school he refused to play the flute because it made your cheeks look puffed up and ridiculous. Other boys followed him, considering that the harp is noble, but playing the flute in music as something for slaves and cocksuckers. As he grew in power, his shield had arrows with a thunderbolt on it, and this scandalized the older men.

In such ways he showed that he was a disciple of the irrepressible life force, a devotee of the young god of sexual passion and total destruction. He showed that no law or word of man would stand in his way. In the beginning was the word? No. In the beginning was the demonic fire that bursts out in men like Alcibiades and lays These loathe the cities of men and exposes all their nonsense. Such men are sent by nature to chastise us and be our nemesis. They are the great cleansing. His story is told by Thucydides and Plutarch, though you must know the latter is a famous liar. But I think there must be someone as colorful as Alcibiades among you. Yes. And before I talk these and other details of his life in second segment of this episode,

it brings me to the point, okay, no else abides as possible in Near East or Orient, but what about in the West now? Elite human capital, have you heard this phrase? It comes from those who would claim that blue state Americans or their technocratic class, if they even are technocrats, let's stick to the United States for a moment and not talk about the last-man bureaucrats who rule the European Union, but this kind of occupational bureaucratic political class in America, that libtard elites, for example, are something worthy of the name elite, that they are good quality people. Is this even worth dressing again? Take a look at the kind of creatures who make it to the top of American political life today. Here is Gamal Harris, the scion of two PhDs, wow, and possible future president.

is her speaking. There is this wonderful word that has a great meaning and it's called hypothesis which means that you have an idea and then it is well accepted it will be tested and then you will learn whether it was correct or not but there will be no pride associated with the hypothesis because after all it was a hypothesis and then you will reconvene and then create a new hypothesis. And this is not even the worst of it, by the way, it's just what I found as I was about to record this episode. She's a bona fide cretinoid. Listening to her is as bad as listening to senile, grim, apparatchik, bidon. In the sense of feeling my brain, my reasoning capacity is just loosened and comes apart. Elite human capital. Yeah, the Nietzschean elite of our

time. No, there are people on both right and left who think this way. Just today, DNC released some press, something about the second term of the Biden presidency, and they refer to Biden the whole time through, not to Kamala. And there is no 44-dimensional chess involved there. They They are really unprofessional, mediocre people by their own standards. They are not impressive opponents, and a lot of some dissidents like to twist themselves into, well, it's important for their audience to present hysteria and doom, you know. But I'll just say, since my last episode, which admittedly was a while ago, for which Which I apologize to audience, but I've been under a severe attack in a small seven foot by eight foot holding cell with satin drapes.

That's what really does it to me, in a Vietnamese mental asylum outside Hanoi. But since last time they got this guy Waltz, Tim Waltz to be vice president candidate. And this is probably the most left wing radical ticket ever run in America with Waltz openly support so-called communism, whatever he understands by that word, but I'd say it's even worse than Kamala. Leave aside that he is responsible for the burning of Minneapolis in the name of international racial Marxism in 2020, for which Trump team I think should never stop hitting them, reminding people that while they could not visit dying relatives in hospital, total freedom was given to Antifa rebel to burn down cities aided by Tim Walz's daughter in the case of Minneapolis

who led the rioters, you know, told them that her father was not going to send in the National Guard so that they could run amok. And this Tim, Tim Kaine, if you remember, what is with all the cocks named Tim. But Tim Kaine was the vice presidential candidate from 2016, I think. I don't know why they're all named Tim. I have French friend who is Alpha. He's a street fighter. He's named Timote, you know, but in America as a name, Tim appears to be, and I knew another Tim a long time ago, he was a literal, you know, the girls made mincemeat of this Tim. But Tim Cain, his son was also Antifa activist. And I'm telling you, a lot of DNC major hunch of politicians have children in Antifa because Antifa is the training cadres and paramilitary rabble of the DNC.

But quite aside from all this, Tim Walz, if you watch him, I'm shocked at what he acts that he has these, and it's not that ancient Greek orators, some of them of course had flamboyant dress or motions. Some of them, frankly, were obviously gay by modern definitions of gay even. Timarkus, for example, if you read the famous Eskeny speech against Timarkus, Timarkus was one of Demosthenes' associates, and he had all kinds of flamboyant gestures on stage, mannerisms in public, but Tim Walz is not even that. If he were a Milo-type gay, it would have its charm even, but it's this guy who's very uncomfortable in his body he makes you nervous to watch him he obviously he's putting on an act makes me cringe he has these very spastic jerky motions that he's obviously copied from some

television variety show which combined with old guy who looks otherwise like soviet era tomsk party boss from tomsk what is this i guess minnesota voted for this i must ask friends in the midwest, mid best friends. How is it possible to have freak like this? How, you know, how can you answer for this? And the particular lies Waltz tells about himself. It's not just that he lies, but it's all lies chosen so he can assume a wholesome red-blooded persona that he can then, you know, use to bully. Oh, I'm a former football coach and veteran who deployed in combat areas. And let me tell you a thing or two about gun control and gay rights, and let me, you know, the red-blooded veteran, let me tell you about

school lesbian psychologists' priority over your children to convince them to self-castrate. It's this kind of thing that Bill Kristol also did. This was during first 2016 campaign when Trump was having a fight with the NFL, or maybe I forget, during the first Trump administration. And he and other, you know, the manly men, Rich Lowry from National Review who, you know, they really had their fingers on the pulse of middle America, you know, Carly Fiorina, if anyone remembered her, and Rich Lowry say, she cut his balls off during that debate, you know, like, yeah, that's the real red blooded America, Trump really stepped on it now. You know, and this kind of PR, public relation use of contrived American, you know, wholesome

un-coded personas that neo-cons and leftists especially like to use to bully an audience and you know We're just having a normal one and if you object to weirdo freak GNC true shite you are not having normal and whilst is perfect example of this a Trans man. Yes biologically male, I guess probably but still trans, you know, it's the same thing When you get the flaming effeminate homo and he puts on you know, leather harness and leather pants and grow stubble and is, yeah, I'm a hot butch leather daddy, right? You know, and Tim Waltz is the same thing. Some weird cuck who is bred to do what feminist heredians and party boss girl automaton say, but don't you see boys and girls, he wears a flanner shirt and he has a football coach. Don't you want to

be like this red blooded, all American trans male? I mean, it's all trans. The community identity thing is all trans, by the way. You know, if ever a libtard girl or such tells you that praises you for your healthy masculinity, consider, I was going to say consider suicide, but that's too harsh. But do something, snap out of that, go to Japan, go to Korea, grab girls on the crotch in the subway, put lemon on the tip of your dick to hurt roasties during intercourse, do something with your life. But these people, they're in their minds very, very serious in in their minds that very sincere about the cult of normalcy. I've talked this before, excuse to repeat, but for the left, and you can somewhat see their point, if you have problems with any of their client groups,

and they are claiming to liberate client groups from oppression or exploitation, then you're not having a normal one because it's only values and ultimately psychological orientations that they call weird. It's only because of these that you'd want to interfere would say the truing of a youth or a bizarre speech code that makes looking at a woman the wrong way an act of criminal less majesty. So if you have a problem with that, you must be an oppressor and therefore not normal. You are stepping outside the proper bounds of what the small individual should be in their mind. So it's easy to misunderstand this. Of course, you should call them out on hypocrisy and authoritarianism. Vance mentioned that Minnesota, for example, had hotlines to report on your neighbors during the pandemic.

