Hacker News Reader

I suspect that deification of a Warrior archetype is as old as civilization itself, and every society simply tries to find historical examples where the nasty reality of militarism can be conveniently white-washed away.

2,500 years is enough time to have passed that there aren't any inconvenient Helots still around to ask difficult questions.

In the Proto-Indo-European social stratification system, the warrior class was second in line below the priestly/clerical/shamanic class and above the lower classes of common merchants/craftsmen and farmers. These ideas are still very influential on European-derived societies as a whole.

Perhaps it's not a coincidence that fascism is on the rise again, now that living memory of WWII is all but gone.

Fascism is "characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy" [0].

There isn't really much hint of that at the moment, although the spectre always lurks. I suppose China is a fairly strong example of how a 1-party state can achieve success.

Even then there is a pretty strong argument that their political organisation is one of the biggest things holding them back. The major strategic strength has been the program of encouraging and engaging with foreign investment and that doesn't require any particular political structure.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

That is the end state of Fascism that Fascists aim to achieve, but Fascists are still fascists even if they have not yet achieved it.

The first move in the Fascists playbook is destabilising and de-legitimising democracy. Suppression of dissent and centralising nationalist and unilateralist economic policies can only really come after the consolidation of centralised power.

Have we seen recent attempts to de-legitimise the democratic process in the US? Perhaps by someone willing to use state security forces to interfere in state policing of protests and escalate and provoke violence? Perhaps by a charismatic figure holding mass rallies in front of adoring worshipers of a cult of personality? Perhaps by someone encouraging militias and engaging in race baiting and nationalist unilateralism?

That's the playbook, but it starts with attacks on the democratic process. It's the key to everything else.

You're clearly intimating that the fascists in America are all on the right, but there's a strong totalitarian streak on the left growing and consolidating as well, including violence, rallies, disinterest in civil virtues (due process, free expression, etc.).

Evil clowns to the left, the Joker to the right, and I wish there was a middle to be stuck in.

Yes that's true, extremists in any political faction share a lot of common characteristics, and de-legitimising their opponents is step one. Deplatforming is a significant concern for sure. That doesn't excuse it anyone though. What disappoints me, both of us probably, are those that argue vehemently that it's wrong when one group does it but give it a pass when it's done by their political allies on any side.

> There isn't really much hint of that at the moment

You may go the "not a real scotsman" way here, but you don't even see a hint?

This same blog has a separate (but related) series of posts about pretty much this topic: he calls it The Fremen Mirage.

Here's the start of it: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...

It's pretty fascinating stuff, though it can take a while to get through.

Note that the celebration of Sparta goes all the way back to their contemporaries in the rest of Greece. Generally, like today, their image was used as a rhetorical cudgel to beat your opponents with; usually for being too democratic, not "manly" enough, too attached to the civilian economy, &c

That celebration is an expression of a long-running thread of similarly abhorrent tendencies in Western intellectual tradition.

By the way, the same author has written a fair amount about the Mongols

https://acoup.blog/?s=mongols

mostly but not exclusively pointing out that George R. R. Martin was not really familiar with them in using them as an inspiration for the Dothraki.

He says that the Mongols did have their own creativity and art (beyond the "conquest and administration" stuff). You might want to check that out, as it seems like our modern outsider cultural impressions of Mongols can be as limited as our impressions of Spartans!

who said that the Mongols did not have art? they made excellent cups from the skulls of there dead enemies.

I'm not one to say anything good about Sparta, as I pretty much agree with what acoup has to say in his blog about them.

What I think is going on is not that people like what Spartans actually did, people are simply enamoured by their honourable and majestic portrayal in popular culture. What youngster does not fantasise of being that small and determined band of soldiers that holds off the hordes of brutal barbarians, only with their shields, spears, courage and martial prowess? Who doesn't want to be part of that 250 men that defy a whole empire, _and succeed_, immortalised in songs and poems? (I mean they all die by the end, but they do kinda succeed in their mission).

The way I think about it is that for me there are two (or more even) Spartas. The historical "Sparta" that were brutal oppressors, like a case study how _not_ to structure a society, lots of lessons to learn from it. And the mythical "SPARTA!" one, full of honourable dudes and courageous women, that we can aspire to be, even if they were not real. No reason why they can't coexist in our minds, we just need to be careful which one we talk about.

