I went to the movie with high expectations.  I was really excited.

Afterwards, I was sick to my stomach.

What started it was the advertisement for The Tudors on Showtime and five-six movie trailers.  European culture is dead!  After watching the disgusting immoral and narcissistic trailers, I was fully disheartened.

The movie was not much better.  I closed/shielded my eyes for over 10% of the movie.  The depiction of the ephors was really really really disgusting and revolting.  First the ephors had nothing to do with religion, they weren’t the religion, and they had nothing to do with the Oracle. 

This love of abnormality may be of the East but not of the Spartans or of the West.  The movie was totally nillistic and amoral.  The Spartans never never went into battle without the permission of the Gods. before every battle, there was a sacrifices to determine it.

The movie was totally unhistorical.  The Spartans never impaled anybody aka Assyrians.  The Spartans never stacked or desecrated bodies, The Spartans never killed wounded men! 

What was wrong with this movie was what it Taught about the Spartans.  The anti-multicultural message was good but having people have an admiration for the Spartans--was faulty to the core.  The Spartans were not Nazis!  They weren’t the Ubermensch of Nietzsche either.  Nietzsche would have been driven from Sparta by whips.

It was a sick movie according to Western Cultural standards!  And it was sick.

W.LindsayWheeler wrote: What was wrong with this movie was what it Taught about the Spartans.

Compared to what?  Here’s what’s being taught about the Spartans in universities:

Spartan pederasty, a custom held in common with other Dorian tribes, is thought to have either been introduced at the time of the Dorian invasion, around 1200 BCE, or to have been instituted in the seventh century BCE in emulation of that in Crete, which had evolved in response to population pressure. Sparta is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, which evolved in parallel with formal pederastic practices.[1]

The practice was an integral part of the agoge, the educational backbone of the Spartan polis. The title given the lover was eispnelos (εἴσπνηλος) “inspirer,” who infuses the favorite with courage or arete, while the beloved was known as the aïtas (ἀίτας) “hearer.” [2][3]

Oh, I did forget to mention that some of the movie reviewers saw “The 300” as “homophobic” for its refusal to portray Spartans as queer.

“around 1200 BCE”

I know James Bowery knows this but I’ll just point out there’s no such thing as “BCE” (said to stand for “before the Common Era").  The proper abbreviation is B.C., standing for “before Christ.” Those whose prejudices don’t permit them to say or write the word Christ or an abbreviation for it should not live in the West, but ought to leave permanently and go live elsewhere.  Go live in Asia, Africa, or anywhere else.  “BCE” is a Jewish-invented-and-pushed attack on Western Civilization and needs to be resisted.  If Jews won’t stop attacking Western Civ and tradition in this way, the sons of Western Civ — namely, Euros — are within their rights to start verbally counterattacking Jewish Civ and tradition in any way they like until the attack by the other side is called off.  Force is the only thing some people understand, especially some extremely rude, ingrate, destructive people.

I havent seen Nick Love’s ‘Outlaw’ yet but it seems to be modelled on the old ‘Death Wish, Bronson, ‘Paul Kelsey-as-vigilante’ movies and if the racial composition of the bad guys resembles that of the film’s London setting then the non-White members of the actors union, Equity, will have been kept rather busy.

I certainly can sympathize with WLidsayWheeler ... but compared to the normal fare this movie was incredible. I saw the trailers when I went to see Apocalypto .. which despite having non-white characters can also be seen as on ‘our’ side .. and I knew 300’s message would be Right. I mean ... the embassador boasting of the thousand nations of the Persian empire , and Sparta standing for Sparta . Man that was good. But in the film, when Xerxes said ‘we want to share our culture’ , you could have knocked my down with a feather (if I had been standing). Frontal assault on the pieties.

I think JB is right on with the generational thing. I am about Snyder’s age and have absolutely no recollection (other than from force feeding in schools) of the ‘Civil Rights Struggle’. What I do have is memories of the fights over bussing, the LA riots, my childhood neighborhood being turned into ‘Little Saigon’, the deterioration of California’s environment. I think their are a lot of guys my age and younger (mostly younger) that are getting ready to call bullshit in the next few years.