Certainly you should say that. That's fine from public point of view. It discredits them. But you should understand they are not really being inconsistent if you want, for the sake of just knowledge, to tunnel into what they actually believe. Because they are not making a live and let live argument. They disingenuously dress it up that way sometimes. But an authoritarian egalitarian argument is what they're making, something based on public consensus. And exceptions are made, as in the riots of 2020, for the sake of greater egalitarianism, also a result of public consensus, because the fight against racial exploitation takes precedence. And I'm not going to claim that libtard theology is very deep or that it's consistent. But the psychological impetus behind it is, it's very uniform.

It's based in the resentment at feeling of exploitation and in their minds, thereby also distinction to claim distinction or ambitions outside the bounds of, let's say, I want to be a successful SoundCloud rapper or interior designer. To them, that is weird because it speaks to your desire supposedly to exploit or demean others by being wanting to be better than them somehow. And so to the Tim Walz, and I won't say Harris because I think she's just a drugged up hole, but to derange true believers like Tim Walz, a life like the one I sketched just now about a hypothetical Alcibiades Romney, that is the ultimate not having a normal one and refusing your place in the global favela, wanting anything great or magnificent. That's weird.

They have no concept of magnificence or magnanimity anyway, but that's the ultimate sin. which is why they hate also Elon, and say what you will about Elon, but what a great thing to want to colonize solar system and Mars again, you know, much better than other billionaire, let's say Bezos, who just wants to satisfy high school fantasies of hanging out with spent out Hollywood roasties. But, you know, to want to colonize Mars, wow, that is something great. And to the left are that is ultimate sin. To them, the language, the words of progress are invoked still, but they are a deeply retrograde. The left has always been deeply a reactionary force, and this is partly what I mean about the use of the word longhouse in my book, which is somewhat misunderstood today.

It's spread so much, maybe I should write about this. I don't know, should I? I have a friend, I will not say his name, he is a prominent man. I told him, I don't like the way this concept of longhouse is being misunderstood, it's being used as a synonym for feminism, and that's only a small part of it. He say, you know what, take the W, take the win, you know, you made a world that has become common currency in popular culture, leave it be for now. But maybe I should write something on this because what I hate in our time isn't modernity, but the various strains of communitarian retrograde impulses, almost all of them with a leftist garb and a self-misunderstanding that they are themselves acting in the name of progress.

But think of it this way, whitey on the moon and nigga's stomach is empty. I didn't use that word, excuse me. That's on a sign and it's without a hard R at the end, okay? And these kinds of things displayed, think of what is behind that. That type of sign that was displayed during space program where the bellies of the community are empty but you dare to spend money on going into space. I think it's the biopsychological impulse of all leftism since the 19th century, which is to retard progress in the name of the favela. And this also is the meaning of Kadehi's book on Marx and Freud, John Murray Kadehi. When he say Marx and Freud, they are actually animated by deeply reactionary communitarian impulses through which they try to retard or sabotage the promise of modernity in favor

of the spiritual shtetl. It's a different understanding of leftism, you see, and it's an understanding which is not so friendly actually to most traditional societies either, which I see as projects of human brokenness. Right, China, Han China historically, and I think now also being this most of all. I will repeat it. If all civilization that has existed in the past was like Chinese civilization, then the decision for the step for wild barbarian life would be very easy. There's no redeeming quality to the kind of what goes by the name of civilization in most of the history of the Orient. And so, no, it isn't the left. I'm aware of space. You know, it's not the left, I mean, that is the carrier of progress. It's the retarder of progress. And I know about space communism pretensions.

And I know about the Soviet Union, that it was into science and space flight and such. Believe me, I know there are some things even I remember from when I was a small boy in East Bloc. But that strain of leftism is long gone, OK? A few pretensions on the internet notwithstanding. And even that kind, OK, that's a different discussion. bigger case. I don't think those impulses in the Soviet Union were, let's say, the pure psychological leftism. But okay, then you accuse me, no true Scotsman, whatever. That's a talk for another time. Regardless, that kind of leftism does not exist in America or Europe today, or frankly, Russia. You know, it's not the left that is spearheaded in any case of progress. The left is the spearhead of the attenuation, retardation and redistribution of progress,

even the old left I would say, and it is men rather like Alcibiades, Critias, Caesar, Alexander and Napoleon in history, who embody what I would call the drive to progress. Europe alone, this small peninsula jutting out of Asia, wanting to represent progress, enhancements in the type man. A type that needs enhancements, man needs overcoming. And I will talk this most exotic tropical man, the seducer Alcibiades, on the next two segments. I will be right back. Alcibiades was born around 450 BC, died in 404 BC. It's also end year of Peloponnesian war, according to normal history, although I like to remind friends that not long after this, Athens was challenging Sparta again. It had made alliance with Thebes, which became the champion of democracy after the end of Peloponnesian War.

So you know, not quite what history says, that it was a final definitive loss for Athens. Alcibiades in any case was almost the same age, maybe, you know, maybe he was the same age, it's not known exactly birth year, but almost same age as Aristophanes, the famous comedy writer and they live during same time as many of most famous minds of ancient Greece that you may have heard of at a very height classical Athens. But let's say to get an idea he was about 20 years older than Plato Alcibiades was, about 20 years younger than Socrates who outlived him, about 30 years younger than Euripides and maybe 40 something to 50 years younger than Sophocles who both of them, however, died around the time that Alcibiades died. So he died a young man at about 45 or 46 years of age, same as Mishima.

And I think you look at who his company was during this time. When you consider Galton, who made an estimate that Athens of this time had the highest IQ of any society in history. I mean, the names I mentioned aren't the whole of it. There were many more, some of which haven't come down to us in history. And it came from population of 50,000 citizens, about that much. So maybe they had average IQ of 130 or something like this. And I mean to say is that if Alcibiades had been born in a different time with less competition, because although the world, again, remembers many such names of writer, poets, tragedians, sculptors, philosophers, et cetera. But it obviously can't remember all the politicians who were involved at every level of society or men with political ambitions.

