Matt Yglesias leverages the film ‘the 300’ to explain that it’s based on our sympathy for all people who fight invading empires.
When you see it in a movie that aims to make the defenders out to be heroes, everyone sympathizes with this attitude. It’s called “patriotism,” it’s called “nationalism” and it’s the deadly enemy of empire-builders everywhere. People, simply put, don’t enjoy submitting to foreign domination, even to foreign domination that presents itself as well-intentioned — even to foreign domination that is in fact well-intentioned. Bush says America is merely midwifing the birth of a world of liberty, that “freedom is the Almighty God’s gift to each man and woman in this world,” and American power merely God’s servant. Xerxes makes it simpler and says he literally is a God. The movie even gives him a more-than-human voice to prove the point.
I probably would have let this pass except for the scare quotes around “patriotism” and “nationalism”, and my belief that this is a handy hook to hang an important point from. Yglesias actually makes a useful (and nuanced) point, and his post is worth reading – I’ll try and write about it tomorrow when I talk more about Tom Friedman – but he’s someone who seems incapable of saying patriotism without scare quotes, and without making the followup point that there are other patriotisms and that – like being a fan of a NFL team – they are equivalent.
What’s missing from Matt’s (actually nuanced) argument is one simple point; the Spartans are us – they are, literally, among the ancestors of this rickety enterprise we all know as Western Civilization, and so – beyond our affinity for their heroism, or their connection to the notion of freedom (for landowning nobles, at least) – we owe them a debt of patrimony.
Schaar from “On Patriotism” (yes, I know, I keep coming back to him..)
To be a patriot is to have a patrimony; or, perhaps more accurately, the patriot is one who is grateful for a legacy and recognizes that the legacy makes him a debtor. There is a whole way of being in the world, captured best by the word reverence, which defines life by its debts; one is what one owes, what one acknowledges as a rightful debt or obligation. The patriot moves within that mentality. The gift of land, people, language, gods memories, and customs, which is the patrimony of the patriot, defines what he or she is. Patrimony is mixed with person; the two are barely separable. The very tone and rhythm of a life, the shapes of perception, the texture of its homes and fears come from membership in a territorially rooted group. The conscious patriot is one who feels deeply indebted for these gifts, grateful to the people and places through which they come, and determined to defend the legacy against enemies and pass it unspoiled to those who will come after.
The reality is that the Persian Wars were one of the critical – and arguably the earliest recorded – ‘crossroads’ that were passed to bring us to this place. And that the battle of Thermopylae was a critical battle in winning that war. And so we owe them.
This notion of debt is personalized pretty neatly in Bruce Webster’s neat post.
And because of that I think that it’s – charitably – lame to criticize the notion that we should identify closely with the Spartans.
And not by virtue of a ‘Blut und Volk’ notion of ancestry, but because the cultural and political edifice we belong to had its roots in Greece, and I believe in Lincoln’s expression of the unique American patriotism that attaches us not to land or ancestry, but to that culture and political enterprise.
And on that note, I’ll suggest that Yglesias, who once set out his views on the American Revolution:
The real point, though, is this: Not be an left-wing America-hater about it all, or to deny that our Founders had some legitimate grievances* but in retrospect wouldn’t America and the world both be better off if the USA had remained more closely associated with the British Empire and her Commonwealth? After all, if the erstwhile “greatest generation” had gotten in on the Hitler-fighting action at the same time as Canada and Australia did, a whole lot of trouble could have been avoided. See also World War One.
In that light, it seems to me that while the Revolution should not be condemned, it is something to be regretted: a failure of Imperial policy and an inability of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to work out some thorny governance and burden-sharing issues. Not much of an occasion for fireworks.
…predictably believes that the US can’t operate outside the structures of international agreements and laws.
Part of me is frustrated by this, and another has to acknowledge that he has something.
I just finished Thomas Friedman’s collection of columns – Longitudes and Attitudes – on the plane coming back from Las Vegas, and I’ll have to confess myself an unabashed Friedmanite (not enough to pay the New York Times…), and to acknowledge that my thinly-spread discomfort with Bush’s political eptitude is fully expressed in Friedman’s columns, and that Friedman anticipated that the long, arduous nation-building exercise in Iraq would require international legitimacy.
I will admit that Friedman has some cogent points. I have traveled the world and seen The Golden Arches in places that would boggle the mind. And his points about the Electronic Herd are valid. But, the Electronic Herd follows what? Good govenance and fair financial systems. What is the basis for the existence of those systems? The answer is almost always a strong Democratic tradition – capital ‘D’. Our kind of democracy. Friedman too easily falls into the ‘America always wrong’ arguments and conclusions.
Before we can get back to reasoned debate in this country, the context has to change from the current state. The twisting of tales to suit the argument needs to not be allowed. Your take on the Spartans is where we need to be – based upon commonalities not differences. Not the contextual twists of ‘the oppressed peoples’ specious arguments.
