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Psychology of a Hero
In this new series, the first hero we’ll analyze will be no more than Alexander the Great!
We have all heard about Alexander the Great: that he was a great conquerer from Macedonia, that he conquered most of the known world at the time. We may know that we conquered territories all the way from his homeland to the border of current India, including the Levant, Egypt the very powerful Persian kingdom.
But why did he have to conquer all these territories? Could he have decided not to do it?
What is it that drove to such feats?
To analyze Alexander the Great’s psychology, let’s introduce Aldous Huxley's statement. He said that men are made of 3 things:
1) Our biological inheritance: our DNA, our neurological system, our physiology
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2) Our culture, the environement in which we grew up: what our parents taught us, what our teachers taught us, what we learned from friends.
3) Last is what we decide to do, individually, of our biological inheritance, and our culture. This is, ultimately, the only part of who we are that we can control. Thi is our free will.
Aldous Huxley was a British intellectual of the XXth century (1894-1963), known for his book Brave New World.
Alexander's father, Philip 2 of Macedon, had had several daughters from several wifes but no son. So as soon as Alexander was born, he already had a lot of weight to carry on his shoulders, as the onyly possible heir.
It is said that Alexander and his father had a strong relationship. But when Philip was assassinated in 336BC, by one of his generals, Alexander became king.
Rumors say that it is Alexander who was behind the assassination of his father. Now this gives us clues about the psychology of this hero: a ruthless hero - at least ruthless enough for people to believe that he killed his own dad. Accounts say that Philip was an authoritarian figure, quasi-tyrannical. Under such oppression, one may understand Alexander's strong will for liberation and power.
Concerning Alexander's culture, we have to know that his teacher was no maore than Aristotle.
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Aristotle said: “Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living is to the dead. The fate of an empire depends on the education of their youth.”
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We may want to understand the philosophy behind Aristotle's teachings. For that, we have to know a bit about Aristotle. Aristotle had, himself, received teachings from Plato, who, in return, received teachings from Socrates.
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We can say that Socrates and Plato's philosophies belong to the same school of thought. They questioned the truth and justice and how society had to be organized. Plato even questioned reality.
Aristotle, Greek philosopher, 384-322BC
A shift of philosophy however took place between Plato and Aristotle. It can be seen on Raphael's mural, the "School of Athens", 1510 in the Vactican on which we can see Plato pointing at the Sky and Aristotle pointing at the Earth. It is often said that the 2 philosophies oppose each other. It can be portrayed in this manner:
Plato: "There is a reality that we can't see!"
Aristotle: "This is the only reality! It's here on Earth! And there is no other!"
School of Athens mural,
Rapahel, 1510, Vatican
Most ideas and values are passed on from a generation to the next. However, as we understood from Aldous Huxley, each generation has some free will. This means that they may confront their opinions to what the elders taught them. As a result, they may accept part of what they were taught but also build their own opinions on it. What Alexander learned from Aristotle was ideas of righteousness, virtues and "eudaimonia". His teachings emphasized on virtues like courage, pride and achieving success.
We can say that Aristotle's teachings were carried out to the extreme.
Now, let's confront Alexander's psychology to the Psyflex model. Here is what we get:
Unsurprisingly, the personality traits of the Warrior temperament are at their fullest:
- Be determined
- Be quick
- Be perfect
- Persist
Out of the 4 temperaments (Warrior, Protector, Adventurer and Idealist), Alexander the Great was definitely a warrior! Here's another version of the psychological model for Alexander the Great:
Alexander's career was balanced between going to a new war - which is a venture of the adventurer temperament - to winning that war - a venture of the warrior temperament.