Many were highly intelligent also, no doubt. But if he had not had such competition, I think it's very possible Alcibiades would be remembered very different today. He would be remembered as a great conqueror on par with Alexander or Caesar. More on this in a moment. In any case, he was from old, illustrious Athenian family on both sides. He was of the Alcmaeonid family. He was the last of the Alcmaeonids on his mother's side, which was old, cursed family. It had been suspected of giving aid to Persia at Marathon in 480 BC, but it had played important role in Athenian history long before that. And through this, he was also related to Pericles. He was raised basically as Pericles' adopted son because his own father died in war.

So he was raised in a household of most famous Athenian generals and statesmen ever, probably. By the way, I'm using mainly Plutarch's life of Alcibiades, but there's also Cornelius Nepo's life of Alcibiades, which is very short. Both of these you can read in one sitting, but Cornelius Nepo's is much shorter, it's just a few pages. Nepo is a Roman biographer who lived in the first century BC, so he lived before Plutarch. Maybe you start with him, you can easily find this on the internet, you start with him as a quick sketch of Alcibiades' life so you get the idea. They both seem to agree on what Alcibiades' greatest ability was, but more on that later. There are also shorter discussions of Alcibiades in Thucydides who may have had some critical

thoughts on Alcibiades but also greatly admired him and also in Xenophon but Xenophon image of Alcibiades for example in memorabilia where Xenophon is engaged in a kind of apologetic exercise to defend Socrates and then especially for Plato's image there are two dialogues in Plato named Alcibiades you should read them I think but more to understand Plato rather than anything about Alcibiades, same with Plato's Symposium where, you know, he tries to show that Alcibiades is this lecherous youth, you know, he comes in drunk, completely lawless to try to gaze at the Socrates. We know he was so resistant to the most attractive youth in Athens that he, sorry, you know, these are Greek aristos, you know, I'm not defending their customs,

they had certain habits and customs, okay, but we don't need to get into that now. But Socrates He was so resistant that he didn't so much as touch the Alain Delon of his day, although the two of them were sharing a tent, well, you know, too bad that Alain Delon died. Now they are saying he was a murderer and a fascist, you know, that he killed people and, you know, I don't want to get into that, but the rumors and innuendo about basically anyone famous or half famous is such that, because, you know, it's so juicy, you know, the many gossips women love the sexual innuendo and women and fags love this. But anyway, the Plato dialogues, yes, you should read them. Although scholars today I think say that Alcibiades' dialogues of Plato are apocryphal, but the

value of a work that's apocryphal for a student I think is very great. In other words, if these dialogues, the Plato, Alcibiades I and II, if they were so good that they could enter the Platonic canon for millennia, but if they were not in fact by and therefore they lack let's say the complexity and subtlety of his actual work such that it's apparent to scholars today that well it may not be him but think it through for a moment for a student who is just getting into Plato and we are all actually just getting into Plato even if you've studied him long time you're trying to understand him today in very different time and circumstance something like this is invaluable something that is not as complicated but that was accepted as part of the platonic corpus. So I recommend you read them but

keep in mind it's no more an accurate image of Alcibiades than what you find in Shakespeare. As for Shakespeare, Plutarch in his life of Alcibiades, he compares Alcibiades, you know it's Plutarch's lives right, they're also called parallel lives, because what does Plutarch do? He chooses one great Greek and one great Roman and then he compares their qualities and achievements side by side and so he has life of Alcibiades side by side with life of Coriolanus who I guess he did this because this Coriolanus is a Roman general who also betrayed his fatherland and then went back to it he's volatile man but in character and achievement he was very different from Alcibiades who Plutarch creates much higher than Coriolanus but anyway you may know Shakespeare play Coriolanus

of which there was movie version, I think, with Gerard Butler from early 2010s, and there is no Alcibiades play as such, but there is Shakespeare play on Timon, Timon the Misanthrope, in which Alcibiades appears as important character. And to give you an idea of who Timon was, because I remember sending Life of Alcibiades long time ago to a friend, and this is the one passage he picked out. He found it so funny. Let me read this from Plutarch again. Timon the Misanthrope once saw Alcibiades..." I think that's what he laughed at, just the casual reference that you would know who that was. Yeah, just Timon the misanthrope, Timon the famous misanthrope. So, Timon the misanthrope once saw Alcibiades after a successful day being publicly escorted

home from the assembly. He did not pass him by nor avoid him as his custom was with others, but met him and greeted him saying, it's well you are growing so my child, you'll grow big enough to ruin all this rabble. At this some left, some railed, and some gave much heed to the saying. So undecided was public opinion about Alcibiades by reason of the unevenness of his nature." Yes, Timon de Misanthrope, do you like that? This is what ancient Greek cities and I think also Renaissance, Florence, and other Italian cities would like. Life, a theater on a great stage of eccentric, free, powerful personalities, including the leaders of these various states. but anyway Plutarch's life of Alcibiades is full of such anecdotes. I'm saying that because this

what in part this episode about, life, true life, is full of color of men like that. It's not constipated people who pretend to be technocrats, but who are what they actually are today, people who manage dams that break and the roads with potholes. Anyway, I continue to tell you that Plutarch's life of Alcibiades is full of many such anecdotes, very charming or funny. I like Plutarch's biographies and Diogenes Lertius' biographies of philosophers for their small anecdotes, like the one I just read to you, rather than for the whole span of the life. That's good too, but the anecdotes are what make the reading. And I think actually the Gospels were probably an oral tradition in the same way in which Jesus' disciples kept a compendium of his

sayings and anecdotes about his life, in the same way that you see here Plutarch describe these heroes or Diogenes Laertius describes philosophers. Anyway, but many such anecdotes in this story of Alcibiades, how Alcibiades as a student again refused to play the flute because it puffed up your cheeks and convinced the other students to refuse to play the flute and the justification for this is famous and funny so I will read it for you so you get idea. At school he usually played due heed to his teachers, but he refused to play the flute, holding it to be an ignoble and illiberal thing. The use of the plectrum and the lyre, he argued, wrought no havoc with the bearing and appearance which would be coming to a gentleman.

But let a man go to blowing a flute and even his own kinsman could hardly recognize his features. Moreover, the lyre blended its tones with the voice or song of its master, whereas the flute closed and barricaded the mouth, robbing its master both of voice and speech. Flutes then, said he, for the sons of Thebes. They know not how to converse, but we Athenians, as our fathers say, have Athena for the foundress and Apollo for patron, one of whom cast the flute away in disgust, and the other flayed the presumptuous flute-player, Marsyas. Excuse me, you see they attack me when I say that, but excuse, I continue to read. Thus, half in jest and half in earnest, Alcibiades emancipated himself from this discipline of playing the flute, and the rest of the boys as well.