If we are who we are accused of being, Pirates in the sense portrayed in the movie “Hook” (Oh, Peter, you’ve become a pirate!)where is the Treasure? The oil from the latest ‘War for Oil’? Where are the lands that go with our Empire if we are hegemons? Where is all that? The naysayers cannot allow that we may actually be who Jorge Arbusto claims we are. The selfless US seeking to better the world.
What would the world be without the US?
Robo, based on an afternoon’s readings of a book of his columns, you’re misreading Friedman, I think. I’ll do more tomorrow.
A.L.
And how would the nation-building acquire international legitimacy? I don’t think it could, it was tough enough to gain European legitimacy for the intervention in Kosovo and even then it was resisted by many on the left. Apart from that, the resistence in Iraq is hardly united. The Kurds seem happy, the Shia in southern Iraq are politically unformed, but they don’t seem terribly unhappy either. What the US did is break up a local empire that had become a tyranny. Whether it has been wise to try to keep Iraq together is another question. I have no doubt that Yglesias himself tends to the views he describes, but that is his problem.
As to whether Yglesias’ argument about involvment in WWI and WWII are valid, I think it questionable. Why get involved in European squabbles unless they affect us? Indeed, there were some in Britain during WWI – Russell, Lawrence, and Shaw come to mind – who argued that Britain itself should have stayed out of the war and let it play out among the Germans, French, and Russians. I think one could even argue that France erred in tying itself to Russia. It was the Zimmermann telegram that finally brought the US into WWI by exposing a German attempt to bring the war to these shores, otherwise we might well have remained out. What a German victory would have meant I don’t know, but perhaps we would not have seen WWII and the rise of Communism, the avoidance of either would have been a great thing for civilization.
I don’t share your admiration for Friedman either because I judge him an inexhustable fount of ideas that are of no practical use because they can’t be implemented. Money on trees and all that. But enough said.
AL – When Yglesias says this: “As for 300, no doubt most audiences will just see a jingoistic film that will spur their own sense of nationalism. People should remember, however, that the trouble with nationalism is that everyone’s got one; as much as Americans love our country, other people love their own countries more than ours and aren’t interested in being our vassals.”
Darn it, the same old equivalency. Where is the treasure? Where is the oil? Cheap oil? For us only?
The dude just loses me. When he says something that patently stupid he makes it too easy to dismiss the rest of what he says.
Okay, gotta go and grind another non-white, poor, non-American under by bootheel.
Oh and as for Friedman, I have read all of his books including the one you cite. Twice for “The World is Flat”. His arguments for and about globalism are spot on. Some of his conclusions are flawed. Especially the ones where he attempts to regain the liberal audience and bashes the US, subtly I admit, but still bashing.
But, post away.
Friedman, Yglesias, and the like are the same. Trans-national elitists who form the new Priesthood, and as such are the usual enemies of the nation state. Among other things their class (highly mobile, hard-left and high skilled technocrats with inherited wealth and connections) are hostile to sovereignty and the idea of the nation-state: an extended trust group that cuts across class lines to shared language and culture.
Of course Yglesias hates nationalism (and no, as usual he’s wrong. Everyone DOESN’T HAVE ONE). One of the striking things about Muslims is how lacking they are in nationalism, and how strong they are in Islam. As Wretchard has just pointed out, states and nationalism in many if not most Muslim nations simply don’t exist. Tribe, clan, and of course Islam dominate. Why are jihadis coming to Iraq and Afghanistan world-wide to kill infidels (as they did in Afghanistan against the Soviets)? Why did Pakistani, Saudi, Yemeni, Iraqi, and Iranian men and regimes collaborate to pull off 9/11? Which was manifestly against the national interests of their nations?
Liberals CANNOT STAND Patriotism and the idea of nations. Because they see themselves as the new priesthood “beyond” nationalism and far superior to the evil, awful working and middle class people who love the flag, country, etc.
Yglesias sees no problem with the Persian Empire, made up of slaves, because the Platonic Emperor is a “kind” God-King. Heck Xerxes in the movie probably epitomizes the ideal state of affairs for Liberals, who have flocked to trans-national dictators offering God-Kings and ideology in place of nations. Not for nothing did Focault trek to Tehran to compose poems to Khomeni. Or Ted Turner confab with Fidel. Jane Fonda in Hanoi.
The thing that Yglesias and his ilk hate the most (as do all “liberals” i.e. Democratic Leftists) is the freedom of men to choose. To choose their nation. Live outside the dictates of the new Priesthood. Because the Priest is always the enemy of the Soldier (who is usually the common man).