When people say they "like Sparta" I don't immediately feel that they are silently singling that they will be ok with slavery and secret police, I think they want to be strong people fighting to protect their brethren, and that's generally OK with me.

> _and succeed_, immortalised in songs and poems? (I mean they all die by the end, but they do kinda succeed in their mission).

Battle of Thermopylae was a loss, not success.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

> Result Persian victory[a]

>Territorial changes Persians gain control of Phocis, Boeotia, and Attica[5]

The 300 Spartans and their allies' mission was to hold off the Persian army for as long as possible, allowing the Greek city-states to better prepare their defence.

And they did fail at that, leaving Greek cities to be taken by the Persian army, including Athens

Sparta didn't fall though. And anyway, surely they did the best such a small force could do, since they all perished. That's kinda the opposite of failure, no?

The UK didn't fall after losing a good chunk of their army and almost all of their heavy equipment in the Battle of France. It was still a defeat.

In the Thermopylae case, they failed at their intended objective (defeat the Persian army on land) and wasted a good-sized force. The fact that the defeat was set in stone the moment they chose the place and time of the engagement doesn't make it any less of a defeat.

(Note that "the 300" is only counting the Spartiates i.e. citizens; there were a total of 1-2K Spartan soldiers, and many more forces from other Greek poleis.)

A 100% casualty rate is by any definition a 100% failure.

It can be a success if you fulfill your strategic objectives (see e.g. the American units that were nearly completely destroyed in the early weeks of the Korean War buying time for troops to arrive at the Pusan Perimeter). In this case, they unambiguously failed at those strategic objectives.

It’s very clear in Herodotus that a delay wasn’t actually the mission, they intended to win. It just wasn’t a good plan.

Anyway, even if you grant that they were just trying to buy time (they weren’t), dying to the man in exchange for an extra day or so accomplished nothing militarily.

That was not their mission. No contemporary source says so, not even the pro-Spartan ones.

Just a nitpick but the Spartans at Thermopylae did not succeed in their mission at all. They barely slowed the advance of the Persian army.

That presumes a modern strategic intent, though, which was often absent from ancient warfare. If the mission of the Spartans was to secure kleos -- the only immortality the the Greeks valued -- then they succeeded beyond their wildest imaginings. Almost 2500 years later we are still talking about them. J.E. Lendon presents a compelling argument that this was, in fact how ancient warriors thought in "Song of Wrath".

While he Greek certainly glorified a heroic death, wars still had strategic purpose and were fought with the intention to defeat the enemy.

The battle of Salamis where the Greek defeated the Persians was definitely considered a success at the time, not a failure because they didn't get to die heroically every last man!

But in case of a defeat it is common to spin it as some kind of moral victory. Just see how the British spun the defeat at Dunkerque in the beginning of WWII. But that does not mean they didn't care about winning.

To be sure, the normative way of winning kleos was victory, to whit Marathon and Platea.

The Greeks also had very different rules awarding time for sea combat and land combat (rooted in Homer). In land combat, the model was Achilles, and stratagems and tricks detracted from the time of a victory, while in sea combat, the model was Odysseus, and metis ruled, so strategems and tricks were in bounds, hence the glory of Themistocles.

The problem with people's adulation for this mythical Sparta is that it includes ideas about causation (they were strong because they were monomaniacally focused on war!) and morality (military strength is a more important merit for a society than economic success or cultural output!) drawn from the real Sparta.

ie people who want to reproduce the mythical Sparta often advocate the social structure of the real Sparta, thinking it will lead to those mythical benefits. And instead it leads to monstrosity.

The respect, if not endorsement, for their uniquely ruthless ethos accomplished a lot over the centuries. Morale might not be quantified in the records, but it certainly had effects in the rise and fall of civilizations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe#Modern_use

Literature, goods, and art aren’t the only things that define society. Protecting yourself and effectively killing your enemies is a central part of the human experience, just as much as those other things. Selflessness and bravery to that end has always been celebrated throughout human history because it’s necessary to the survival of societies.

