No, Aleksander the Great Was Not "Great" in Any Sense with a Strong Connotation of "Admirable"

Bret Devereaux vs. the Hax of Sol III—in this case, James Hankins & Adrian Vermeulle: a pushback from two-and-a-half years ago about one of the weirdest emanations of neofascism I have seen in this past truly weird decade…

Introduction

I do confess that I was shocked when I got to the end of James Hankins’s <https://firstthings.com/the-greatness-of-alexander/> biographical sketch of Aleksander III Argeados of Makedon. Why? Because I learned that Hankins believes that Aleksander was indeed great in a largely positive and admirable sense. Moreover, Hawkins believes that his greatness was the result of something the ancients recognized but that we cannot.

So what is that something?

And what was the cause of his greatness (and utter barbarity) at the very disturbing human social practice of war?

That something and that cause is the exceptional fact that divine favor rested upon Alexander.

Yes, the favor of God Almighty, the Α & Ω, The One Who Is, rested upon him. For, to quote Hawkins, “[when] human beings… exceptionally, achieve greatness… this can only come through divine help”, as Hawkins says “the ancients saw [but]… we fail to see, or… prefer not to see”.

At this point my reaction was that somebody should tell Hawkins to put down the keyboard, back up away from the internet, and not return.

So why is this on my screen? Because I was whipsawed by first seeing:

James W. Hankins: <https://x.com/g_shullenberger/status/2005644591060656193> <https://www.compactmag.com/article/why-im-leaving-harvard/>: ‘Whether through hostility or neglect, Western history is being phased out or allowed to die on the vine at Harvard...

Followed by a, “no, my colleagues are just teaching it differently” backpedal:

James W. Hankins: ‘People teaching in Western fields… almost all of these people regard the language of “western civilization” as minimally outmoded and maximally “white supremacist”. I am an outlier because I think that the civilizations of the West should be taught as a tradition, and preferentially at the undergrad level. Most of my colleagues disagree and make some sort of obeisance to global history and assume the equality of all “cultures”…

And then by what I can only read as a frantic attempt at full clawback, as his colleagues are all of a sudden not deluded fools making “obeisance to global history and… the equality of all ‘cultures’”, but are rather truly outstanding learned scholars:

James W. Hankins: ‘I keep reading people who

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