Proof positive (if withholding info about Hezbollah atrocities as Friedman admitted) that Friedman is an ass: the idea that “international legitimacy” is important in any way to building an Iraqi nation. The only things that matter is intimidating the Iranians, Saudis, and Syrians from acting as patrons for their local interests, and arranging the defeat of the Sunnis as bloodlessly and quickly as possible. Post-Saddam, even if he’d slipped on a banana peel, we’d have this problem. “International legitimacy” which equates to paying off Kofi or his successor for a “priesthood blessing” is about as useful as an indulgence from the Goreacle for passing gas.
#1 from Robohobo: “If we are who we are accused of being, Pirates in the sense portrayed in the movie “Hook” (Oh, Peter, you’ve become a pirate!)where is the Treasure? The oil from the latest ‘War for Oil’?”
Armed Liberal claims that the Americans plundered Iraq’s oil – seized it as booty. (That is on his list of things we should not have done in Iraq that in fact we did do, letting him off the hook technically on a prediction that the war would be OK as long as we did not do three outrageous things.) So as a successful pirate, he must have gotten his oil, and I’m sorry you didn’t get yours.
–
#1 from Robohobo: “What would the world be without the US?”
A lousy place to go to the movies. Bollywood and martial arts movies would go some way to fill the gap, but not far enough. Everybody would have to watch their government’s subsidized patriotic, politically correct or arty drivel, at least some of the time, or not go to the movies. It’d be Hell. For the sake of real movie-watchers everywhere – save the endangered American!
Even as it is, things are tough. The reason this post isn’t on-topic for 300 (2007) is that it hasn’t come to Australia yet. Help, help, I’m being oppressed!
Kill a man your a murderer.
Kill many and your a conquerer.
Kill them all and your a God.
Robohobo, look at this part of the quote: “…other people love their own countries more than ours and aren’t interested in being our vassals”.
But Iraq is not a proper nation in any sense of the word. That is the problem. If Iraq had more patriots – if Iraqis were “citizens” – the US could already have left, happily.
As for vassals, unlike many other powers, the US does not have any vassals. Also, people often accept to be vassals, for reasons that have nothing to do with love of nation. China and Tibet. France and the African francophone countries. A tribe from Tikrit and 18 million Shiites and Kurds. The Soviet Union and East Germany, Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia… I guarantee you there is more anti-American than anti-Russian sentiment in east Germany now. Then there is the worldwide ruthless influence of modern China and Russia today (called meddling and exploitation when it´s the US). These relationships work just fine for the dominant partner.
If the lesson of the movie is that nationalism is a powerful force and “everyone’s got one,” then what about the Medes, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Lydians, and all the other people that
the Achaemenid Empire conquered or enveloped? Perhaps the lesson is that nationalism is a powerful force when the people are stakeholders, when they are free.
I went to see 300 & it was an super movie. Better than Gladiator.
Haven’t read Friedman, probably should before starting here, but I am deeply interested in the ideas of nationalism vs. pan-nationalism vs. religionism. Each one is a noble as an idea (but less noble in the real world), each has strengths and weaknesses, parts which help and those that hurt.
Nationalism, for example, seems like it should always be a good idea. Of course you should take pride in your society, and do whatever you can to help your society become the best it can be. Not doing so can lead to ruin. On the other hand, extreme nationalism is when society begins to see itself as the superior of all things. Once your the hands-down better/smarter, some use it as an excuse to become a blagart, to decieve those lesser than you, to generate laws that keep your nation at the top at the expense of others. To conquer weaker nations and enslave (or foreably absorb) the people for your great empire. Great examples of nationalism gone mad are WW2 Germany & Japan. The Persian empire. You could argue the Romans too, although that ended out working well for most people conquered.
The same argument could be made almost entirely by switching the title to religionism instead. I mean really, having a moral obligation to God that makes you choose the best for all mankind, sounds good, but if you push it too far….I think the trouble with pan-nationalism is that it’s often so focused on ‘the big picture’ that groups like the UN never actually solve anything.
Now, I have intentionally not mentioned the US, because I don’t think we’re that far down the slope of nationalism. However, I think alot of our foreign policy is modified by the “we know what’s best for you” mindset (sometimes for gain, sometimes for ill). We feel that our goverement is so kick-@ss, that we can change everyone to be like us. Now our goverment is great, and places where we have been able to translate it (Basically all of Europe, Japan, South Korea etc) are doing very, very well. However, I think these successes have made us blind to how difficult it can sometimes be to create a new goverment across cultures.
This is nothing against us or the ME, but it’s often more diffciult than it should be. It has always seemed to me that our trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan came from a good inital preparation, followed by an assumption that democracy should cure the reamining ills. When it doesn’t work, some groups are quick to blame it on others, since our nation is ‘the best’, it couldn’t be our fault.
It’s hard to judge nationalism as ‘best’ or ‘worst’, because people judge their importance on different things. Americans see ourselves as the best because of the free-economy, and leader of the free world. Maybe the Nordish countries see themselves as the best because they have such low corruption and poverty. Some peole just plain ‘love’ their country of citizenship, and it’s hard to quantify one ‘love’ over another. But that’s just my opinion.
