Posted on 03/17/2007 3:52:36 AM PDT by sig226
I keep seeing threads about the movie 300, and comments about its portrayal of the fighting spirit, freedom isn't free, etc. I haven't seen this movie, even though peoples' comments are almost all in favor of it. I'll go see it soon enough. People here and in the media are making a connection between ancient Sparta and the modern United States. That bothers me.
Sparta was not a symbol of freedom, nor was it much of anything else we admire. The term spartan means ". . . sternly disciplined and rigorously simple, frugal, or austere." dictionary.com Personally, I like stuff. I like art, I like music, I like fine firearms and clever novels. I like to watch television and go to the movies and play on the internet. None of this could be called Spartan. Sparta limited consumption to what its economy could support, limited it to what was vital to maintain the existence of the state. Sparta existed because it enslaved an entire class of people, the Helots. Yes, I know that slavery existed all over the ancient world, but in other places, like Athens, slavery was a part of the city-state's economy. In Sparta, slaves were the economy. Helots
Spartan life began when the people decided if a child would be allowed to live. If the people thought the child unfit, the baby was left out on a hill to starve and be eaten by wolves. This is an ancient Greek form of late term abortion. The children were let alone until they were about 7, then sent to government schools to be taught to be soldiers and citizens. Home schooling was not part of the process. The children learned to be tough, presumably if they were not tough, they died. Okay, that's their warrior culture, but why were they doing it? Was it out of some fierce dedication to the nation, the king, and the spirit of Sparta? Hardly. It was because the Messenians - the Helots - the Slaves - revolted and threatened to destroy Sparta. The Helots outnumbered the Spartans, and the Helots held an understandable resentment towards those who had conquered them and taken their liberties. Most of us would side with the Helots.
The Spartan economy was a socialist/communist dream. When the Spartan turned 30, he was given a plot of land by the state. He was provided with food by the state. He did what the state told him to do. In modern times, we called this The Soviet Union. That's if we're not calling it urban renewal, low income housing, or some other derisive term about federal gubmint interference with a free economy. Sparta was also a monarchy. We don't like monarchy. We like term limits.
As tough as they were, the Spartans were not invincible. The Athenians beat them at sea and the Thebans beat them on land. Philipp of Macedon simply ignored them.
The Spartan fighting spirit commands respect. If you look at my profile, you'll see Leonidas' quote at the end. They were fierce warriors and they knew how to win wars. No one can take that away from them. But if they existed now, we would not lionize them. We would hate them.
It would be interesting to see if the Spartans were fascists or communists. I don't know, myself.
1. The State made this decision, not "the people."
2. Almost all ancient peoples routinely exposed unwanted children, the Jews being the main exception. Ancient writers commented on the Jews' extreme oddity in this regard.
The difference is that in Sparta the State decided whether a child would live or die. Everwhere else the "father" made this decision. Today we give this power to the "mother."
Everything you have said is on the mark as far as my history lessons go, but you can't go to the movies for history lessons.
I do remember that Sparta's demise came as a result of their inability to change their military tactics and being eventually overwhelmed by their slave population.
Since the Spartans were around more than 2000 years before either ideology was invented, I doubt they were either.
Their master race mentality and worship of the State seem closer to fascism. Their focus on equality of the citizens seems rather commie.
The Spartans were purpose driven machines in a way, they did one thing and one thing well.
Great to see in a movie, would not be soo good to live there..
I know the Romans did it, though I'm not aware of many other ancient peoples who euthanized children that were considered unworthy. The material I've read about the practice in Sparta describes groups of citizens, sort of elders, who passed judgement on the fitness of the infant. While this was done with the authority of the state, my impression is that an officer of the state was not the decision maker. This is not just a technical difference, the community made the decision. If you have any links to stories of other ancient cultures that killed off their infants, I'd like to read them, or if you have any good search criteria, that would work.
Sparta was an oligarchy. But remember, Rome looked to Sparta for a governmental form with checks and balances in it. Rome did not look to Athens. The Founding Fathers looked to Rome.