For word soon made its way to them that Alcibiades loathed the art of flute playing and scoffed at its disciples, and rightly too. Wherefore the flute was dropped entirely from the programme of liberal education, and was altogether despised. And many other tales like this of Alcibiades' unique and outrageous behavior toward, for example, toward his lovers. Look, Plutarch uses this word. Do not imagine in the modern sense, please, it's not like Alcibiades was doing sex wars with these men that Plutarch calls his lovers. It's more like he had, think of admirers who wanted his attention and such, and he would do things like go to their house while they were having a party and carry away half of Well, the story is funny, so I will read.

And all were amazed to see him eating, exercising and tenting with Socrates, while he was harsh and stubborn with the rest of his lovers. Some of these he actually treated with the greatest insolence, as for example, Annitus, the son of Anthemion. This man was a lover of his who, entertaining some friends, asked Alcibiades also to dinner. Alcibiades declined the invitation, but after having drunk deep at home with some of his his friends, went in a rebel rout to the house of Annitus, took his stand at the door of the men's chamber, and observing the tables full of gold and silver beakers, ordered his slaves to take half of them and carry them home for him. He did not deign to go in, but played his prank and was off.

The guests were naturally indignant, and declared that Alcibiades had treated Annitus with gross and overweening insolence. Not so, said Annitus, but with moderation and kindness. He might have taken all there were. has left us half. He treated the rest of his lovers also after this fashion. There was one man, however, anyway, and Plutarch goes on to say that there was a resident foreigner who was so enamored of Alcibiades that he sold everything just so he could give him a gift of whatever money he had. And Alcibiades instead took this money, told the man to invest it in grain speculation, I guess on what you'd call the futures market because he had a grudge against the grain salesmen and because the grains brokers were working on leverage they faced bankruptcy because of this bet.

So they offered this man a lot of money to withdraw the buy. So Alcibiades in gratitude, magnanimous gratitude did this man a big favor, made him rich and many other such outrageous stories including walking around with royal robes and the one One thing which Paglia emphasizes, putting arrows with a thunderbolt on its shield, making all the old conservative men, the old guard establishment of the city, disapprove of the young rock star, I read to you, but all his statecraft and eloquence and lofty purpose and cleverness was attended with great luxuriousness of life, with wanton drunkenness and lewdness, with effeminacy in dress, he would trail long purple robes through the marketplace, and prodigal expenditures. He would have the decks of his triremes cut away that he might sleep

more softly, his bedding being slung on cords rather than spread on the hard planks. He had a golden shield made for himself bearing no ancestral device, but an eros armed with a thunderbolt. The reputable man of the city looked on all these things with loathing and indignation and feared his contemptuous and lawless spirit. They thought such conduct as his tyrant-like and monstrous. How the common folk felt towards him has been well set forth by Aristophanes in these words. It yearns for him, but hates him too, but wants him back, and again, veiling a yet greater severity in his metaphor. A lion is not to be reared within the state, but once you've reared him, consult his every mood. And indeed his voluntary contributions of money, his support of public exhibitions,

unsurpassed munificence toward the city, the glory of his ancestry, the power of his eloquence, the comeliness and vigor of his person, together with his experience and prowess in war, made the Athenians lenient and tolerant toward everything else. They are forever giving the mildest of names to his transgressions, calling them the product of youthful spirits and ambition." Yes, you know, the mob is a woman, right? It excuses everything if they are enamored of you, you know. So on this lion imagery, by the way, it's very interesting, Aeschylus has a very similar line about that too, about letting a lion in your house and the mistake that you're making with that. And that was written well before Alcibiades existed,

but it's interesting Aristophanes uses same idea in the reference to Alcibiades. You should look up lion imagery in Plato's Gorgias and see how Calicles, the character there, uses it. I think it's possible the character Calicles with his kind of Nietzschean, proto-Nietzschean philosophy in that dialogue, I think it's possible he's based on Alcibiades, there's some other evidence for this, but regardless it's also the case that there was a type Alcibiades was not the only guy around like this at the time, he is just the most prominent. but yes a lion in the state and as for the twists and turns of his actual political military career i will only say briefly here but he was a great orator with plutarch saying this was mostly

because it's not so much he didn't have great diction or delivery he had some eloquence but he in fact often stumbled in the middle of a speech trying to find his words it's more that al-sabiadis had excellent analytical legal mind always finding exactly the right points to make the right case to build. So much so that even Demosthenes, the greatest orator of antiquity, greatly praised him a hundred years later. And in policy you can think of he was an extreme hawk destroying the peace treaty that Athens made with Sparta through trickery and intrigue, so that with the coming of a war he could gain a renown for himself. But also I think he probably did believe the peace treaty was not favorable to Athens and that Athens could win the war if

it restarted. So he convinced Athens to attack Sicily, Syracuse in particular, and take over the whole of the island, this in 415 BC. This led to famous Sicilian expedition debacle, which many historians though believe was winnable, and I think so too. But what happened is the Athenian people removed Alcibiades as the commander of this expedition, and instead they put Nikias, who had been the designer of the previous peace treaty with Sparta, the one that Alcibiades had engineered and schemed to break, and who was, you know, Nikias was very cautious old man. He was unsuited to lead this kind of bold mission. And why did the people remove Alcibiades? Again, is that love-hate relationship with him. In his absence, after he had departed for this command, his rivals convinced the people

that he was an elite blood-drinking pedophile satanist. I mean, really, okay, it's this Alex Jones line, but I'm not exaggerating at all. A few things had happened in the city, some holy statues, the harems had been vandalized. It could have been a coincidence, it could have been a bunch of drunk guys on a night out, but it was seen darkly in conspiracy-tard thinking, the conspiracy-tard populist theology of the time, oh, it's a prelude to an anti-democratic Satanist plot. And then rumors started that Alcibiades had led periodic, mocking the Eleusinian mysteries, that he had regularly held satanic masses. Think of presiding over a black mass. Okay, same thing, this kind of, it's remarkably consistent, the idiocy of the people in all times.