“People should remember, however, that the trouble with nationalism is that everyone’s got one; as much as Americans love our country, other people love their own countries more than ours and aren’t interested in being our vassals.”
Statements like this are obvious and I am sure that many, like myself, had noticed these things before age 13. Other statements along the same lines are that brave men can be found on both sides of a war, or that what is right and wrong varies from culture to culture. What conclusion is to be drawn from such facts? The usual argument is that they invalidate fighting for ones country or that, because the specifics vary, there is no such thing as right and wrong. I disagree. What these observations show is that we are all human beings, that we will all fight, that all cultures make a distinction betwee right and wrong although the details vary. There is no escape from the game of being human because that is what we are. We are all players whether we will or not, that is just how it is. So I think the proper response to such arguments is “duh”, followed by “so what”.
> I have traveled the world and seen The Golden Arches in places that would boggle the mind.
McDonald’s only survives where folks are willing to patronize it.
Saying that McDonald’s shouldn’t be somewhere is the same as saying that the folks at said where who would patronise it should be denied the opportunity to do so.
How is that a good thing?
Restaurants that are better than McDonald’s don’t need protection from McDonald’s. Why is it a good thing to protect restaurants that are worse than McDonald’s?
What is this romance of Sparta love?
AL
“What’s missing from Matt’s (actually nuanced) argument is one simple point; the Spartans are us – they are, literally, among the ancestors of this rickety enterprise we all know as Western Civilization, and so – beyond our affinity for their heroism, or their connection to the notion of freedom (for landowning nobles, at least) – we owe them a debt of patrimony.”
It was the culture and philosophy of Athens which bequeathed to us some of the values of liberty and self government that we so value. Sparta was the antithesis of those values, a militarized totalitarian city state.
You mistake the “nail” for the “kingdom”. To paraphrase an old saying “for want of a nail the kingdom was lost”. You claim that the efforts of some Spartans at Thermopylae were the crucial “nail” that prevented the loss of the “kingdom”, the growth of Athenian/Greek democratic philosophy. Even if true, and I don’t think that it was*, it is not the nail that we value but the kingdom of democratic ideas.
Stalin and Soviet Russia sacrificed 20,000,000 million people to defeat the Nazis and we might not have been able to prevail without that sacrifice.
Stalin and communism is not “us”, despite the debt we might owe them for their sacrifice against a common enemy.
Sparta is not us, it is, like communism, what we now hate.
And of course you completely avoid Yglesias’s simple point. National/group solidarity (“patriotism”) is a powerful force making difficult the conquest of others even by a more powerful invader.
*A strong case can be made that Persia would not have prevailed militarily even if their advance had not been slowed much at Theremopylae. A strong case can also be made that any Persian victory would have been temporary and Greek culture and ideas would have survived. Athens as a democracy succumbed finally to Spartan imperialism and Macedonian conquest. But it’s ideas survived. Who is to say that those ideas would not have survived even if the Persians had prevailed. Over time the Greek city states would have reasserted their autonomy and rebelled. This is what happened throughout the Persian empire. \
And to the extent that “patriotism” is used to justify conquest and imperial expansion, the destruction of Greek liberty as a consequence of the ruinous Athenian and Spartan imperialism is a lesson that Thucidides also leaves to us.
Matthew Yglesias regrets the American Revolution because it diminished the British empire and thus made it more difficult to win the First and Second World Wars. But he is silent about the advantages of an American-style constitution. Given the increasing infringements on freedom in Britain, I’m glad we had that revolution.
Stranger, go tell the Lacedaemonians that Iraq war metaphors are getting lamer all the time.
And when Shakespeare makes the aggressor Henry V a hero, we sympathize with him, too. Homer’s Greeks are no less admirable than his Trojans. It’s called “dramatic art”, and it has bugger-all to do with history, common sense, or self-righteous political moralizing.
I, too, can personally identify myself with the Spartans in the movie ‘300’.
I, too, once had muscular arms and six-pack abs… of course it was a very, very, very long time ago… ok, maybe just muscular arms and a flat belly… alright, at least I once was skinny and drank many six packs… close enough; Go Spartans!
Confused post. You agree/don’t agree with MY. You pull out a quote from a “joke” post of his.
At any rate, if we are descended from anyone in Greece, it is Athenians, not Spartans.
Also, recognizing nationalism as an important part of the makeup of human societies, doesn’t then mean that all nationalisms are created equal. You read that into MY, when he didn’t say it.
#14 from chew2: “What is this romance of Sparta love?”
Armed Liberal explained it, and his explanation is great.
… the Spartans are us – they are, literally, among the ancestors of this rickety enterprise we all know as Western Civilization, and so – beyond our affinity for their heroism, or their connection to the notion of freedom (for landowning nobles, at least) – we owe them a debt of patrimony.