In modern western society we can generally avoid looking that in the face, for the same reason we can buy packaged meat and separate ourselves from the mass slaughter of animals. But that doesn’t make that fact of life go away and at some level we all understand that.

> Selflessness and bravery to that end has always been celebrated throughout human history because it’s necessary to the survival of societies

I believe there's more romanticizing in this statement than evidence for it.

Ideas are subject to natural selection as much as individuals are. And for an idea to win this natural selection, it's not necessary to be useful for our species. Some ideas spread will because they give their carriers advantage over other people, like Science; some because they just resonate with our minds well and spread fast, like viral videos from Tiktok. Romanticizing of Spartans could easily fall into the latter category.

I agree that being able to defeat (and possibly kill) your enemies was important for us throughout history, but I doubt that being a stereotypical Spartan helps one do that. In the next parts of the linked post on Spartans, acoup says that they weren't as strong army as they were believed to be. Their greatest strength was their badass fame advertized by Socrates.

Killing ist not a part of the human experience.

It ist only the distance you mention that even allows you to glorify the ultimate dehumanizing act.

That it is even romantice in the context of child soldiers speaks volumes.

Killing is not a part of your human experience because others do it for you.

Incredibly rarely police kills for me. Extremely rarely a soldier kills with the mandate of the parliament of my country.

Killing is abnormal. Whenever someone is intentionally killed, it is a failure of society and an incredible tragedy.

> Killing is abnormal. Whenever someone is intentionally killed, it is a failure of society and an incredible tragedy.

For the victim of killing, there's no difference between "being killed" and "dying". It's not that your life gets less valuable or your pain gets eased if you die from natural causes. And eventually we all die, death itself is not abnormal, then what's the big deal about killing?

Killing is not a tragedy. Dying early if you could live longer is a tragedy.

What is the reasonable additional cost in lives of citizens in order to capture a Bin Laden type terrorist alive, hold a public trial, and presumably sentence him to life in prison?

Taking someone like that out with a bullet or a drone is much less risky operationally. They also avoid the additional geopolitical complexity of needing occupying forces in the relevant country.

Maybe there should be some pre-operation due process rights, but it seems callous in other ways to insist on non-violence in all cases. Especially in response to catastrophic violence.

Afaik, drones also kill a lot of civilians that had nothing to do with anything.

Humanity murdered it's way to choking the planet to death, so I would really contest the claim that killing isn't an essential part of what it means to be human. We're the best, most efficient and most ruthless when it comes to murdering everything else. That's why we are where we are.

It may not be a part of 21st century first world country human experience. But that's a very small part of all human experience.

A couple of centuries ago violence, wars and killing were a way bigger part of human lives, and it has been like that throughout the whole history.

I don't like glorifying violence, but I want to acknowledge that it's a natural part of life. Some can afford not to deal with it, some cannot.

> Protecting yourself and effectively killing your enemies is a central part of the human experience, [...] Selflessness and bravery to that end has always been celebrated

A lot of violence that went on in Sparta was fundamentally selfish. And quite often it had nothing to do with protecting yourself. And also, quite a lot of it was not brave at all - the treatment of helots or pretty much anyone who was lower in social standing then you was violent but not brave at all. It was violence simply against people with zero chance to defend themselves intended to keep things that way.

There is that odd thing where people kneed jerk assume that violence of the past must have been well reasoned, noble and form of self sacrifice. Pretty often, it is simply not a case.

Your impression of the Mongols is very wrong. They were exceptionally advanced in a number of things, including religious tolerance and syncretism and military strategy. They left immense “traces of empire”, the largest being the exchange of ideas during the peaceful era of Pax Mongolia.

Judging a historical civilization by how much it has affected the present is also a bit myopic.

Tolerance for religions just not for the people who practiced them. Razing whole cities and murdering every male citizen and raping every woman but leaving the houses of worship standing because they dgaf about whom their victims worshipped is tolerance I guess.

They were violent conquerors, like essentially every other civilization in history. They just happened to be better at it.

The religious tolerance of the Mongols in comparison to their contemporaries is well-established.

