I have chosen to publish a message from a reader(anonymously) of my Internet site as well as my response because this provides me with the opportunity to clarify some of my life-positions not social positions which I have come to support relative to the “real identity” of Modern Man evolving through 7,000 years of human civilization. A human civilization which begins with the establishment of the first well organized human communities( permanent building settlements, a surplus of basic food commodities through a well coordinated agriculture and husbandry, work specialization and a certain socio-political hierarchy) until the present time. Within this time-passage of “civil human existence” and evolution, Modern Man has proven that he commands those biological abilities and capacities to “achieve great things” in the “real sense” of these few words. This “real sense” of human achievement has nothing to do with exercising power over other human beings and over nature, with a human technology which destroys all types of life, with human undertakings glorifying the Human Specie as the “epicenter” of earthly existence but also of the Universe, or finally, it has nothing to do with the accumulation of material wealth at the expense of the quality of life of all, of human beings as well as of all living creatures which exist on this “beleaguered planet” which we Humans call Earth!!!
The true meaning of the phrase “achieving great things” in its human dimension has a direct correlation to nature’s internal balances which link a human being to his or her multidimensional but “magical ” inner world, which link a human being to another human being, which link a human being to his or her natural environment but also to the vast Universe made up of billions and billions of Galaxies, extending towards “infinity” in time and space. The Human Being made great achievements individually but also collectively (communities, societies) when it came into conflict with all those “terrifying”, “traumatic”, “self-destructive” and “one-dimensional” exploits of a Human Civilization which until today, are considered as the most “basic” and “sacred” points of reference to Human Evolution. Nevertheless, it’s exactly those “sacred points of reference” in our human civilization which have undermined the “sanctity” of life and nature, leading Human Kind and especially Earth to the brink of “total natural devastation”!!! What I am really trying to emphasize here is the fact that to a large degree, Modern Man through his Modern Civilization of 7,000 years, has functioned more like the primitive “Neanderthal” who was “ready and willing” to literally “physically devour” his own child so that he could personally survive and remain “powerful”(completely ignoring the survival and the quality of life of the next generation or of the future generations of his own human specie) and less as the primitive “Cro-Magnon” whose everyday actions and practices had as central goal the “well-being” and the “aesthetics of life” of the whole community, and as a consequence of his own Specie. The “Cro-Magnon” human being acted and created on a daily basis in order to reinforce, to solidify and to ensure the “smooth” and “universal” evolution of the “social welfare” and the “aesthetics” in human existence for the future generations of his own human kind, many times sacrificing his own “very limited personal interests” in the short run- meaning that he was not very involved with his own “personal hide and skin” and his own “ego” as the Neanderthals did and as we Modern Human Beings are doing today at this very moment in a “globalized modern human society”. These are exactly the reasons why the primitive human being “Cro-Magnon” made great achievements and developed in an extraordinary way while the primitive human being “Neanderthal” was “given the boot” and was made obsolete by these same natural “checks and balances” of Nature and the Universe. This is also exactly the motive why I have tried in my Internet site to examine and analyze the “anthropological evolution” of the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons (see the articles entitled, “Why is the disappearance of the “Neanderthal” Man 30,000 years ago, significant today?”)- a series of articles which I shall continue to write in the near future until this unit has been completed.
In my texts concerning Aristotle Onassis, I have never expressed the thesis that he himself had killed his only son Alexander, directly or indirectly, simply because there is no direct evidence. Yet, what I personally wanted to communicate to the people who have read my articles on Aristotle Onassis (see the articles entitled, “Aristotle Onassis-an ideal type of a modern ‘Neanderthal’ “) and the human quality of his entire life was that an “ideal social prototype” in our modern human society, especially here in Greece(we should all be proud of him and of course of ourselves), by fashioning an “uncontrollable” and a “one-dimensional” life course (I personally believe that it was due to an extreme sense of personal psychological insecurity growing up in a Traditional Greek Family) was “willing and ready” to utilize and sacrifice everyone and everything, even his own family, in order to become the “master of the world”, thus fulfilling to the fullest his “megalomania”. He personally lived, functioned and created through a “distorted fantasy” and “fixed personal obsessions”, exactly like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and so many, many other historical “figure heads” who almost everyone admires but whose “self-centered” crazy ambitions have destroyed the lives of many, many human beings. Hurrah for all of them!!!