On your question PF, I have to do some research and find it, but the Spartans, on the field of battle, they never killed anybody, that didn’t have a weapon in their hand.  If they had a weapon and threatened they would attack but otherwise---no.

Karl Otfried Muller called Spartan government an Aristocracy.  Why?  Because every Spartan was trained as an Aristocrat.  They were trained in Virtue and hence in Self-control.  The Spartans were very conscious of being “kaloskagathos”; the Good and the Beautiful.

Other than the Helots, in which they were at war with, and the 2000 they executed in order to prevent revolution, They didn’t kill unarmed men on the battlefield.  They didn’t sack Athens either whereas all the other Greeks wanted to.

Or, one between rational secularity and faith based mysticism is also there. (—“gnxp stinks")

What’s being suggested here is the Spartans symbolized “rational secularity” but clearly they didn’t, judging by all that’s been discussed at MR.com the past few topics.  “Rational secularity” would be the view “Daniel J.” just expressed in the other thread, where he said he wouldn’t lay down his life in defense of European EGI.  The Spartans on the other hand had from birth a mystical-religious devotion to the concept that defense of themselves as a people, even unto laying down their lives if necessary, was a sacred obligation woven into the religious web of their very existence, judging from all Lindsay Wheeler has said about them here and at his site and from the description of what those ancient Euro societies were like by Prof. Fraser and James Bowery in the “Fraser II” interview.  To imply the Spartans in that war against the Persians represented “rational secularity” as opposed to “faith-based mysticism” would seem to get things one-hundred-and-eighty degrees out of phase with the truth of the matter.

In Answer to PF and in answer to the scandalous way that the movie 300 portrayed the Spartans:

XV.  The Spartan Character in Warfare

In the East, “Little boys and girls were, if not buried alive, at any rate put to death with a guilty father.” But Sparta was different.

“When the young sons of a man who had betrayed his city to the Persians were brought to the general commanding the Spartan forces after Leonidas fell at Thermopylae, he dismissed them. ‘They are boys,’ Herodotus reports him saying.  ‘What part could boys have in the guilt of siding with the Persians?’”

“What underlay the Spartan general’s action was not only the belief that the innocent must not suffer with the guilty; even more basic was the conviction of the value of each individual, no matter how defenseless.” (61)

On the battlefield, Spartans did not kill the wounded and the defenseless.  If the enemy offered resistance, he was killed but quarter given to enemy soldiers who did not resist.  Once rout was affected, the Spartans would “pursue for a short time and not far.” (62)

When Sparta was finally victorious over Athens in the Peloponnesian War, the allies demanded the destruction of Athens.  The Spartan general refused unlike what the Athenians did to the Melians.

Though they did put down slave rebellions with a vengeance, there was never a report of Spartans raping, pillaging or plundering as thieves.  In the preventitive slave uprising measures, only the adult males were killed--never women, never children.

(61) The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton, Pg 105.

(62) Thucydides, ch 16 sec 74; Pg 325

In answer to Robert of the Rohirrim, The Greeks always move to Perfection; Arete.  Most Greeks, like Socrates and Plato, saw that their own mythology was made up by poets.

Plato, in the Laws, writes: “Now among these matters of high import is not the subject of divinity which we treated so earnestly pre-eminent?

“‘Tis of supreme moment for us, is it not, to know with all the certainity permitted to man that there are gods, and with what evident might they are invested?”

“In the great mass of our citizens we may tolerate mere conformity to the tradition embodied in the laws, but we shall do well to deny ALL access to the body of our guardians to any man who has NOT made it his serious business to master every proof there is of the being of gods.  And by denial of access I mean that no man who is not divinely gifted or has not labored at divinity shall ever be chosen for a curator, nor ever be numbered among those who win distinction for Virtue.” The Laws sec. 966 c.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle were all Monotheists!  They gathered that from looking at Nature.  I follow them in their footsteps.