> As Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and waged war on most of Asia he became known as one of the most ruthless and brutal warlords of all time. However, one hallmark during his military conquest was his tolerance of all religions. He embraced diversity and decreed religious freedom for everyone.[17] Genghis Khan’s tolerance proved to be beneficial for him. Genghis continued to use religious persecution to his benefit. He would use suppressed people as spies in cities such as Baghdad and then take the land, assimilating all those willing.[18] In Amy Chua's book Day of Empire, she claims that “... the Mongols were more religiously open than any other power in the world.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Mongol_Empir...

We should also be very aware that most of the writing we have on the Mongols comes from their enemies. It is almost certainly biased and likely over-exaggerates certain things.

You're describing every army. When violence is done, the things you describe happen. We all understand that. We're trying to talk about the other things that also happened.

Imposing modern morals on groups of people from 700 years is a bizarre thing to do.

Who exactly are you preaching all this righteousness to?

I'm not really sure why, unless one is a moral relativist.

Of course, I don't mean that it isn't necessary to take into account what background situation they are in, and what the consequences of different policies would be.

Perhaps gluttony is always bad, but the amount and types of harm it causes depends on the food supply. And similarly, perhaps slavery is always wrong, but different cultures have practiced different forms of it, which had varying degrees of wrongness, perhaps some of which could even have been less wrong than our prison labor system.

We do not judge someone who is struggling to pay for their own food much for neglecting to provide food for the homeless they pass by, at least not compared to someone who is very wealthy passing by the same person. In the same way, perhaps we could speak about our current society having much greater wealth and resources than the society of the past, and therefore is able to afford to do more, and therefore has more of an obligation to do more, but none of this should change the truth that good is good and bad is bad, and the nature of the good is the same throughout time.

> the nature of the good is the same throughout time.

At least peoples' perception of good and bad changes a great deal between societies and across time.

Not just our society, but every society, sees their perception is correct and everyone else's is wrong.

Indeed, common opinion can drift to be more or less correct in some ways , while being less or more correct in other ways.

I don’t claim that all things our society says is bad which past societies said was good (or visa versa) , that ours is the correct one, nor always that theirs was the correct one.

Im just saying that there is a correct view (for at least almost all practically relevant and well-defined moral questions), and people across time should all strive to have the correct view, even if it clashes with views of the past or views of the future (though it may be wise to consider why people in the past had whatever view and why people in the future might have whatever view, and take these into account when trying to have the correct view)

Yeah, but we dont use this particular thing to claim that what Hitler or Stalin or yesterdays mass shooter did was actually ok. Even further into history, we do judge individuals freely on range of things - perceived betrayal being popular one.

We also celebrate historical people quite a lot - and we praise them and put them on pedestal as good examples it would be biased to not talk about flaws too.

We kill people today and justify it as good. (Warfare, executions.) There's no guarantee that future societies won't consider us barbaric.

> it would be biased to not talk about flaws too

Frankly we are obsessed about finding flaws in historical people. For example, Einstein treated his wife not so well. I don't feel any compulsion to bring that into a discussion of his achievements. It doesn't diminish his achievements.

> We kill people today and justify it as good. (Warfare, executions.) There's no guarantee that future societies won't consider us barbaric.

Which is fine and so what. Had Hitler won or Stalin won, I would be perceived and lesser and bad. So what?

Executions have a lot of opposition now. Various warfare has a lot of opposition now. People now judge both prosecutors and politicians that cause all that war related suffering.

> Frankly we are obsessed about finding flaws in historical people.

First, you made up obsession. Second, what you call historical flaws were pretty often subject of massive criticism of contemporaries. They were pretty often not really the norm.

Third, when you praise values or behavior of back then, the bad side of it is completely fair game. Because the wins are often related, facilitaded by or directly caused the ugly side.

> For example, Einstein treated his wife not so well. I don't feel any compulsion to bring that into a discussion of his achievements. It doesn't diminish his achievements.

And if you was taking about his relationship advice, his marriage behavior would suddenly matter.

If you talked about why women in past did not had same achievements as men, his wife history is very nice example to be used.

Modern idolatry requires modern morals. Alexander also conquered a large swaths of land, did not read about him sacking cities or imposing rape and death on the subjugated populace.

If anything, Greek culture and armies gradually assimilated over the centuries into native cultures.

all true, and in addition to that they made excellent cups from the skulls of there dead enemies.