Yes they are, and yes we do. I have nothing to add to that but applause.
The Alamo is a valid heroic fight, though Americans had slaves, and Thermopylae is a valid heroic fight, though the Spartans had Helots.
We do not have to meet a standard of perfection. We are better than our enemies, and better is enough.
David,
If you want to worship the fascists of their time, then be my guest.
chew2, you’re like an archeologist with a sinus infection. No scents of history.
Chew2 the Spartans were better than the Persians. Everyone except Xerxes was a slave. On his way to Greece Xerxes picked up a levy of Greek states in present-day Turkey. One of their kings sought to advise Xerxes on the best way to attack his fellow Greeks, and Xerxes beheaded him for his impertinence in advising a God-King.
The Spartans, though a hard and cruel bunch, voluntarily followed their King who fought with them. The lowliest Spartan warrior could speak to Leonidas and offer his advice.
Xerxes sat on a gilded throne on a hill watching his men fight and die. Leonidas fought and died with his men.
Tell me which one we are descended from?
Of course the Spartans are part of us. The idea of not submitting to a God-King and making it stick, of being able to hold the hordes of his slaves off for a while, in a heroic last stand is part of us. Particularly since the idea of liberty spreads.
The line from the Spartans last stand to Martin Luther King’s Dream Speech and self-sacrifice is self-evident.
“Tell me which one we are descended from?”
Let’s be frank here, we are descended from the Spartans only in such an idealized sense as to be somewhat precious.
Ideally, our idealized selves are descended from our idealized notion of the Spartans.
In reality, the thread that connects us to the Spartans is there but it is pretty damn thin and, more to the point, is one of thousands of threads that connect us to thousands of other progenitors that constitute our makeup. I would venture to say that were that Spartan thread removed, the fabric of our makeup wouldn’t be greatly altered.
To make the Spartan connection work, it is neccessary to eliminate a lot of what we might not like about the Spartans, as well as alot of what didn’t make it across the bridge. Not to mention, setting aside alot of what, if were to be honest, we don’t much like about ourselves.
I have a visceral reaction against the chest-swelling pride that comes from this type of self-backpatting…not that anyone cares…or asked.
To repeat a comment from the last thread, we are partly descended from the Spartans because founders like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton looked at the history and found that the Spartans were one of the few societies to do something like the American experiment:
bq. _It adds no small weight to all these considerations, to recollect that history informs us of *no long-lived republic which had not a senate. Sparta, Rome, and Carthage are, in fact, the only states to whom that character can be applied.* In each of the two first there was a senate for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less known. Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in this particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it had some quality or other which rendered it an anchor against popular fluctuations; and that a smaller council, drawn out of the senate, was appointed not only for life, but filled up vacancies itself. These examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius, of America, are, notwithstanding, when compared with the fugitive and turbulent existence of other ancient republics, very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend stability with liberty._
“Federalist Paper No. 63”:http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed63.htm
And what of Athens? Athens is praised to the extents its democracy was actually republican in practice, but its pure form of democracy is condemned as decrees for “hemlock on one day and statues on the next.”
Rockford,
_”Xerxes sat on a gilded throne on a hill watching his men fight and die. Leonidas fought and died with his men.
Tell me which one we are descended from?”_
Did you mean Bush or Cheney?
_”Chew2 the Spartans were better than the Persians.”_
We thought the Soviets were better than the Nazis when they helped us defeat a greater evil. But the Soviets are not “us”. And the Spartans are not “us” either as AL claims.
Sparta was a completely militarized society, whose military prowess was used to subjugate it’s own slaves and subjects and later to subjugate it’s neighbors. That fighting prowess was based on practices like the murder of slaves as a training exercise. The Spartans later even sought the aid of the Persians in furthering Spartan imperial efforts. The Persians weren’t so evil after all. The vestiges of the Spartans eventually were destroyed by the Goths. They left us little, but romantic notions of heroic valor and perhaps a monomaniacal devotion to the military arts.
I also think you exagerate the claim that the Spartan army were all democratic free men. The Spartans and Greeks used slaves in their armies. I suspect that the Persians and their allied/subject states had a military/warrior class of its own who were not merely fearful slaves, but proud warriors in their own right.
“The Spartans had, at Plataea, as many as seven helots (or “serfs”) to every Spartiate citizen fighting alongside as light-armed troops; or that large numbers of those rowing at Salamis on the Greek side were slaves (Herodotus 8.142). In fact, a careful reading of the sources makes it clear that use of slaves in Greek warfare in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. was extremely widespread, but the ancient historians and other sources systematically avoided drawing attention to this for reasons that can only have been ideological.”