Second, the problem of evil is answered only within Christianity and Third I believe in the Resurrection.

Christianity is NOT a semitic religion.  I will be posting on my site in the future that Christianity is an Indo-European Religion--Not Semitic.  In that future thread I will point out why Christ was rejected by the Jews, but accepted by the Greeks.  Many Greek Philosophers became Christian for Christianity did met and answer many questions.  Jesus said, We are to live by the Spirit of the law, that is why forgiveness is central to Christianity and not the Revengeful spirit of the Israelites of the Mosaic Law.

There is a God.  And if God is intelligent--He would have spoken forcefully and coherently.  I believe He has communicated to us.

I found my books:

“The endless struggle between the flesh and the spirit found an End in Greek Art.  The Greek artists were UNAWARE of it. 

“They were spiritual materialists, never denying the importance of the body and ever seeing in the body Spiritual Significance.

“Mysticism on the whole was alien to the Greeks, thinkers as they were.  Thought and Mysticism NEVER go well together, and there is little symbolism in Greek Art.
“The Greek Way”, Edith Hamilton, pg 42.

“There is a difference between Religion and Mysticism.  The Spartans and other Greeks were Religious but NOT mystic. [...] Edith Hamilton makes it a point that ‘Mysticism’ had NO place amongst the Greeks!” (—Lindsay Wheeler)

This sounds right to me.  There is indeed a difference between religion and mysticism, and white men in general are, by the inborn psychological/spiritual nature of the race, mainly religious, not mainly mystical (although some true mysticism has arisen in authentic European thought).  If my comment of 1:14 PM suggested otherwise I stand corrected.

“Christianity is NOT a semitic religion.  I will be posting on my site in the future that Christianity is an Indo-European Religion--Not Semitic.  In that future thread I will point out why Christ was rejected by the Jews, but accepted by the Greeks.  Many Greek Philosophers became Christian for Christianity did met and answer many questions.  Jesus said, We are to live by the Spirit of the law, that is why forgiveness is central to Christianity and not the Revengeful spirit of the Israelites of the Mosaic Law.”

Perhaps Christianity was modified significantly by Europeans, but its roots are very Jewish.  Jesus was, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jewish. His coming is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, which is why the Old Testament, containing the stories of Jewish conquest and prophecy, is so important.  According to most of the New Testament, He was the Jewish god in the flesh.

Why does Euroman need a Jew as his savior?  Why does he need to back up so much of his moral teaching with quotations from a Semitic people?  There are many more writings and moral lessons from our own literature.

As you can see my detractors quote nothing scholarly.  My 29 page “Glories of the Spartans” has 85 footnotes and I am told, “not nuanced”.  I write the only true definition of the Classical Republic anywhere in existence, with a Philosophy section undergirding its creation, with over 120 footnotes for 14 pages, and what greets me---"not nuanced enough"--I am not marxist and modern academic enough.

Thanks, I’ll stay the way I am thank you. 

No other than Werner Jaeger, the famous German Classicist wrote in the introduction of opus Magnus that

“...and the impact of jumane civilizaiton upon Rome, the transformation of Hellenistic Greek paideia into Christian paideia is the greatest historical theme of this work.  If it depended wholly on the will of this writer, his studies would end with a description of the vast historical process by which Christianity was Hellenized and Hellenic civilization became Christianized. (Paideia, Vol II, pg xi)

Edith Hamilton wrote: “Christianity in its beginnings was addressed to the Greeks.  The Gospels are in Greek.  St. Paul wrote in Greek to Greek-speaking Christians.  Plutarch never came into contact with the new religion; ...although his spirit was naturally Christian, as was said of Socrates”. (The Echo of Greece, pg 208-209)

Obviously, here are JUST two witnesses of the European character of Christianity.  In many places PF, God is said in the Singular---why don’t you RE-READ Plato’s Dialogues.  And Plato called for the execution of Atheists and Atheists, Cynics and Skeptics WERE NOT allowed in Sparta!!!

(And I think I see some Jews on this board.  I can always tell, the deconstructionist spirit of some posters portray their Jewish identity.)