I don't know how much stock you put in this, but I always enjoyed the study that found that Genghis' depredations changed the climate.

https://carnegiescience.edu/news/war-plague-no-match-defores...

>> What did the Spartans accomplish?

That is a question to ask the Spartans and perhaps their contemporaries. Not people from 2,000 years in the future.

I think the article and your comment both make a mistake, the same mistake: complaining that an ancient civilisation did not hold itself up to our modern morals.

People tend to worship warriors when they themselves feel powerless or threatened by an outside enemy.

Contemporary Europe has a lot of unrest in close proximity (Niger, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine) and mass movements of people. Mr. Erdogan ruling the same Asia Minor where Persian armies once came from* is very clearly not our friend nor good neighbour. At the same time, most European militaries are chronically underinvested.

That will lead some to escapism and search for possible heroes, which isn't really history, but mythology.

* I know that the bulk of Persian empire was further east, but Asia Minor was still the staging region for invasions into Europe. Logically so, the geography is clear.

I highly recommend you check out a biography of Genghis Khan. I think you will find that you hold a few misconceptions about the Mongol Empire, as I did when I read more about him abs what he did. For example, the Mongol empire hosted the very first theological debate and was itself run as a sort of modern corporation. The Soviet Union did quite a bit to mar it all up.

What do you mean with "theological debate"? I'm asking because this is rather broad term which could be disputed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Mongol_Empir...

So, debate as a performance? This makes it much less innovative than it sounds.

It was customary for big religions to stage such debates when trying to convert a pagan society. Check the history of Cyril and Methodius and their khazar mission which is 4-5 hundreds years prier.

Except the Mongols weren’t trying to convert anyone, nor was it purely a performance.

Yes, so the participants in the debates were doing it for what if not to prove their religions? And the audience was their either to bee converted or to enjoy themselves.

The Mongols held theological debates, for various reasons. It was a novel thing in that place at the time. Political reasons, cultural reasons, and pure curiosity from Genghis and subsequent leaders. The Mughal (term derived from mongol, although they had a tenuous relationship) leader Akbar did similar things about 300 years later.

I recommend reading Genghis Khan and the Quest for God if you want further information.

https://www.amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-Quest-God-Conqueror/dp/0...

"Theological debate" must require a lot of qualifiers, because there certainly were an abundance of theological debates prior to the Mongols, some of them historically famous.

Wikipedia says

> Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity.

Careful with what "spartan" means. There were a lot of spartans, and the bulk of them were helots (slaves), a good bunch were perioikoi (kind of free, but not citizens) and less than 5% spartiate (full citizens). Only spartiate women enjoyed more rights than other greek women.

And Sparta has a higher share of helots than any other polis. If you are a woman in Sparta, almost sure that you are a helot (as many rights as a cow). Remember also that Spartiates regularly went to war against the helots, and Plutarch even remarked how cruel and harsh they were with the slaves.

So Sparta was arguably at least as bad as any other polis to be a woman unless you win the birth lottery as a spartiate.

I think care should go the other way. "Spartan" clearly means "a citizen of Sparta", not just "an inhabitant of Sparta" just as "Athenian" means "a citizen of Athens", and not just "an inhabitant of Athens". The article seems to be making the same kind of assumption but I believe this is an unorthodox interpretation of the term, "spartan".

For a modern example, I've lived 15 years in Britain (i.e. the UK) and I'm legally resident in the country but I am not, in any meaning of the term, "British".

Perhaps there is a confusion between the term "spartan" (which you render with a small "S") and "Spartiate"? In Greek there is only one word, "Σπαρτιάτης" ("Spartiates"). I believe the use of the term "spartan" to distinghuish between citizens of Sparta and e.g. helots or perioikoi, is a modern habit. As in very modern- as a young Greek I was fascinated with the ancient era and so I read a lot on ancient Greece but I don't remember such a distinction anywhere in the (Greek-language) sources I studied.

Indeed, if I try to translate "spartan" in Greek so that it sounds like a different word to "spartiates", I'd have to say something like "Σπαρτινός". But that is not a word I've ever heard spoken in Greece, nor, dare I say, has anyone else.

