Questions

First question, as a way of introducing this page: When did the brain of Homo sapiens sapiens produce the mind with the capacity for deep questioning and reflection? We shall always have more questions than answers. A few answers are offered elsewhere on this site and also at www.gleaveswhitney.blogspot.com.

Corinthian helmet

Of the three hypotheses of war's origins, which should be most weighted: (1) Is our DNA our destiny? Is it genetically encoded in human beings to organize communities for violence against one another for food, boundaries, resources, and wounded pride? If this option is the case, then war is inevitable, so we had better stay strong and have the best weapons, strategies, and generals in the world. (2) Or is war a genetic proclivity that can be avoided? If this is the case, then nations and rulers must still be strong but avoid the conditions that provoke war, build good international alliances, and encourage outlets (like football as ersatz war) to release the aggressive energy of young males. (3) Or is war cultural, freely chosen when a community wants to express its collective libido dominandi (as the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom regularly did), or perceives that it is being provoked or threatened? If this is the case, then there must be a greater emphasis on moral education, good leadership, and tough international sanctions. [See Fagan 2 and Brier 4]


To what extent are the Appalachian Mountains related to the British highlands? Did plate tectonics force a once-single mountain system apart (just as British imperial policy and resistance to it forced the peoples apart)?


Who was the pharaoh at the time of the Exodus? Ramses II, who began his reign with great conquests, many wives, many children, and much great architecture; but then experienced "midlife crises" that brought him low?


As if volcanoes were not terrifying enough. As if lightning were not wondrous enough. Nature sometimes outdoes herself by combining the two. What causes volcanic lightning?


The Roman Governor Julius Caesar subdued the people of Gaul over 6 bloody years. He outmatched Vercingetorix despite the latter's vastly superior numbers. By contrast, the Roman Governor Varus was humiliated in battle by Arminius (Hermann the German) in the Teutoburg Forest. The historic consequences were profound: Rome never subdued the Germans and, indeed, would later be subdued by them. The Limes Germanicus -- the dividing line between the Romanized French and Tuetonic Germans who successfully resisted Roman rule -- became scenes of violence again and again -- at Waterloo, Sedan, World War I, and World War II. What if, instead of Varus, Julius Caesar had tried to subdue the Teutons? Would he have succeeded, and would European history unfolded differently?


Julius Caesar was considered one of the three greatest pagans of all time to emulate -- included among the Nine Worthies during the Middle Ages because of his chivalric qualities -- yet was vilified by American revolutionaries who, to the surprise of many today, viewed Brutus as a greater patriot than the man he helped assassinate. Why the change in Julius Caesar's status?


Were Antony and Cleopatra really buried together? Where in Egypt are they? Shakespeare, following Plutarch, has Octavian say upon discovering the bodies: "She shall be buried by her Antony. / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous...."


What happened to the great library that Ptolemy I had built in Alexandria -- the world's first think tank with up to 700,000 papyri scrolls, card catalog, and dorm for scholars?


Why are people such suckers? Given 100 percent evidence to the contrary -- namely, the fact that the world still exists, despite countless previous predictions of the Rapture -- why do people still follow doomsdayers announcing the end of the world?


Where did the army of the King Cambyses II perish? According to Herodotus (3:26), on their way to Siwa Oasis, 50,000 Persian soldiers disappeared in the Egyptian desert, swallowed up by the sands, and there has been no trace of them for more than 2,500 years. Several famous explorers have tried to find the remains, among them Count Laszlo Almasy, on whom Michael Ondaatje's novel, The English Patient, is based. I have read that explorers have "heard the dry crack of bones beneath their truck tires -- bleached skeletons of all the slaves and camels that, for centuries, had perished from thirst."

Know the answer before you ask the question. Did Alexander the Great know what the oracle's answer would be before he undertook the dangerous journey to the oracle of the temple at Siwa Oasis? To fulfill his aspiration to be crowned pharaoh of Egypt, he needed it known that his father was the sun god, and only the oracle at the temple at Siwa Oasis could tell him the answer. Would he have even begun such a trek on the risk that the answer would not have been the sun god?

Where is Alexander the Great's catafalque? Ptolomy hijacked the golden burial structure on its journey from Baghdad to Macedonia. He took it from Syria to Memphis, where Alexander's body lay in state, and then to the great crossroads of Alexandria, where it was viewed long afterward. Cleopatra took visitors to Egypt to the catafalque. But the golden-templed catafalque that entombed the body eventually disappeared.

What did Shakespeare really think of the Roman Catholic Church, and how did his view of the Church reveal itself in the plays? Henry VIII has been interpreted as pro-Protestant, but this is controversial. Was the Bard a closet Catholic, as some Catholic scholars suggest -- often in the spirit of nailing tribal trophies to the wall? Did it matter?

In addition to the false chin beard and starched kilt, pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore a crown. For more than 3,000 years it was the traditional symbol of their authority -- but no one has ever found a crown. (Pharaohs from the south wore a white crown, and pharaohs of the north wore a red crown with a feather.) Where did the crowns go?

What exactly did the Mecklenburg Declaration say? Do proud North Carolinians go overboard when they suggest Thomas Jefferson and the drafting committee were guilty of plagiarism? (In other words, how much, if any, of the later Declaration of Independence was a reiteration of the apocryphal Mecklenburg Declaration, supposedly written almost 14 months before the Declaration?)

How did Pikes Peak acquire its beautiful symmetry?

Pikes Peak from the Mesa, near Garden of the Gods

What does the third oracle at Delphi mean? "Make a pledge and mischief is nigh" [or: "ruin will shortly follow"].

What does the E over the entrance at the temple of Delphi mean?