And not that I'm defending the current occupational class of our time. And I'm certainly not saying that like Alcibiades or his friends in actual elite status. But it doesn't matter. I mean, yes, they are just peasants thrust into positions of power. But that doesn't mean the people are not also retarded peasants. They are. They always, always have this kind of delusions about the people who rule them. that they are Satanist, blood-drinking, degenerate, sexual lecture pedophiles who satirize sacred customs, sacred proceedings. It's funny when the retard Alex Jones repeats these tropes from history as if it points to millennia-old Babylonian vampire conspiracy among a homogenous, trans-historical ruling class, rather than what it points to is the consistency of the people's nature across

the world, the people's psychological hang-ups and resentments. You see this also in, you know, I love Kubrick, but I think you have to watch Eyes Wide Shut as a kind of parody of the Tom Cruise character. You know, this whole hand-wringing, oh, it's evil rich guys are having a black mass and getting off with prostitutes. So an orgy, oh no, my, you know, time to clutch pearls, you know, which isn't to say that a thing like Epstein and blackmail of, you know, the peasant retards in the so-called elite for sexual things isn't also done. It's done. You see the length they have to go to, though, to do that. On the right, they don't need to do that. They can just still use gay stuff. So anyway, yes, the Sicilian expedition goes awry because as soon as Alcibiades departs

at head of mission, the Athenian mob changes their mind, sends a ship to Sicily to arrest him and bring him back to trial for Satanist conspiracy. So he thinks it through and he says, no, thank you. I'm not putting myself at your mercy, and he defects to Sparta. And I should say that Alcibiades' ambitions in Sicily did not just stop at that island. I think if the historical circumstances again had been different, he would be remembered as a great conqueror and possibly founder of a big Mediterranean empire, the first one in such a case. And Plutarch hints as much, he says that following the conquest of Sicily, the intention was to take over Carthage and Libya, and then Italy, and he had designs after that as well.

So it's possible that if he had done all this, if he had not been stopped by the fickle democracy in Athens, no doubt manipulated by his many rivals, but if he had done all that it's conceivable he could have had the resources and money to launch invasion of Persia later also. So you know, the Persian Empire might have been conquered by the Greeks some decades earlier by Alcibiades rather than Alexander. I believe this is possible Alexander, later Alcibiades also, you know, very physically beautiful and such. Alexander did have some crucial military innovations that made conquest easier, the phalanx and cavalry and the use of combined arms in this way. But if you look at the Greeks record during the time of Alcibiades life, they defeated Persians always just as easily.

It was a question of superior technology and also far superior tactics and military knowledge with which Persia could not compete. Manpower was always the Greeks problem, but then again, maybe Alcibiades after conquest of Sicily and then North Africa and Italy could have been able to consolidate numbers and finance to do all of this. Anyway, so he defects to Sparta and he does then great damage to Athens as an advisor to Sparta, teaching the Spartans to hit where it hurts. Most of all, he was responsible for the Spartans fortifying the Keleia. This is a citadel outside Athens from which they managed to disrupt at will, advise them to attack the Hellespont, this is through which grain was coming to Athens

from the Black Sea, and also to pry away Athens' allies and subjects in Ionia. A lot of Athens' so-called allies were not happy, they were being strong-armed, but so he did all this and helped Sparta, but he ended up banging the Spartan king's wife, knocking her up even, with, you know, he made the joke of it, he said the intention was that his heirs should be among the kings of Sparta, so obviously they weren't happy with that, it didn't go well, but because of this and also the Spartan's suspicion that such a highly capable man could go back to the Athenian cause, which he eventually did, but the Spartans put out a hit on him. And anyway, by a series of other adventures and intrigues and turns of fate, Alcibiades ends up taking refuge with the

Persian satrap Tissaphernes, and then returns to the Athenian cause saying that he can bring Persia into the alliance against Sparta, but only if the government in Athens is replaced. So this is This is around 411 B.C., about four years after the Sicilian debacle. And at this point, Alcibiades actually does a great statesman-like thing for Athens, even by Plutarch's account. And this, I'm saying, is contrary to all the conservative constipated people who want to see in Alcibiades' career only personal and individualistic ambition, of which, of course, there was. Whatever his motivations, such a man nevertheless becomes, in this crucial moment, he becomes savior of Athens. When he convinces the Athenian fleet, they were at Samos, the entire Athenian fleet,

this island near coast of modern Turkey, right? So Athenian fleet is there and he convinces them not to. Essentially they were going to return to Athens to wage civil war, to change the government. But he convinces them not to do that. And if they had done that, they would have also abandoned the fight in Ionia and the the Bosphorus, right, and left that whole area to the Spartans. So he doubly saved his city, saved it from civil war, and it would have been catastrophic to abandon Ionia and enter into Black Sea to Sparta. That is actually eventually how Athens lost the war, when Alcibiades was no longer in the picture. But so he does this, Athens ends up forgiving him, he say, come back, please. It's you know, the mob again is a woman, as Mussolini say, fickle, changeable.

But now Alcibiades does something great again that almost no other man would do, I think. A lesser man would have gladly gone back into the bosom and forgiveness of a welcoming people. But Alcibiades says, no, I'm not going back empty handed. I'm going back on my own terms. So he assumes command of the fleet and he has a very brilliant military campaign in that area. So think present day where Constantinople is, around that he actually ends up besieging Byzantium. But in that whole area he wins battle after battle on land and sea, the most famous success being I think Battle of Cyzicus, think again like north central coast of present-day Turkey on the Aegean, and basically wins so many battles through unconventional means that he wins the war for Athens, Sparta has to sue for peace.

And Alcibiades only then returns in full glory with ships decked out to Athens with songs and poetry made in his honour, there is big procession and many such, but eventually again this radio show is not lecture, I don't want to recount all the details of his twists and turns of his political life, just read the Plutarch and Cornelius Nepo's accounts, it takes you one day, but it turns out later that because one of his sub-commanders on a subsequent campaign does something badly, the Athenian people, again surely under influence of rivals, again denounces and turns against him. So if you read this account, well much ancient history about democracies in general, but this life of Alcibiades from Plutarch especially, which the American founders had access

to, right? They read Plutarch from the age of nine or such. If you read this you can see why the American founders would be skeptical of democracy. It's just so fickle and stupid and changeable, impossible to – I can understand why so-called elite or in this case arguably actually elite people like my friend General Odom would never want foreign policy to be in the hands of elected officials. You know, they don't want actually foreign policy to be answerable to the people when you read things like this because it makes no sense, the people is so changeable. But the problem though as he knew, Odom surely knew this, the problem is that the people the establishment now are almost just as fickle and retarded. I mean, you can see the nonsense

way that America treated Gaddafi, going back and forth on him. So, you know, seeing all this, you cannot blame people like Putler when they say dealing with America is impossible. Any agreement you make will not be honored by the next people in charge. And I think American allies, unfortunately, see the same thing. It's an inconsistent and even treacherous ally. Furthermore, one other thing Alcibiades saw even before this, according to Cornelius Nepo, was how cruel Athens, the Athenian demos in particular, was to its eminent men. In this it was consistent. So Alcibiades' life did not end in glory. I mean, I think it kind of did. He was killed, some say, in a Persian Spartan assassination in his fortress in Thrace. But he had a kind of private death.