But then, Wikipedia is to be read critically, and is not a source of unquestionable truth. Particularly when there is a value judgment such as in your quote.

Part III of the linked blog demolishes that pretty effectively:

https://acoup.blog/2019/08/29/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

TL;DR: Spartan elite women were slightly freer than Athenian women, mostly because all their housework was outsourced to an army of slaves. But they were not citizens, could not choose who to marry, and were by and large treated as property, up to and including lending to other men.

The 95+% of Spartan women who were not in the elite, on the other hand, led lives that were miserable even by the low standards of antiquity, including random rape and murder during the yearly crypteia purges.

He also points out in this post that rape was so common there's an entire, identifiable social class of Spartan bastards (_nothoi_ / _mothakes_).

> But we don’t need to guess or rely on comparative evidence, because this rape was happening frequently enough that it produced an identifiable social class. The one secure passage we have to this effect is from Xenophon, who notes that the Spartan army marching to war included a group he calls the nothoi – the bastards (Xen. Hell. 5.3.9). The phrase typically means – and here clearly means – boys born to slave mothers.

Is that suggesting that all "bastards"' mothers were raped?

When you're a slave, you don't have a choice about what happens to you. If you cannot refuse, you cannot consent. That makes it rape, yes.

What I read (but I can't remember where) is that Mongols would use the threat of razing as a way to force cities to surrender. If the city surrendered, they were spared, if not, they were razed. Pour encourager les autres, if you will.

Wasn't that fairly common in ancient warfare - cities that surrendered would be treated better than those that chose to put up a fight?

e.g. The Siege of Tyre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_(332_BC)

Edit: Mind you the Mongols do seem to have been quite methodical about it:

"On the first night while laying siege to a city, the leader of the Mongol forces would lead from a white tent: if the city surrendered, all would be spared. On the second day, he would use a red tent: if the city surrendered, the men would all be killed, but the rest would be spared. On the third day, he would use a black tent: no quarter would be given."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege

Generally what we read in Durant was ... Not a lot on balance. Their 3 branches of government and the position and treatment of women in spartan society was notable at the time.

> The incessant celebration of Sparta in the culture of the West is truly abhorrent.

Socrates was killed for being a Sparta supporter in Athens (also for being a formidable troll). His loving pupil Plato went on to start the whole "Western civilization" thing. Make of that what you want, but for anybody who knows some history, your sentence will sound pretty confusing and contradictory. The celebration of Sparta is not some decadent modern fad; it lies at the very root of our civilization! We are defined by being Sparta supporters.

> Socrates was killed for being a Sparta supporter in Athens

I think Socrates' admiration for Sparta is questioned by some scholars. Since the man himself didn't leave behind any written work, all we know of him we know indirectly, mostly from Plato. Popper for example considers that a lot of the more authoritarian ideas ascribed to Socrates were actually Plato's views [1]. The general problem of figuring out what exactly Socrates thought, how he acted etc. is actually a significant sub-field of scholarship [2].

> His loving pupil Plato went on to start the whole "Western civilization" thing

This is silliness. While the tremendous importance of Classical Greece can't be denied, the idea that there is a monolithic thing called 'Western Civilization' that has a clear start is extremely simplistic. Are the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Minoans, the Hittites etc. not part of 'Western Civilization'? How about the Christians that spent many centuries actually destroying and forgetting the works and achievements of the ancient world [3]?

> The celebration of Sparta is not some decadent modern fad; it lies at the very root of our civilization! We are defined by being Sparta supporters.

This is even more silliness. By the same token you could say that slavery or infanticide lie at the very root of 'our civilization'. We (who exactly is we in this case? Americans? Europeans? people of the Levant or North Africa?) are defined by our actions and beliefs, not by some supposedly sacred historical heritage that should never be questioned or relinquished lest that leads to the collapse of our current society.

[1] 'Contrary to major Plato scholars of his day, Popper divorced Plato's ideas from those of Socrates, claiming that the former in his later years expressed none of the humanitarian and democratic tendencies of his teacher. In particular, Popper accuses Plato of betraying Socrates in the Republic, wherein Plato portrays Socrates sympathizing with totalitarianism' in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_problem

[3] See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age

> How about the Christians that spent many centuries actually destroying and forgetting the works and achievements of the ancient world [3]?