Lindsay,

Help me sort out your statement that Christianity is not Semitic.  I agree that it has been changed by Europeans.  But that is not what I see as its “fatal flaw” today.  The problem I see is that its roots are still Semitic.  Its Holy Book is 98% or more of Semitic origin.  Its interpretations of the popular stories and mystic religions of the time and area are Semitic.

WLindsayWheeler:

Do you feel your position as Greek expert assaulted?

Edith Hamilton is not a historian that I take seriously.
Here is a quote in which she summarizes her view of history:

“A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.”

Do you realize what that means? It means that for her, sufficient knowledge of the Greeks can be gathered by reading Aeschylus and rhapsodizing about the picture of Greek society which she has gained from it. To put it frankly, she makes me sick, as does anyone who thinks they can distort the past into being some kind of ideal picture of their own values.

Edith Hamilton’s vision of Greece reminds me of the Jewish fellow-travelers who lionized the Soviet Union under Stalin in the 30’s, without knowing the reality of what was taking place there. The same mental gymnastic of idealizing distant societies is taking place.

If you can behold something from a distance, it is easy to mould it to become the expression of all your ideals- and if done long enough, this kind of thinking is no longer curable.

All this talk of the Greeks has something masturbatory about it, to be perfectly honest. If you believe in the Christian God, just say it, stop putting words in Plato’s mouth. I just did a word scan of Alcibiades and the word ‘Gods’ came up 8 times, until I stopped scanning out of boredom. Most every reference to ‘God’ is like this one: “Socrates: well, if the god to whom you are going should even now appear to you...”

The Greeks had some good ideas, they were righteous brothas, lets leave it at that. I don’t want to know how many times you’ve distorted their legacy in an attempt to prop up your own opinions. A classical historian of any high calibre would cringe at what you are saying. Your emphatic use of ‘never’ in regard to historical events about which even our original sources could only be third or fourth-hand: in ancient history there is no ‘never’ and no ‘always’, its touch and go.
How much of Plutarch do you actually think is true, written hundreds of years after the fact in some cases? Your respect for Edith Hamilton the Drama-Dyke Philosopher-Historian is on par with your literal understanding of ancient historical anecdotal evidence.

Does an analytic view of history raise the percentage of DNA in me that is Jewish, which last time I checked was 0? Ooh, spooky, I better swallow some of your “The Greeks Did This..” generalizations so I can raise the percentage of my DNA that is ‘Western’. What do you think the modern Greeks were thinking when they made Hamilton an honorary citizen of Athens at the age of 90? “She sure did glorify us.” And she was to stupid to think back, “I sure did glorify them.” οχα κακος διαλογισμος΄

My work is the continuation of the 300 Spartans who sacrificed their lives at Thermopylae in obedience to the Delphic Oracle.  These 300, the king, 298 Spartiates, and their priest, died in order that the West might have its liberty. (And the Sacrifice of Jesus completed it.) The Graeco-Persian War is not over, neither is the Peloppensian War.

My work is the continuation of the Teutoberger Forest Battle, where Varus’ legions were destroyed by a group of Teutons under the lead of Arminius. The Romans were once again forcing Meditteranean culture on Northern Peoples who wanted no part of it. This is part of the eternal, never-ending battle between North and South, between Mediterranean man and Northern European man.

I am the good guys (Arminius) and you are the bad guys (Varus).

Seriously, though, this kind of thinking is for little girls. Truth is going to be a casualty when you start reifying and even personifying abstract concepts into ‘Greeks’ or ‘Persians’. Maybe you wrote a thousand pages about Ancient Greece, with a million footnotes, and maybe you cited Edith Hamilton a million times, it still means nothing.

“Does an analytic view of history raise the percentage of DNA in me that is Jewish, which last time I checked was 0?”

Can you please let us know what genetic test assays specifically for Jewish ancestry and can tell a person that they have “0” percentage of that ancestry?