It was not in battle on behalf of a city. He died when a group tried to assassinate him. He died fighting. This is after his exile from Athens yet again. But he did try to warn the Athenians just before this that they would lose the battle that lasted the war. He tried to offer them Thracian assistance in the Battle of Aegospotami. Athens lost that battle and famously that's supposed to be the end of the Peloponnesian War, although as I tell you, the struggle picked up some years later. But Alcibiades' effort was rebuffed again, if they had listened to him, they could have won this battle. One other interesting event is that after this loss of Agaspotome, the Battle of Agaspotome, where Athens lost the Peloponnesian War again in this area near the Straits of Bosphorus,

but there was a radical oligarchic state at Athens, the Thirty Tyrants, set up by the Spartans. I've talked about them in the past, excuse to repeat self. I actually admired their philosophy, although not their political skill. But these men wanted Alcibiades dead because they feared his return. They knew he could overthrow them. So they lobbied the Spartans hard to arrange his assassination. And one small historical speculation I have that I don't think anyone argued before, and I convinced Don Kagan of this. My friend, he good man, he liked this theory. That is that Alcibiades was actually directing the resistance to the Thirty Tyrants and Sparta after their takeover of Athens. If you look at the main figures in that event, at who opposed and eventually overthrew the

Thirty Tyrants, it was Theramenes internally. He was technically one of them, but he was very much of the moderate faction, always trying to restrain them. The moderate branch of the Thirty Tyrants think, and externally it was Thrasybulus. And who were these men? Both of these men had long been companions of Alcibiades on his campaigns of success against Sparta. And there's other evidence too, such as Thrasybulus, and this was the leader of the external resistance that eventually overthrew the Thirty Tyrants and re-established democracy at Athens. But Thrasybulus apparently in this effort, which he directed, he was an exile at Thebes and came back with a force of resident foreigners from Athens, a few Athenians, but also he

at Thracian support which Alcibiades would have been uniquely able to provide but anyway Alcibiades there's other evidence too but Alcibiades whether because of spartan persian assassination or because the brothers this is another theory the brothers of a girl he was banging were mad so they came to his fortress to kill him but he dies in 404 bc in a fiery glory a hail of arrows he was fighting alone naked but with his armor very heroic very sexy do you like this life this This is real life though. This is real life. This is not what is now lived among infantilized middle-aged women and called do you have a life or are you having a normal life. I will be right back to discuss more about significance of Alcibiades as a type of man. I'll be right back. Alcibiades, Mr. Brennan is here.

He has made me a honey lemon drink for my throat. I'll be right back. Men from an age of dissolution which mixes the races altogether, such a man has an inheritance of a multiple ancestry in his body that is conflicting and frequently not merely conflicting drives and standards of value which war among themselves and rarely give each other rest. Such a man of late culture and broken lights will typically be a weaker man. His most basic demand is that the war which constitutes him should finally end. seems to him in accordance with a calming medicine and way of thinking, for example Epicurean or Christian, principally as the happiness of resting, of having no interruptions, of surfeit, of the final unity as the Sabbath of Sabbaths to use the words of the saintly

rhetorician Augustine, who was himself such a man. But if the opposition and war in such a nature worked like one more charm and thrill in life, and if, on the other hand, in addition to that nature's powerful and irreconcilable drives, it also has inherited and cultivated a real mastery and refinement in waging war with itself. In other words, controlling and outwitting the self. Then arise those delightfully amazing and inexplicable people, those enigmatic men predestined for victory and seduction, whose most beautiful expressions are Alcibiades and Caesar. In their company, I'd also like to place the first European according to my taste, the Hohenstaufen Frederick II, and among artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci.

They appear in precisely the same ages when that weaker type, with its demand for quiet, steps into the foreground. Both types belong with one another and arise from the same causes. This is one of my favorite aphorisms of Nietzsche, do you like this? And now I read to you from Leo Strauss, referring to this passage in part, prior to the victory of the democratic movement to which, as Nietzsche understands it, also the anarchists and socialists belong, moralities other and higher than the herd morality were at least known. He mentions with high praise Napoleon and, above all, Alcibiades and Caesar. He could not have shown his freedom from the herd morality more tellingly than by mentioning in one breath Caesar and Alcibiades.

Caesar could be said to have performed a great historic function for Rome and to have dedicated himself to that function, to have been, as it were, a functionary of Roman history. But for Alcibiades, Athens was no more than the pedestal, exchangeable, if need be, with Sparta or Persia, for his own glory or greatness. Nietzsche opposes men of such nature to men of the opposite nature. In the rest of the chapter, he speaks no longer of nature. He expresses the view that man must be counted literally among the brutes. He appeals from the victorious herd morality of contemporary Europe to the superior morality of leader. Strauss clarifies the word leader fuhrer in parentheses. The leaders who can counteract the degradation of men which has led to the autonomy of the

herd can however not be merely men born to rule like Napoleon, Alcibiades and Caesar. They must be philosophers, new philosophers, a new kind of philosophers and commanders, philosophers of the future mere Caesars however great will not suffice for the new philosophers must teach man the future of man as his will as dependent on a human will in order to put an end to the gruesome rule of nonsense and chance which was high there to regarded as history in quotation marks well I am my reading that's from Strauss's essay on Nietzsche's beyond good and evil in his book on platonic political philosophy I think with some reservations against the last line of what I just read, that Strauss is right on Nietzsche's

intentions in mentioning men like Alcibiades and Frederick Hohenstaufen, why he talks them. Although you will notice that there is much that Strauss leaves out in this talk, especially as regards the mention of mixing of races and blood. But yes, the men in Age of Dissolution, an age like ours, an age like Alcibiades, you know it as the height of classical Athens, it's really the end of Greek culture as such, which is stronger in the archaic age, you know, not prior to the classical age. But what options are there? What alternatives exist in light of the apparent dominance of what is called here herd life, herd morality, and what I've somewhat modified in my own views as a longhouse for shorthand? What exists as alternative

to this in age of dissolution. What we live in now, what of the looming eclipse, eternal eclipse, the present intensification and ever spread of what appears to be only life for mere life, an aggressive normal one eternal having, an aggressive denial of any life beyond life, the eternal darkness of the grass hut, the favela, the yeast form of life that exists only for perpetuation of domesticated brokenness. I think when you look life of Alcibiades seen in context both of at the height but also decline of classical culture in Greek world and of what the other alternatives I mean the spiritual alternatives for what man is what man can be that came out of that time and similar times later you see then the wisdom in Nietzsche's judgment

What matters in the end is not this or that policy. What matters then are the good of this or that state. At this extent of time, especially, none of that matters. What remains is the example of a man's life. And it's also what's important to me about Trump. It's not about any of his policies or achievements in politics in the end. It's not even about the salvation or not of the United States, but of the example of one man living a larger than life story of defiance and glamour, energising and encouraging through his example many other people, hopefully many friends, for who otherwise life was going to be this kind of a bleak blanket of mediocrity of our elite human capital, the endless rule of a form of sub-life.