This is apparently a myth. See: https://historyforatheists.com/2020/03/the-great-myths-8-the...

While Nixey's work has come under criticism, calling the whole idea a myth is too dismissive. Once early Christianity became the state religion it acted very aggressively towards anything that could be considered 'pagan'. Take a look at the following article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_l...

At one point the degree of callousness was so high that they even stripped the roof of the Pantheon in Rome for copper [1]. Things like this bring up images of Isis blowing up Palmyra, not the idea of a smooth and enlightened preservation and continuation of the classical Greco-Roman world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome#Medieval

> His loving pupil Plato went on to start the whole "Western civilization" thing.

What you mean by that?

> We are defined by being Sparta supporters.

Even if you assume that "Plato went on to start the whole "Western civilization" thing." then it does not mean that we are defined by what his mentor supported.

> What you mean by that?

I was thinking about a celebrated quotation by A.N.Whitehead: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

> it does not mean that we are defined by what his mentor supported

Plato's entire written corpus consists in Socrates speaking. If you accept Plato's great influence, you have that.

Supposedly. We have no idea to what degree Plato's character of Socrates resembles the real one. It's a pretty common strategy even today to put one's own ideas into the mouths of famous dead people, as that makes them seem more profound.

> His loving pupil Plato went on to start the whole "Western civilization" thing.

That is an absurd claim! Plato is perhaps the most important philosopher, but other creations of Greek culture like tragedy, comedy, epics, history, sculpture, architecture, democracy, geometry predates Plato.

Plato actually hated a lot of the things we consider civilization like poetry, acting and democracy.

I am not defined by Socrates or Plato. I dont think they define us as a civilization either, despite regular and persistent attempts of some people to claim so.

Socrates hated democracy, we are trying to be one. Socrates got executed and the further developments went without him.

Ulugh Beg and Nasiruddin Tusi (sponsored by Hulagu) must be fitting somewhere in your charnel house. (And I too have had Mongolian coworkers, for transparency's sake)

> You can keep your postal systems and secular courts, I would like to get some of the cities they sacked and their libraries back.

That's a really big tradeoff, how did you arrive at your conclusion?

Seems like other people agree with parent. Can someone explain how they trade off between these things?

> They produced no literature, goods, art or bequeathed anything to posterity other than their notoriety as a brutal martial society even that is being questioned. The messy Romans were far better and interesting through their start as a monarchy, transitioning through republic and empire to end as a theological autocracy.

I think you picked-up a skewed version of History.

Sparta, the first democracy in recorded history, was one of the few Grecian areas where women could go to school, own property, and engage in sports. Throughout the rest of Greece, most women were illiterate. The Spartan constitution is the first known to have an Assembly composed of all citizens.

Plutarch said, "devotion to the intellect is more characteristic of Sparta than love of physical exercise."

Socrates said, "the most ancient and fertile homes of philosophy among the Greeks are Crete and Sparta, where are found more sophists than anywhere on earth."

The oldest recorded heterosexual love poem was the work of a Spartan poet praising Spartan maidens.

>Throughout the rest of Greece, most women were illiterate.

Most women in Sparta were illiterate too.

Thanks, I read up on the democracy claim, and I was very surprised. Today I learnt something new.

Namely, you learned that "an Assembly composed of all citizens" is not meaningful democracy if the class of "citizens" is defined so narrowly that this comes out to a tiny ruling class dominating a vast majority of subjugated people.

That is a good description of the Athenian democracy where only landed indigenous men were part of the demos, women had no rights, let alone the right to vote, immigrants (metoikoi) also could not vote or own real estate and the economy was supported by relentless slave labour.

Note, all this was 2,000 years ago.

It's fascist, but still a democracy of sorts. Of course, the fact that it is fascist means it shouldn't be worshipped.

Not desiring Fascism through Democracy is one of the reasons the US has a bicameral legislature and the President has a veto power. Much of the Federal Structure is to protect the rights of the individual in the context of rulemaking by the majority. This is a constant source of friction, but it is intentional, the reasons for which are shown in this very discussion.