PF wrote:

“Asserting that Plato and his circle were monotheists is contrary to your own quotes: if they were monotheists, why do they always say θεοι, “Gods”, instead of, like the later Christian writers, θεος, “God”?”

The Greek thinker Epicurus is basically the founder of Deism ... the Greeks had a concept of a creator or creative force (ie… the great watchmaker in Deism), but NOTHING remotely close to the heavenly pie in the sky nonsense that people are talking about here.  The concept of resurrection, etc… would have been comical to the Greeks.  Everybody and anybody who has taken religous studies 101 will know that Christianity maintains a rooted semetic world-view, but a lot of tid-bits of Greek Epicurean thought, mashed with a whole lot of Roman Mithraism, run fully through it.  Of course, Christianity wasn’t all that popular, as it was completely contracty to the ethos of “master morality” (vide Nietzsche) that the Romans so much personifed; however, Constantin’s batty mother Helena, being a litter liberal of the day, most certainly had a part of convincing her son to make it the state religion (and in Semetic tradition, it backed up the claim of a king appointed by god, thereby, giving more ligitimacy to his throne.).

As for the Spartans not “harming civilians”—this is a romantic view.  However, during the Peloponnesian War, the concept of “Total War” really started—each burning whole cities to the ground, ignoring previous stops in war for religious festivals, and completely going full out when capturing cities:  enslaving the women, and killing all toddlers (after all, you were considered a bad son if you did not avenge the death of your family) to ensure they would not be around to fight when they got older.  This last war was so brutal, it completely extisguished the Golden Age of Greece.

A lot of the other posts here are just fantasy, but if people want to believe in dead Jews on a stick, and that his mother was knocked up by a ghost, more power to them.

I wonder what people here, particularly the post’s author, James Bowery, think of Razib both downplaying the potential impact of a Persian victory in their Greece, as well as the outcome of Tours:

“2) but, i don’t think that we should overemphasize the extent to which greek cultural creativity was dependent upon a particular political order, or, the nature of persian despotism. ancient states were not totalitarian, because they couldn’t be, and that surely explains why many greeks (e.g., the thessalians, thebes) sided with the persians (out of self-interest of course). much was at stake, but not everything. after all, the ionian philosophers lived in the shadow of asian despots, and they were the first of the greeks to be fired by reason and rationality.

3) on a pedantic note, the victory of charles martel, from what i have read, is more an illustration of the general trend of the muslims reaching the limits of their expansionary capacity than a turning of the tide. that is, it seems unlikely that a muslim victory at tours would have resulted in the conquest of francia seeing as how it was more a raid than anything else, and muslim raids would continue into the provence and thoroughout italy for decades.”

“I wonder what people here [...] think of Razib both downplaying the potential impact of a Persian victory in their war with Greece, as well as the outcome of Tours” (—gnxp stinks)

I don’t see anything terrible in either of the points Razib makes in the excerpt posted.  Both points he makes are fair, as far as I can see.  That’s not to say they’re right (or that GnXp, an anti-white site, doesn’t stink), but they’re fair, no?  They seem to be.

I don’t know, a number of scholars in the pre-PC age felt differently, and in historical rankings of the important battles in world history, both the Persian-Greek wars and Tours rank high.

This is, of course, a game of historical “what if”, but one could speculate that being part of the Persian Empire may have sidetracked the development of Hellenic culture.  If successful in their conquest of Greece, would the Persians have moved further west?  Perhaps, and with consequences that we cannot foresee, in hindsight.  However, it stretches credulity to believe that extending the political dominion of Asia to Europe would not have had its serious consequences.  As to the influence of Persia on its occupied territories, consider that these foreign armies that fought for Persia did not do so out of love for Persia or the empire, there was coercion involved.

Tours is another matter.  “Raid” or attempt at conquest, a successful “raid” could have set the stage for more “raids”, which were often softening up attacks preceding attempts at full conquest.  A loss at Tours for the West may have led to, eventually, conquest of western Europe by the Islamists.