And I don't mean that just in the direct biological sense of, oh, it looks like Tim Waltz or what his name, Anthony Wiener or Huma Abedin. But the kind of way these people live, this kind of domesticated against, stingy, small-souled, myopic type of life, this kind of lack of vision, tunnel vision encouraged in our day. When you look at Elsa Beini's time or Friedrich Hohenstaufen on who I will do future episode, but not in our time, One other close related matter you see is the great volatility of the age. Great men like this, and it wasn't only them. Yes, it was time of dissolution, but also time of great volatility. And there were many others who died young, died wasting themselves in overflowing adventure and mad attempts.

And it is natural in such an age for a smart man, a moral observer, let's say, to look around and see, well, these are great men of ambition, great ability, and great spirit that are all dying. They're wasting themselves. They're destroying themselves. And they're not saving their states in doing so either. And the only thing that seems to survive and the only thing that seems to last in these trying, volatile times is the mediocre man, the good man, the man with the small and moderate ambition, the man who knows his place, right? Right, okay, so then to teach this morality as a means of self-preservation is to be what? Be mediocre, be small, keep your head down, keep your boundaries modest. And I'm not saying Plato himself taught this, but many who followed him and who followed

Socrates and Epicurus, who was very different, very different in Genesis, I should say, but not that different in his moral teaching. people who follow these men in various forms. Again, I'm not saying that these men taught that, but those who followed them, some of them, they taught something like what I just said now. And although it has this as a genesis, this type of morality, you can see how it can then be twisted to very different ends, malicious ends by others, right? Ends that are not as in this case just geared to prudent self-preservation, but they're actually motivated by malice and vindictiveness against higher men as such. So I think just the gleaming, seductive glamour of a life like Alcibiades, which even a platonic

moralist like Plutarch celebrates, this is the right tonic for our time. You know, teaching moderation and prudence in our age is like going to some obese tribe of mummies, medieval India or such, and telling them that they have to tone it down with the bodybuilding and the physical culture and the objectification of the body or such. It's just completely anachronistic, a misreading of what the situation is today, a misreading of what men of high ability face in their youth today, when the problem is that many capable men are basically mentally castrated, both by a faulty moral teaching, but also by a lack of historical knowledge that, that hides from them what it is in their hands to do. I think this was major problem recently with boomers like Trump and Bolsonaro and the boomers

in other places of the world, not understanding what it was in their power to do in large part, yes, because of lack of historical examples in their minds and lack of ambition to want to vie, to emulate, and to exceed those examples as much as great men in Plutarch and so on. So I wrote my book in hope that a general or colonel in some part of the world, and hopefully an important, half-important part, that he would be inspired to reach for a brass ring. Is that the expression? And then that his deed would set an example to others. But anyway, there is one thing in men of great passion and indulgences like Alcibiades, there's There's one thing that Plutarch emphasizes as Alcibiades' greatest passion of all. And I say this because I've admired Alcibiades for a long time.

I've talked about him with, for example, conservative boomers in the past. And they, of course, have a distaste against him. It's either an innate one, or it's what they think they have to say, or both. But one of them called him a spoiled brat when I told, you know, I like Alcibiades and writing about him. He said, no, no, he's a spoiled brat, you know, so if you want brat, by the way, Alcibiades is your ultimate brat, if you want that. But this judgment, I think, more indicts the conservative man today than Alcibiades because this judgment, oh, it's a spoiled brat, yes, in some sense he is, but it assumes a responsibility in society, a solidity of institutions that didn't exist even in Alcibiades' time, a solidity of traditions that isn't always there.

In fact, it's there very rarely, maybe, of worthy traditions, and outside of which men of great ability in age of dissolution most of all are essentially mind-fucked or cucked by cleaving to institutions and traditions that have been corrupted and that serve purposes quite different from what they did in their beginnings. It's in small ways and big one, one of the big weaknesses of conservatives, of conservatism in general of this attitude of being the adults in the room, of the pretense that you are there to fix the mistakes of others. But in certain times, and I think in ours for sure, this attitude merely makes slaves of great men especially. And it's precisely such men, such types of men in general, not just the great men, but men who approach that.

But it's such men who are for reasons of honor or feelings of responsibility, they're most easily made slaves to communities that are corrupted. And even though their brains realized their danger, that still led to their destruction through this kind of dutifulness. But anyway, yes, Klutarch says that Alcibiades was driven most of all by the passion for preeminence and rivalry. And this makes him out, I think, to be the uber Greek, the super Greek man. If you remember from Nietzsche's Thousand and One Goals, Zarathustra, where he briefly lists among some nations what they saw as highest for men, let me read it, it's a very important passage. Verily, my brother, if you knew but a people's need, its land, its sky, and its neighbor, then you would divine the law of its surmountings

and why it climbs up that ladder to its hope. Always shall you be foremost and prominent above others. No one shall your jealous soul love except a friend. That made the soul of a Greek thrill. Thereby went he to his way to greatness. To speak the truth and be skillful with bow and arrow, so seemed it alike pleasing and hard to the people from whom comes my name, the Persians, the name which is alike pleasing and hard to me. To honor father and mother and from the root of the soul to do their will, this table of surmounting hung another people over them and became powerful and permanent thereby, he means the Jews, to have fidelity and for the sake of loyalty to risk honor and blood even in evil and dangerous courses, teaching itself so another people, he means the

the Germans mastered itself, and thus mastering itself became pregnant and heavy with great hopes. Verily, men have given unto themselves all their good and bad. Verily, they took it not, they found it not. It came not unto them as a voice from heaven." So anyway, yes, Alcibiades then, in age of the height, but also coming apart, the start of decline of Greek culture, he embodies what this culture holds highest most of all, a life entirely driven by this one defining passion for them. It's why I laugh at small souls who, when they talk about individualism or self-interestedness or egotism, they have in mind only a good job in interior design or a scrummy, apparatchi government position, or what Nietzsche derives as the Englishman's view of happiness, comfort, and deceit in Parliament.