I constantly see the mistake of even making the comparison of our society with Sparta. Regardless of whether an individual agrees or disagrees with the US and Sparta maintaining commonalities, giving a second's thought to this is just utter ignorance. What we perceive as freedom and liberty now possessed a completely different definition in the past (read Constant's lecture to the Academy of Paris). Spartans enjoyed more political freedom than we ever will (by Spartans I am referring to the direct blood line). Our world is one of commerce with large nation states where we value the liberty of the individual, and that's why, we sacrifice political freedom to be able to reap a profit and live our lives. But the world of antiquity proposed a completely different scenario. No importance was given to individual independence, neither in relation to opinions, nor to labour, nor, above all, to religion, yet he wielded enormous political power. Today, the individual, independent in his private life, is, even in the freest of states, sovereign only in appearance. His sovereignty is restricted and almost always suspended. Why a completely different view of liberty and freedom? "All ancient republics were restricted to a narrow territory". Therefore the following served as a consequence: a bellicose spirit; a mandatory call to heed arms, lest you should be conquered in a blink of an eye; slavery existed (the helots were necessary in Sparta because the minority of pure bloods were required to serve as the sovereign body each day and continuously train themselves to defend their narrow territory). Today, we have large land masses as nation states whose collection of individuals have no reason to fear any barbarian horde due to our large size. So a world of war led to a world of commerce. The "injustice" and "socialism" you believe rests in Sparta was necessary for you to even be able to have the luxury of typing this thread up tonight. It took time, but when the number of individuals was great enough and technology had advanced, people realized that they could accomplish the ends of war by merely executing a tribute paid to the strength of the possessor by the aspirant to possession. The ancients traded, yes, but there were great hindrances at the time that made it impossible to sustain a society of commerce: lack of the compass for example (even the port city of Athens only constituted around 10% of its trade through sea transportation. Now, thanks to commerce, to religion, to the moral and intellectual progress of the human race, slavery is condemned. So, we can't even dare challenge the Sparta's society on the merit of freedom. They would look at us and consider us bounded by artificial chains. The larger size of today's countries caused lower level of political significance or sovereignty to the individual. The abolition of slavery deprived free men of leisure, which they had spend before in their smaller states using to govern and serve in the military (now shift to fend for ourselves through capitalism and commerce). I quote constant directly when he states that "commerce inspires in men a vivid love of individual independence. Commerce supplies their needs, satisfies their desires, without the intervention of the authorities. Our outlook can not be used to judge Spartan society in the same way we judge our own. Sparta had to execute some seriously radical projects from our perspective. In all truth though, this small polis was just trying to survive in a world of war, and so it blessed its citizens with the utmost political freedom. They needed strong warriors; they needed able slaves (by the way, the slaves revolted not because of the system at that time; in fact, often the slaves would volunteer as auxilia for the right side of the phalanxes in order to sacrifice themselves for the glory of Sparta); they needed to care for their guardians so their guardians can focus on caring for them (land allotments). Their military losses came due to incompetence in leadership and other factors like a weaker navy. What caused their downfall in the end I guess you could say was the inevitable interbreeding of the pure bloods. Finally, comparisons with US and Spartan in 300 regarding how Leonidas fought against the Persians could be taken in a legitimate manner. These comparisons focus not on the politically domestic aspects of our societies but on how we act in the face of our enemies that threaten our way of life. We must respect the fact that if those great city states of political freedom had not prevented the Persians, for example, from conquering Europe, then we just might today still be stuck in the state of war.
Sorry for my rambling. I've just been bombarded with Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Constant, Madison, and Hamilton this last quarter at UChicago and get really passionate about stuff like this.
Try thinking of it as 'self-determination' or 'independence' as opposed to the current concept of 'freedom' (which wasn't developed until the 18th century - thousands of years later.)
Right. It's about freedom from foreign rule... not freedom of the individual.
I had read where Sparta was a role model for Nazi Germany.
It also makes the use of propaganda relatively easy once reality can be so manipulated
I find it even more disturbing that what was once called a "Comic Book" is now referred to as a "Graphic Novel" as one would consider a book filled with drawings with a dozen words per page a novel!!!
"It would be interesting to see if the Spartans were fascists or communists"
Whats the difference? They are both socialists.
My eyes !!!
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