Was the American founding mostly the result of a revolution -- or was it a revolution prevented?

To what extent is there merit in Malthus's brutal view, that human beings are a liability in poor societies?

The next two questions are related.

• Between 1150-1100 B.C. a catastrophe hit the Mediterranean and Middle East. Troy was defeated. Myceaenean civilization collapsed. Mesopotamia fell on hard times. Egyptian civilization faltered as the Hebrews escaped to Canaan. Sea Peoples went desperately in search of a better life. A dark age began for most of the peoples in the region. What caused all of these dramatic events to happen?
• When civilizations did recover, the Axial Age began. Had humankind learned something from the physical catastrophe and resulting dark age ... perhaps that one should not put trust in physical empires but in spiritual quests?

What caused the decline of the Roman republic? Who got it best, Sallust or Livy?

What caused the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire?

To what degree did Nietzsche get it right already by the 1880s, that the West had killed its God?

What happened in that "upper room" in Jerusalem during the Last Supper, Easter Sunday evening, and the next Sunday when Doubting Thomas was present?

Can one be happy in Heaven if one's mother, the woman who brought him into this world, is barred from Heaven and thus mother and child are eternally separated? (The Catholic Church traditionally taught that suicides go to Hell. Does this make a mockery of teaching the children of mothers who commit suicide that they should seek happiness in Heaven?)

If God loves human beings created in His image, why didn't all people from all times have access to the divine love, mercy, revelation, and consolation of Jesus?

Why did God's public revelations stop 2,000 years ago (if you are Christian)? Or 1,400 years ago (if you are Muslim)? Or 150 years ago (if you are Mormon)?

What was the first word that Adam spoke to God?

What commandments did God give to Adam and Eve before the Fall? Were they binding after the Fall?

How did David Crockett die?

Can you lead after you are dead?

Who is the best man who has ever lived?

Ohio State University head football coach Jim Tressel

It's not just a national question; it's an ancient question: Why do men who are on their way to the top, or at the top, abandon good judgment and fall into self-destructive behavior? (There are perceptive answers from Lord Acton, who stressed how power corrupts; Dr. Drew, whose research into the power hungry shows that they are often working out childhood issues, or are sex addicts, love addicts, or narcissists who lack empathy; Laura Berman, who reports on how high levels of testosterone make sexual impulses harder to control; etc.) Read the litany of tragedies, going all the way back to King David and Mark Antony. They include Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Pres. Warren Harding, King Edward VIII, Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, Pres. John F. Kennedy, Pres. Richard Nixon, Rep. Gary Studds, Rep. Barney Frank, Pres. Bill Clinton, Sen. David Vitter (and numerous others who visited the D.C. madame), the Luv Gov. Mark Sanford, the Luv Gov. Eliot Spitzer (Client No. 9), Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Larry Craig, Luv Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Coach Jim Tressel, Rep. Chris Lee, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Sen. Gary Hart, Silvio Berlusconi, and (possibly, likely) Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. These self-inflicted tragedies are no respecter of party, class, or ethnicity. What is it about high-testosterone males? And why do so many of them seem straight-laced in public?

The woman who claims she had an affair with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower

Maybe the previous question is answered, in part, by searching out the next question: What did the most intriguing women of the ancient world look like? What presence did they have? Why did men find many of them irresistible?
- Eve
- Helen
- Penelope
- Hatshepsut
- Nefertiti
- Cleopatra
- Candaules' wife -- the queen of Lydia
- Livia, wife of Caesar Augustus
- Julia, daughter of Livia
- Bathsheba
- Mary, the mother of Jesus
- Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas
- Mary Magdeline
- Veronica
- Monica


Looking at the problems high-testosterone males cause in positions of leadership is not to default to the notion that women are necessarily better leaders. There would be problems; they'd just be different. What characteristic problems would arise if women were 90 percent of the world's leaders?


Isn't the ideal a good mix of women and men?


When Candaules forced Gyges into the royal bedchamber, what did Gyges behold?


Who described the human condition best -- Nietzsche, Voltaire, St. Augustine of Hippo, Jesus, Buddha, or...?

Who described the spiritual quest best during the Axial Age -- Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, or the Hebrew prophets?

What is evil? Is evil a deficiency (like a shirt with a hole in it) or is evil embodied in a supernatural being like Lucifer, Satan, the devil, etc.? Or is it both?

Our founders discussed the happiness of nations. They sought to establish a political economy that would lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of citizens. Who have been the happiest people ever? Why?

What will make you happiest in this life? What will make me happiest in this life? Ultimately, are we all searching for the same thing?

Is there life after death? What is it like?

What is God like?

How can we best know God and His will?

The following nine questions are fundamental questions of the liberal arts:

- Who am I?

- Where did I come from?

- Where am I going?

- Why am I going there?

- How do I get there?

- What is it to be human?

  ... western?

  ... American?

  ... modern?

The West created the cultural conditions for brilliant men and women to ask fundamental questions. Ultimately, will the brilliance of the West's intellectual giants -- Copernicus, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud -- lead, ironically, to the decline of the West? (I ask because the consequence of the thought of these four men led to serious alienation, disturbing psychological doubts, ennui, and sometimes even social upheaval. Copernicus alienated us from the comforting security of a geocentric universe. Darwin alienated us from the Great Chain of Being created and guided by God. Nietzsche alienated us from a living God. And Freud alienated us from ourselves. They were persuasive to large numbers of people.)

Did God talk with Moses -- or was Moses delusional?

*     *     *

Often it is the best questions that cannot be answered. Nevertheless, the human condition requires us to live "in the question." Good questions are predicated on the belief that if you are educated, you should be able thoughtfully to address -- if not definitively answer -- some of the perennial questions that arise from the human condition.