But no, true personal ambition is Alcibiades wanting to conquer the Mediterranean, or Alexander and Caesar actually doing it, or at second best, Alcibiades, romantic, sexy, and exciting life, or certain artists and philosophers seeking similar things by other ways. And to this world-encompassing desire is, I think, connected to the second that is characteristic of Alcibiades according to all his biographers. I also say it's something characteristic of Greek excellence as a whole, unique to them. It's a certain kind of cosmopolitanism that exceeds the boundaries of any one people or law. Let me read first what this means from Cornelius Nepo writing in first century BC. Although his reputation has been assailed by many writers, Alcibiades has been highly praised

by three authoritative historians, Thucydides, who belonged to the same period, Theopompus, who was born somewhat later than he, and Timaeus. These last two, who are strongly inclined to abuse, somehow agree in praising that one man. For it is they that are my authority for what I have previously written about him, as well as for the following appraisement. Although he was a native of Athens, most magnificent of cities, he surpassed all his fellow citizens in the elegance and distinction of his manner of life. When he was banished and went to Thebes, he so adapted himself to the ways of that city that no one could equal him in bodily strength and endurance. for the Boeotians, the Thebans, as a whole, aimed to excel in the strength of body rather than in keenness of intellect.

At Lacedaemon, where the custom assigned the greatest merit to endurance, this same man cultivated austerity to such a degree that he surpassed all the Lacedaemonians in plainness of his table and the simplicity of his life. Among the Thracians, a people given to drunkenness and lust, he surpassed even the Thracians in those vices. He came to the Persians, where the highest renown was gained by being a daring hunter and extravagant liver. And there he so adapted himself to their customs that even the natives were filled with admiration of his success in these things. It was in this way that he held the first rank wherever he lived, as well as being greatly beloved. And now you listen to basically the same thing but told by Plutarch, said in a somewhat different way.

At Sparta, he was held in high repute publicly and privately was no less admired. The multitude was brought under his influence and was actually bewitched by his assumption of the Spartan mode of life. When they saw him with his hair untrimmed, taking cold baths on terms of intimacy with their coarse bread, and supping on black porridge. The black porridge was a nice mix of pork, pork blood, and vinegar. Anyway, they could scarcely, well, I guess salt too. I keep reading. And supping on black porridge, they could scarcely trust their eyes, and doubted whether such a man he was now had ever had a cook in his own house, had ever even so much as looked upon a perfumer or endured the touch of Milesian wool. He had, as they say, one power which transcended all others,

and proved an implement of his chase for men, that of assimilating and adapting himself to the pursuits and lives of others, thereby assuming more violent changes than the chameleon. That animal, however, as it is said, is utterly unable to assume one color, white, but Alcibiades could associate with good and bad alike, and found not that he could not imitate and practice. In Sparta he was all for bodily training, simplicity of life and severity of countenance. In Ionia for luxuriousness, ease, and pleasure. In Thrace for drinking deep. In Thessaly for riding hard. And when he was thrown with Thysaphernes the satrap, he outdid even the Persian magnificence in his pomp and lavishness. It was not that he could so easily pass entirely from one manner of men to another, nor that

he actually underwent in every case a change in his real character. But when he saw that his natural manners were likely to be annoying to his associates, he was quick to assume any counterfeit exterior which might in each case be suitable for them." And you know, I stop reading now, and the interesting part of this is I don't think that Plutarch had Cornelius Nepo as a source for this writing 100 years later. I think it was a separate tradition that got passed down to both of them, a separate third source. Some of this, the historians who Nepo mentions, but I think it was an independent people's oral tradition. That's how much of pre-modern history goes. And then a historian writes it down and puts their own spin on it.

But these historians all had access to these popular traditions, which show you this is the quality the Greeks found so endearing and valuable, right? This is real cosmopolitanism. It's not a set of mere opinions that all cultures are equal or whatever passes for this now, but this ability, which is actually so rare that to be, I would even call it the kind of superhuman ability to actually possess it, to not only adapt yourself to an entirely foreign culture, which in those times were much more foreign than any modern cultures are to each other, but to excel in each. This why I said, compare it to any modern politician or modern person, it's almost inconceivable, right? And if I love Trump for any reason, it's not,

you know, I'm not saying he's Alcibiades or such, but at least he makes it conceivable. You feel like, you know, he's not bound to any one state or country as such, because his personality is naturally so big that he could leave and make it elsewhere. Like, imagine if he had run for president in 1988 and America really was not just a dissolute place, but also a volatile, crazy place like ancient Greece. And then Trump ends up exiled and he has to make it in Japan or Russia or India. I think he, I think he could do it. A younger Trump could like learn the language and become big media stars there or something. I mean, all I'm saying is it's conceivable in the magnitude of his character and desires, and I think that like Alcibiades, coincidentally,

he embodies the American nation and spirit better than any other modern prominent man. This is why in Asia, Japan especially, where he's much liked, or Singapore, and he's not even especially loved in Singapore, I hear, but throughout East Asia, he's very much the pure essence of the American types. It's how he's seen. I believe this, but regardless, this kind of freedom from the opinions habits and ways of viewing the world that are inculcated by one nation or country which is much harder actually to achieve than what's said today in popular culture and certainly than what cosmopolitans self-described cosmopolitans imagine they are in fact some of the most parochial people of all but the independence from these which is hard to

achieve but even actually not just independence but the superiority to them the ability to use conventions to your own ends. That was characteristic of Alcibiades, and I think in fact, was his greatest superpower and unique achievement. Plutarch, I think, would agree, Nepo would agree. It's also the philosophical way, I think, you know, he was a student of Socrates. Other students of Socrates say this explicitly. The hedonist philosopher Aristippus, I think, said, you know, he was asked straight out, what did you learn from Socrates? He said one thing above all to be able to associate with any kind of man so you can say this is the true effect of the teaching of nature made whole and taking root in someone this ability although

obviously only few are capable of achieving it but more than just philosophy i think maybe this could remind you of greek hero odysseus and how odyssey starts he came to know the minds and ways of many men, you know, said as something desirable, something you'd want to do. You go to medieval Arabic philosophy, if you want to call it that, it's not that. Medieval Arabic literature or the literature of China or India, there's absolute lack of curiosity about the outside world and even contempt for that. You don't want, you know, the Greek culture starts with no, that's what that's what's exciting about life, you know, coming to know that, tying yourself up to be able to listen to the sirens coming to know the customs of many cities while Odysseus himself being

described in first lines as a man of many forms and on his travel knowing the customs of many people made his way by his wits among them achieving prominence even when he was left with absolutely nothing and enjoyed himself greatly in the whole journey of it and to me this image of what one of their primal heroes is, him along with Achilles, but Odysseus in this case is a kind of shocking break from the rest of mankind. Everything about this attitude I just said and the fact that it is celebrated as a founding hero of this culture, everything about it is alien. If you study other people's ancient, modern, medieval, whatever period you want, they are totally foreign to uh this way of seeing life and this is why I say else abides one of most romantic glamorous figures in history

and the flower of most romantic and passionate people in history the ancient grex i hope this inspires some of you to break the spines of the modern bugmen in the future to run tanks over their laws and their words and lies run tanks over their lying words very good until next time back out