The 300, militarism and totalitarianism
Without having seen the 300 movie, and regardless of its artistic value, I think it is important to say a few things about its philosophy. Roark wrote a nice post in his blog and a lot of interesting comments followed. I will translate some of the things mentioned, with no personal comments.
“The last years the market got crowded with “history” magazines that do not waste their chance of glorifying military successes, the social structure and finally the values of ancient Sparta, while similar novels (Pressfield etc) become bestsellers. [...] This is a result of the human natural tendency to identify with the outsider and admire the ones who defy his greatest fear, death”
But how many of us stop to wonder what the Spartan values were really about?
“The Spartan state was totalitarian, in a degree that not even the modern totalitarian states can take in, unnatural even for the measures and conditions of antiquity. The values of Sparta are those of the aristocratic minority which, through violence and virtuosity for it, imposes itself into the slaves, whose productiveness sustains them. The Spartan society was a big military camp, and the ideas with which all the ‘equal’ aristocrats were raised were only the ones that made them more effective in battle. From their 7 years, they were obliged to live in State communes and get trained for one thing and only.”
“There is not objective history - it is practically impossible to have objective history, and every historical version that we read had ideological and political biases. […] Military history is full of ideologies by itself. Military history creates a dangerous illusion: that politics can be done with similar rules with military organization.”
“Military history is not a hard-to-digest subject. On the contrary, it is really easy to digest. Because it takes care to remove all the hard-to-digest parts, which are not the violence and the blood, but the ideological conflicts. And because it’s so easy to digest, it has such an appeal. […] What you promote has the analogous results.”
“In the era of individual freedom, the weight of personal responsibility is great, and they are not few, those who turn to totalitarianism to relieve this weight and avoid the responsibilities of free choice. Totalitarianism is an easy outlet of personal evasion and transferring of responsibilities, giving an illusion of security into collectivity. But as Benjamin Franklin had said, those who exchange their freedom for a bit of security end up without security and without freedom.”
And a song specially for
ghoststrider
Edguy - Vain Glory Opera
“The last years the market got crowded with “history” magazines that do not waste their chance of glorifying military successes, the social structure and finally the values of ancient Sparta, while similar novels (Pressfield etc) become bestsellers. [...] This is a result of the human natural tendency to identify with the outsider and admire the ones who defy his greatest fear, death”
But how many of us stop to wonder what the Spartan values were really about?
“The Spartan state was totalitarian, in a degree that not even the modern totalitarian states can take in, unnatural even for the measures and conditions of antiquity. The values of Sparta are those of the aristocratic minority which, through violence and virtuosity for it, imposes itself into the slaves, whose productiveness sustains them. The Spartan society was a big military camp, and the ideas with which all the ‘equal’ aristocrats were raised were only the ones that made them more effective in battle. From their 7 years, they were obliged to live in State communes and get trained for one thing and only.”
“There is not objective history - it is practically impossible to have objective history, and every historical version that we read had ideological and political biases. […] Military history is full of ideologies by itself. Military history creates a dangerous illusion: that politics can be done with similar rules with military organization.”
“Military history is not a hard-to-digest subject. On the contrary, it is really easy to digest. Because it takes care to remove all the hard-to-digest parts, which are not the violence and the blood, but the ideological conflicts. And because it’s so easy to digest, it has such an appeal. […] What you promote has the analogous results.”
“In the era of individual freedom, the weight of personal responsibility is great, and they are not few, those who turn to totalitarianism to relieve this weight and avoid the responsibilities of free choice. Totalitarianism is an easy outlet of personal evasion and transferring of responsibilities, giving an illusion of security into collectivity. But as Benjamin Franklin had said, those who exchange their freedom for a bit of security end up without security and without freedom.”
And a song specially for
ghoststrider
Edguy - Vain Glory Opera