“source”:http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.1/br_118.html
Again, _there are no ‘good guys’ in this story by our standards._ But on the field of Thermopalae there where perhaps a million men, and 301 were free.
chew2 (#14) – the Spartans and Athenians were both Hellenes, and saw each other as such. Each made up a ‘component’ of Hellenic culture and society, and that culture, passed down to us through the Romans, reperesents a substantial part of all of our patrimony.
Naman (#17) – I feel your pain…
hypo (#18) No, I disagree with part, and agree with another. I don’t think I’m confused…
chew2 (#25) – and the Athenians laso fought beside their helots, and freed many of them before and after wars. many Athenian helots are buried at Platea, honored alongside their masters.
Look all societies at that time held slaves. greek society was relatively unique in that it extended citizenship not only to the one master ofall, but to a group who saw themselves as equal and free. It was a start, and a great start. And I’m much happier to be a part of a society descended from those roots than I’d be to be a member of a society descended from despotic ones.
A.L.
bq. ..predictably believes that the US can’t operate outside the structures of international agreements and laws. Part of me is frustrated by this, and another has to acknowledge that he has something.
He does have something, but probably not what he desires.
The relations among states is analogous to relations among man in a state of nature. To determine a man’s view of international relations, examine his view of man in a state of nature.
Rousseau argued that that man is by nature equal, and that governments are instituted to maintain that equality. On this conception, international structures must aim at preserving the natural equality among states.
Locke argued that man is by nature free but unequal. Jefferson noted the causes of this inequality: talent, interest, and circumstances. In the analogous international state of nature, some cultures will be better or worse suited to some tasks. They will be more or less interested in certain activities, like science. They will be situated by chance in ways that make it more or less difficult to achieve the aims suggested by their interests or talents. The natural international order on this conception is aimed at preserving freedom, not equality.
By a similar process, we can extrapolate different observations from the views of Hobbes.
This kind of thinking does not sit well with neo-liberals, who deny human nature, and hence the conception of man in *state* of nature. For the neo-liberal, there is an insurmountable separation between the social and the natural.
I think the Greeks had it right. The social is the natural. Man *is* natural, and man’s actions *are* natural if they follow what is laid down by _dike_. Of course this trips up the running theories of the day from environmentalism to Europe’s plan to explain their pan-legal super-state’s hegemony over the whole world.
AL,
The Spartans may be a minor part of our Helenistic intellectual patrimony. But their role in that patrimony is primarily as a negative example of militarism and totalitarianism.
_”Look all societies at that time held slaves. Greek society was relatively unique in that it extended citizenship not only to the one master”_
I grant the importance and value of the Greek notion of citizenship. But it’s possible that Persian slavery has been exaggerated.
“A recent study has demonstrated that slaves played an important part in the very same Greek armies which the West perceives as made up of free “citizen-soldiers,” while the Persians employed paid mercenaries.”
“It was not the Persians who were the slave nation. In fact the Persians allowed the different peoples of their empire to carry on their lives and traditions as they liked. Thus, the ancient city of Babylonia and the Greek-speaking settlements on the coast of Anatolia continued to use slaves, but in general the Persians hired people and paid them regardless of sex or ethnicity.”
http://www.iranian.com/Daryaee/2005/December/Heritage/index.html
chew, you’re confusing political slavery (or freedom) with economic. The Persian empires allowed a lot of economic freedom to subjects (as did the Ottoman empire later on), subject to the whim of the politically powerful.
The Greeks kept slaves, and disempowered tradesmen and women, but citizens controlled their own political and economic beings.
A.L.
AL
_”but citizens controlled their own political and economic beings.”_
This too is an exaggeration. Many of the Greek states were ruled by oligarchs at various times in their history. Sparta was a proto-totalitarian brotherhood. Many Greek Scholars have explained that the Greek notion of “freedom” did not mean the freedom of the individual, but the freedom of the Greek states from foreign domination. It was the freedom of self government, but that self-government could be democratic, oligarchic, authoriarian, or even totalitarian as in Sparta.
My comments about Persian slavery, were also directed at Rockford who invoked a Lord of the Rings image of a Persian army of slaves and orcs versus freedom loving Spartans.
chew – and here in the US, and in Australia and the UK – arguably the freest polities in the world – we’ve gone through cycles where government was more or less intrusive, more or less oligarchical, and more or less populist.
The fact remains that nowhere outside Hellenic societies at that time were all the people in a society anything except the property of the monarch.
A.L.
“Everyone except Xerxes was a slave.”
Herodotus tells us of an extremely wealthy Persian who gave large amounts of money to Xerxes, greatly increasing his treasury. When all his sons were drafted into the army that would invade Greece, he went to Xerxes and humbly asked if it would be possible for Xerxes to exempt one of his sons from military duty, so that he would be sure of having a son to carry on his family name. Xerxes’ respose was to have the eldest son executed, cut in two, and the army marched to Greece between the severed halves of the body.
