When you chastise your mother for being a meth addict you are bound to get punished. When you mention to your teacher that she has a strange bruise all over her neck on Monday morning you are going to get punished – and then you’ll post a Yahoo! Answers about it. That’s just how life works thankfully.

The famous Milgram experiment, where participants were told to shock each other and did not even stop when they heard screams in the other room, showed that obedience is well-entrenched in our modern world. Though I think a better experiment would be watching my mom give her credit card information to every person who calls our house.

“Why yes Mr. Deposed King of Nigeria, I would love to buy your shirtless daughter a beautiful dress, here is my credit card number…” People love to obey authority blindly, its as American as divorce.

These days at least.

But, in 336 BC, if you showed blatant disrespect to Alexander the Great, the most powerful man on Earth, all would be chill.

Diogenes and Alexander –

In the roaring 330’s BC Alexander kind of had the whole world on lock-down, like Ronald Reagan in the 80’s. So cool was Alexander that it was said the Temple of Artemis burned down on the day of his birth because the goddess Artemis was “attending the birth of Alexander.” Which is like saying that the White House was robbed because the entire government was attending the birth of Kanye and Kim’s child.

Alexander was so boss in the 330’s that when he encountered the unsolvable Gordian knot – because that’s what the ancients did for fun, untying knots – he did not even bother trying to untie it. He just cut it in half with his sword!

He was on top of the world, on top of yo’ girl (and guy), and “massacring all the men of military age and selling the women and children into slavery,” and proclaimed the “son of the deity Amun in the Libyan desert.” Alexander was more powerful than the NSA. Not the sort of man you want to make a snippy remark to.

Unless you are Diogenes the Cynic, one of the crankiest men since Kim Jong-Il – who interestingly enough got eleven hole in ones on his first time golfing!

Diogenes was the idiot savant of his age, the Mike Tyson of his age, at once revile and simultaneously intensely interesting. He gained his fame through odd stunts such as sleeping in a large ceramic jar in the center of the marketplace and

Carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man

Which is silly because everyone knows that the foolproof way to find an honest man is to start playing “Call Me Maybe” and notice the ones who hum along without shame. Those are the honest men. But I digress.

He followed his philosophical idol Antisthenes around Athens so doggedly that his idol ‘eventually beat him off with his staff.’ Which happened to me with Elton John as well so I commiserate.

Furthermore he purposefully lived a life of extreme poverty and, upon seeing a boy drink with just his hand, was so shamed by his possession of one wooden bowl that he destroyed his only possession. Diogenes was also the funniest man of his age –

When Plato gave Socrates’ definition of man as “featherless bipeds” and was much praised for the definition, Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato’s Academy, saying, “Behold! I’ve brought you a man.” After this incident, “with broad flat nails” was added to Plato’s definition.

Lastly, when Alexander’s father, Phillip II of Macedon visited the town of Corinth and all the townspeople were busy helping out their king, Diogenes was seen rolling his jar (home) up and down the walls, and said “I am rolling my tub to be like the rest.” Truly a renaissance man 1,900 years before the Renaissance.

It was this man who encountered Alexander the Great one day in Corinth. All of the wealthy and important people of the city had come to visit Alexander and grovel at his feet. But not Diogenes, he had just continued about his business as if the ruler of the free world was not present.

Therefore Alexander went to find him and saw Diogenes reclining in the sunlight and Alexander asked Diogenes if he required any favors – to which Diogenes replied,

Yes, stand out of my sunlight

Which, to this day stands as the ballsiest thing anyone has ever said.

Alexander was so taken aback by the remark that he said, “If i were not Alexander I should wish to be Diogenes.” And then Diogenes, like a bratty little child, retorted,

If I were not Diogenes, I should also wish to be Diogenes

Diogenes then added, as he was surveying a pile of human bones,

I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave

Somehow Alexander did not chop out Diogenes’ tongue and stuff his body in his jar and was instead captivated by Diogenes’ insolence and continued on his merry way.

Soon after Diogenes died from “eating raw octopus” and “asked to be thrown outside the city wall so wild animals could feast on his body.” Thus ending the career of one of the greatest ballers until the coming of the monkey tree god of Singapore.

The lesson children – be as rude and disrespectful to your elders as you want as long as you are funny.