One can understand however where a guy like Razib would want to minimize the possible effects of Asian or AfroAsiatic incursions into Europe (or into the West generally), as his presence in the United States constitutes the present-day manifestation of such an incursion, an example of the not-ended battles between Occident and Orient.

Given that Hollywood is said to be “shocked” by “300’s” 70 million weekend take, one can expect the “reaction” to be swift in coming.  Given that “Lord of the Rings” was labeled as “Eurocentric” by the usual suspects, attacks on “300” as “racist” should be coming.  Indeed, a commentator on “Gene Expression\” has already asked why we are identifying with the “authoritarian racist” Spartans against those nice “authoriarian tolerant” Persians.

One hopes that Frank Miller and company don’t “cave” and start denouncing the anti-PC interpretations of their work.  If they do, they may undercut much of the appeal of their work that is fueling the “unprecedented” weekend “take.”

Meanwhile, we should expect Razib and company to obfuscate the probable historical impact of the conquest of the Occident by the Orient.  After all, we can’t have people making connections to the current day situation, can we?

“Given that ‘Lord of the Rings’ was labeled as ‘Eurocentric’ by the usual suspects, attacks on ‘300’ as ‘racist’ should be coming.” (—gnxp stinks)

If the Jews insist on calling Lord of the Rings “Eurocentric” and 300 “racist,” Euros are justified in calling Jews and Israel “Judeocentric” and “racist” and ought to start doing exactly that, keeping it up as long as the Jews keep it up.  Two can play that game.

Here:  Israel is a racist, apartheid state and Jews as a group are racist and Judeocentric. (Nothing like getting a taste of your own medicine, is there? ...)

Judeocentric garnishes the suggestion of ‘Egocentric’ amongst others....

Just a small note: I see some of you referring to “Wheeler” as “she”. Wheeler is not female. I am familiar with WLW as he sometimes posts on another blog I read regularly. 

As in the graphic novel, the Persians are depicted as a barbaric and demonic horde, while the Persian emissary and King Xerxes are depicted as androgynous. This meant to stand in stark contrast to the masculinity of the Spartan army

Furthermore, the “bad guys” are depicted as black people, brown people, handicapped or deformed people, gays and lesbians...”

Sounds like a ringing endorsement to me.

So, gee, there is more “within” group IQ variance than between group variance.  Therefore, there is no difference in black and white IQ; you cannot cluster racial groups on IQ.  Got it?

You can’t cluster males or females on any of a number of traits, because there is more “variation within than between.”

Pop, pop, Popper!

“… in other words, pure anti-Euro ethno-racial politics, not science.”

Fred is correct, he gets it, do those who control MR get it, too?

Look at it - a blog which previously did debunk Lewontin, and interviewed Edwards, now has one of its founders, on his science (sic) blog sideshow, talking about how “greater variation within” invalidates group differences.

A classic example of politics trumping science, at an alleged science-oriented blog (or blogs).

“So, gee, there is more ‘within’ group IQ variance than between group variance.  Therefore, there is no difference in black and white IQ; you cannot cluster racial groups on IQ.  Got it?  You can’t cluster males or females on any of a number of traits, because there is more ‘variation within than between.’ ” (—gnxp lol)

Of course.  The exact same sophistry can be used to deny any categorization whatsoever:  races, species, genera, male-female, child-adult, all of them.  It can be extended to prove any category whatsoever does not exist.  It’s absolutely laughable.  The question is why do some Euro academics fall for it?  C. Loring Brace, for example (correct me if I’m wrong).  As for Jewish academics, we know why they fall for it:  they fricking invented it.  It’s like their religion for some of them, for crying out loud.  They cling to it for dear life.  It’s pure diaspora-Jewish politics.

The racial and political implications of the movie were clear to my kids and their friends.  On the way home the eldest told the others, “They want us pumped to fight Iran, but we look like the Persians.”