AL
_”The fact remains that nowhere outside Hellenic societies at that time were all the people in a society anything except the property of the monarch._”
Let me repeat that we owe the Athenians and Greek philosophers a huge debt for introducing the concept of political “citizenship”, with it’s rights and obligations.
But again I think you exaggerate by claiming that all the subjects of the East were slaves or “property” of the monarch.
Darius was credited with desiring kingly rule governed by laws and rules. Their is evidence the Persians allowed their subject peoples to keep their customs and form of government. It wasn’t the same sort of local self government claimed by the Greeks (at least prior to the Spartan imperialism and Macedonian conquest), because it assumed an ultimate subservience to the King, but it was a form of local freedom nevertheless.
“Moreover in a state described by T. R. Glover (ibid) as good government that the Achaemenids created, and according to Cyrus’s proclamation in Babylonia (4) that all were equal in his realm, ethnic or cultural groups enjoyed large measures of independence in the practice of their language, religion and economies. To uphold cultural and political independence of varying peoples of the federation and to respect their religions, the king of kings did not lay claim to any specific religion. Consequently the peoples of conquered territories were free to keep their religions, laws and traditions. Having conquered Babylonia for instance, Cyrus the Great found thousands of Jews in captivity there. His response was to free them and send them back to their place of worship.”
http://www.iranian.com/History/2006/January/Boundary/index.html
chew, would you care to comment on the Herodotus story in #33?
Kings may be kindly, but they remain monarchs. Some peopel may prefer the unpleasantness of fereedom to the kindliness of a man who may choose – with impunity -to execuite one of your sons.
A.L.
_”But again I think you exaggerate by claiming that all the subjects of the East were slaves or “property” of the monarch.”_
I dont believe this is any exaggeration. Is there any evidence of any limit to Imperial power of the god-king? Xerxes certainly had the power of life and death over every individual, his Satraps ruled at his pleasure, he seems to have been able to demand conscriptions and declare war at will, i’ve seen no evidence of any properties exempt from his seizure. If this isnt universal slavery im not sure what is.
_”King Darius, says: These are the countries which are subject to me; by the grace of Ahuramazda they became subject to me; they brought tribute unto me. Whatsoever commands have been laid on them by me, by night or by day, have been performed by them.
(8) King Darius, says: Within these lands, whosoever was a friend, him have I surely protected; whosoever was hostile, him have I utterly destroyed. By the grace of Ahuramazda these lands have conformed to my decrees; as it was commanded unto them by me, so was it done. * (9) King Darius, says: Ahuramazda has granted unto me this empire. Ahuramazda brought me help, until I gained this empire; by the grace of Ahuramazda do I hold this empire.”_
“Behistun Inscription”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_translation_of_the_Behistun_Inscription#Introduction:_Darius_titles_and_the_extent_of_his_empire
_”Darius was credited with desiring kingly rule governed by laws and rules.”_
His laws and rules. Was there a tyrant in existance that cant be said of?
_”Their is evidence the Persians allowed their subject peoples to keep their customs and form of government.”_
At the Emperor’s pleasure. That sounds apologetic to my ears.
_”It wasn’t the same sort of local self government claimed by the Greeks (at least prior to the Spartan imperialism and Macedonian conquest), because it assumed an ultimate subservience to the King, but it was a form of local freedom nevertheless”_
I suppose the slave quarters of any plantation could claim as much.
AL,
Do you believe everything Herodotus was said to have written about the Persians? He also made them out as barbarian who fornicated with their sisters and daughters. While he says things good and bad about both sides, the Persiuans were his enemies. Do you believe what you read in Al Jazeera?
I’ll take that story with a grain of salt, as well as the story that an oracle had foretold to Leonidas that the King of Sparta must lose his life or Sparta would be destroyed.
Silly me, I thought it was just a comic book made into an interesting movie.
Mr Chew, where or where did you find the sharp knife that you are using to split so many hairs….sad
Slingshot,
That was my position also. This was just good piece of violent entertainment, not a real history.
300 is a movie about a comic book about a sensationalized bit of post-War semi-fictional hearsay written by Herodotus. Henry Kissinger used to say that the Cold War was a replay of the Peloponnesian War that was to come a couple of decades after the Persian invasions. A democratic naval power, Athens, supporting tyrants through out the Hellenic world against the land power, Sparta, a totalitarian state supporting “liberation” struggles across the Greek world. Read the U. S. for Athens and Sparta for the Soviet Union.
A.L.:
Whew, I was worried there for a sec! Haven’t seen the movie yet, but the important issue isn’t the portrayal in the movie anyway. I forget who it was that said the United States is a combination of Athens and Sparta, and that the Sparta side of our character is awakened when it’s demanded by events. (Maybe Andrew Jackson?) But I also have to say that the conflicts that we’ve witnessed for about the last century really derive from that earliest conflict within the Greek City States between Sparta and Athens/Thebes. Ultimately it was Thebes, and not Athens, that defeated Sparta and freed the Helots, suggesting that the rank idealism of Athens might be less than ideal. But Sparta was a totalitarian City State, and really the first coherent culture that solved the problem of totalitarian control without 20th century technology. In that sense Hannah Arendt’s conjecture that totalitarianism was exclusively a 20th Century problem missed the mark.