I personally simply provided some “real facts” concerning Alexander Onassis, especially the “real facts” related to the circumstances of his “sudden death” in an airplane “accident”- facts and data which the well established news agencies within and outside Greece did not want to present in an “interrelated” and “cohesive” way because this would have harmed or would have defamed the “sacred image” of a financially successful Greek Mogul. By presenting the real facts concerning Alexander Onassis but also Aristotle Onassis, I tried to communicate to my readers my “position” which clearly states that considering the “Neanderthal” social values which seem to dominate our modern human societies, such as greed, self-indulgence, egotism, narcissism and all those “superficial human expectations”(distortion of a universal reality), all types of side effects in everyday human behavior are possible, whether they come from the “twisted obsessions” of an Aristotle Onassis or from each one of us who has decided to consider and treat our fellow human beings and naturally ourselves as objects for “exploitation”, “degradation” and “extermination” within a real life context!!!
To make my critical thesis clearer and more substantive, I shall provide some well known historical events which took place during the last century concerning the “tragic deaths” of famous personalities. Let us begin with our own ” dirty laundry” in modern Greek history and try and focus on the “possible” conspiratorial links which may have existed between Queen Olga of Greece (1851-1926) and her son Prince Constantine(1868-1923) with the murder of King George I of Greece (1845-1913) in 1913, who was the husband of Queen Olga and the father of Prince Constantine who soon after became King Constantine I of Greece. Second, what was the possible link of Princess Stephanie of Monaco (1965- ) to the death of her mother Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco (1929-1982) in a car “accident”, where Princess Grace Kelly was the driver and her youngest daughter, Princess Stephanie was the only other passenger?? Third, was there a political conspiracy which ties the British Royal Family to the tragic death of Princess Dianna (1961-1997) in a car “accident” in Paris in August of 1997. Finally, was there some type of secret involvement by the Irish Mafia of the United States in the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.(1960-1999), the only son of the former President of the United States, John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)?? He died in an airplane “accident” in July of 1999, when he was piloting his own small aircraft near the north-eastern coast of the United States, which was also carrying his young wife and her sister. The plane crashed in the Atlantic Ocean at night. All these are famous personalities and tragic historical figures which made the world headlines at that time, but I am sure that there hundreds of thousands of such cases which have occurred in the last few years and in previous years, involving all social classes, all nations and all human races and “human tribes”!!!
a) What follows is the letter sent from a reader of my site who is presenting his own personal views concerning the personality of Aristotle Onassis and his possible involvement in the death of his only son Alexander. The letter was written in greek and was sent to me through the e-mail of my site. I have personally made the translation into English. The letter through the reader’s e-mail has a specific Christian name and family name which I have excluded.
If I am to understand (something which I have clearly understood), you insinuate that the father killed his own son!!! I don’ t disagree that Onassis was all those things which you say( ruthless, self-serving, a womanizer, etc.), but no person as bad as he may be, could reach the point where he would kill his own son because he disagrees with his son’s marriage plans or with his son’s business priorities. This, only except in the case that he was psychologically so very sick or was someone so very perverse, yet we surely know that Onassis was not all these things. Maybe you were influenced by the theatrical play which accuses Onassis of being the perpetrator in the killing of Kennedy. I believe that you have gone too far…I am truly eager in receiving your reply.
b) The following text is my reply to the above letter which I personally sent to him through his personal e-mail, written greek. I personally have made the English translation of my response to him.