It’s a troubling notion that Sparta represents a critical aspect of our culture that’s necessary for us to defeat the much more threatening version of totalitarianism represented by Islamofascism, but it’s hard to imagine that we could possibly challenge the latter’s esprit unless we had a touch of the malady ourselves. The difference that Yglasias doesn’t understand is that our esprit and sense of patriotism if based on an identity-defined commitment to liberal ideology in a far purer form than the social democracy that he espouses (and which may be incapable of inspiring sufficient patriotism to save itself from annihilation). We may be tainted, but the so-called “purists” of the left are far more so. They’re committed not only to becoming helots, but to compelling the rest of us to seek that fate as well.
By the way, Chew 2, in post #25, committed the cardinal offense of posting an excessively long URL without embedding it, compelling the rest of us to track back and forth with the scroll slider to read every line of text in this thread.
Very, very, very ill-mannered. If he can’t learn to embed links he should at least learn about http://tinyurl.com.
Were you raised in a barn, Dude!
The Egyptians were utterly glad to have Alexander the Great as Pharaoh, even though he was no democrat. Though the Ptolemies squandered that goodwill, and Greeks and Egyptians had abrasive relations in Egypt, goodwill was there originally. Greek curiosity, Greek freedom and (mainly) Greek eagerness to identify the gods of other people as other versions or names of their own gods, and therefore to treat them with some real respect, were better than the alternative. (This went double for Alexander, who put faith in an Egyptian oracle.)
From an Egyptian point of view, rule by Persians was preferable mainly to being killed by Persians. Freedom, including genuine religious tolerance, without insult, was better. Not perfect, as the Egyptians would rather have ruled themselves, but clearly better.
I’ve had a lot of occasion to think about Pharaoh and the polis, god-kings and greed. The polis is better, no matter where your religious starting point is. It is not just a different kind of freedom, it is more freedom. And the difference is worth fighting over.
Demo –
Fixed link & quote is chew2, not me…
A.L.
Mark and all,
Speaking of the supposed Persian tyranny, I had forgotten that the Persians invaded Greece because the Ionian Greeks supported by Athens first burned down the Persian western capital of Sardis.
And I had forgotten the famous Melian dialogues of Thucydides where the Melians sought to stay neutral:
” MELIANS: …you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right.
ATHENIANS: …you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must…
Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do.”
In the end, the Melians refuse to give in. The Athenians then conquer the island, put all the men to death, and sell the women and children into slavery.
There was Greek tyranny also.
#45 from chew2: “There was Greek tyranny also.”
There was Greek tyranny? Who knew? (link)
Using Herodotus as a source for debate, makes the debate nothing more than a debate about a fairy tale. Who do you think Herodotus’ sources for the Story of Xerxes and the father? Do you think he had corroboration? As I said in another post. Herodotus was as accurate as Oliver Stone.
“Do you believe everything Herodotus was said to have written about the Persians? He also made them out as barbarian who fornicated with their sisters and daughters.”
Herodotus did not portray the Persians in that way. He wrote about only one Persian as committing inc*st [spelling altered to get past spam blacklist], Cambyses, one of the Persian kings who preceded Xerxes. He reported that Cambyses married and later killed his sister, but he described not as exemplifying the nature of Persians but simply as illustrating the man Cambyses’ ungovernable lust, anger, and violence.
Here is the relevant passage from Book 3 of Herodotus’ Histories (thanks to Project Gutenberg):
“Cambyses fell in love with one of his sisters, and desired to take her to wife; so since he had it in mind to do that which was not customary, he called the Royal Judges and asked them whether there existed any law which permitted him who desired it to marry his sister.
…
So when Cambyses asked them, they gave him an answer which was both upright and safe, saying that they found no law which permitted a brother to marry his sister, but apart from that they had found a law to the effect that the king of the Persians might do whatsoever he desired. Thus on the one hand they did not tamper with the law for fear of Cambyses, and at the same time, that they might not perish themselves in maintaining the law, they found another law beside that which was asked for, which was in favour of him who wished to marry his sisters.”
…
And he moved to anger leapt upon her, being with child, and she miscarried and died.
33. These were the acts of madness done by Cambyses towards those of his own family, whether the madness was produced really on account of Apis or from some other cause, as many ills are wont to seize upon men…”
“Herodotus was as accurate as Oliver Stone.”
Then why do historians keep finding evidence corroborating things he wrote?
You’d sound more credible if you avoided such over-the-top, obviously incorrect claims.