Dear friend,
There are thousands of such examples in history , and it’s not accidental that our great writers of ancient greek tragedy have time and time again, spoken of such “inhuman” themes so that we could better comprehend the limits of human arrogance in the context of a “distorted” and an “unnatural” human civilization. Look around you, here and there how we kill the children of the world in one way or another, starting with our own children when we pass on to them all those lies because we want to make them feel as impotent and as cowardly as we are, because in our lives we didn’t have the boldness to say to ourselves that life is a free gift and not an artificial and rotten set-up which should service our “own hides” and “personal insecurities”.
My friend, I shall provide you with a specific historical example as to how rotten is our “civilization” and we ourselves. The Byzantine Emperor Constantine (272-337 A.D.) of the eastern Roman Empire, with the direct complicity of his mother Empress Helen (246-330 A.D.), killed his brother and Helen’s son in order for him to become Emperor. Today, our Holy Church and our Holy Society accepts them (formally) as saints and we celebrate their name days every year. Just from this series of events, we should all feel very ashamed!!! Similarly, we should all be ashamed about all the lies and the guilt feelings we transmit to our own children, turning them into little vampires instead of creative, free and erotic human beings. We should be ashamed of ourselves and it’s now the time to finally tell the “pure truth” in order for us to achieve some type of salvation, the way the famous ancient Greek poet Homer did, as well as the ancient Greek tragic playwrights, Socrates, Siddhartha, Diogenes, Jesus Christ and so many other historical personalities in human evolution who were both brave and enlightened to fight to the end for what is right, natural and beautiful!!!
All my wishes for a more creative reality in your life and in the lives of all of us.
Alexander II
As a natural completion to what has been stated in this unit of my Internet site, I should like to refer to a purely European Historical Personality who I greatly admire, recording three of his famous “sayings” which represent me absolutely within a “civil human dimension” but also “existentially”. This historical figure is none other than the French philosopher and writer Voltaire (1694-1778), who represents one of the most important architects of European Enlightenment, a socio-cultural and a socio-political popular movement which set up the modern social foundations for free speech, civil equality but also equal opportunity based on merit for everyone, irrespective of social background, gender, religion or ethnicity.
Voltaire, with the philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Diderot (1713-1784), Montesquieu (1689-1755), d’Alembert (1717-1783) and many other European intellectuals and natural scientists, prepared the Western World for a more democratic socio-political environment which would distance itself from the economic and political suppression by the aristocracy and the Royal Houses, as well as from the religious superstition of the established churches, especially that of the Catholic Church, which used this ideological tool (superstition) to control “the minds and spirits” of the vast population. Voltaire and all the other creative personalities of European Enlightenment did not function only as philosophers and literary writers but also as scientists, utilizing “rational” thinking and analysis in order to arrive at “realistic” and “well substantiated” conclusions, whether this involved the complexities of our natural environment or the various parameters of human society in a “universal context”. Voltaire as with the rest of those “enlightened personalities” of European Enlightenment of the 18th century, created the social, cultural, political but also the scientific preconditions for the foundations of a more progressive and democratic human social environment, directly influencing the American Revolution (1763-1776) against British Colonialism in North America, as well as the French Revolution (1789-1799) against the authoritarian political rule of the French Kings and the French Aristocracy, as well as against the French Catholic Church which formally supported this whole undemocratic socio-political “set-up”.
Even though the philosophy of all those eminent protagonists of European Enlightenment was based on “calling into question everything” utilizing a “rational analysis”; they were individuals who had deep beliefs in the spiritual dimensions of life as well as in the Divine, much more than the clergy who represented the church establishment. Here now, I would like to quote three famous “sayings” of Voltaire which clearly demonstrate what I have maintained concerning the philosophic and social positions of these representatives of European Enlightenment in the 18th century. The three sayings which I have chosen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire) are the following:
“I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”
“Superstition set the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.”
“I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.”
Voltaire (1694-1778)
(an enlightened human being)