Note the latest tactics from gnxp to attempt to deflate interest in “300” and stress cross-national/multicultural “self-interest” vs. the “grand narratives”, as well as the attempt to dismiss the whole thing as clever Athenian psyops:

“Salman
Herodotus wrote in the time when the Persians effectively kept a lid on Greece by playing the Greeks against themselves. Herodotus is said to have been inspired to write the Histories, and the story of Thermopylae, by the Peloponnesian Wars between Sparta and allies (Persia included) against Athens and allies. Herodotus himself was an Athenian partisan. The Spartans were backed by Persia. As an Athenian on the losing side of the war, he would have an interest in playing up the Spartan heroism against the Persians to drive a wedge between Sparta and its sponsor Persia. It failed. Sparta and its Persian sponsors won the Peloponnesian War and Greece was a non-threat until Philip of Macedon unified Greece (you may know of his son Alexander).
Email | Homepage | 03.12.07 - 12:35 pm | #

razib
i believe that the spartans took persian subsidies toward the end though. just to be clear....

(from wiki: Following the destruction of the Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the revolt of Athens’s tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt against Athens. The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships.)

[also, i believe sparta later attacked persia again, before going back on subsidies...the importance of self-interested and mixed strategies gets lost in he grand narratives]
Email | Homepage | 03.12.07 - 12:38 pm | #”

Yes, PF I understand where you are coming from.  My aunt was in Greece when it was invaded by the Teutons in 1940.  The Barbarity of their occupation speaks volumes of about Teutonic Barbarity.

Far from being “Civilized” the Armies of the Teutons in 1940, were the example of lawlessness and depravity of human nature.  My people experienced first hand brutality and inhumanness of the Teutons.

When is the German ever going to be civilized?

The Movie 300 would have been a perfect training film for Nazi Stormtroopers.

Yes, Life does imitate Art and when you show the Spartans, the epitimy of masculinity and virility and virtue, scandously killing the wounded and the descecration of bodies, TEACHES impressionable euro children who have been barbarized by our socialist/marxist/secular schools to BEHAVE THE SAME WAY.  That is why Socrates asks that the Poets be censored!

That’s funny but I know a guy whose uncle is on the Greek equivalent of the Supreme Court who claims that to this day Greek men toast the memory of Hitler because the occupation of Greece was so restrained compared to other occupations—specifically the harsh way in which Germans dealt with their soldiers who defiled Greek women (they were routinely executed according to this young Greek man’s recollections of his father).  This of course stands in stark contrast to the use of Norwegian women by Germans for their Lebensborn program which generated hatred of Germans among Norwegians that simmers to this day.

“The question is why do some Euro academics fall for it?  C. Loring Brace, for example (correct me if I’m wrong).” (—my comment, above, 4:31 PM)

Unfortunately, I’m not wrong.  I wish I were.

Can anyone believe what an asshole this schmuck is?  And a full professor, yet!

I have been on the island of Crete where people still remember the parachutes and the bombs.  I lived in Athens and met a former German soldier, part of a mortocycle unit.  He only survived because he was sent back to Germany by medical reasons.  His unit was wiped out in the withdrawal through Yugoslavia.  Also have read a fantastic scholarly book, “Inside Hitler’s Greece”.

My aunt and many many other Greeks nearly died of starvation.  My aunt to this day still goes into the backyard to pick dandelion greens.  She remembers kindness too of the Germans.  The soldiers threw her some potatoes now and again.

The German occupation sucked up much needed food.  It literally destroyed the Greeks as a people.  For every German shot by Communists, 10 people were lined up and shot.  There were massacres all over Greece.  The Greek communists acted with barbarity and the Germans responded in kind but also across the board.

What the Author remarks is that the Germans did NOT know how to combat terrorism.  They were very unsophisticated.  They knew how to win battles but not occupy. They had no training in counter-insurgency.  Hitler did not help matters when he just ordered reprisal shootings. Orders from the German High command changed things.

D.S. said
“They were not rainbow flag waving faggots, but they were not sexually repressed Christian puritans either.  Hail Sparta!”

So I take you think that an aversion to sodomy means you are sexually repressed.  That’s kind of ridiculous if you ask me. 

If what you say is true about the Spartans it would seem to me to be a mark against them.

From Imposed German Guilt: The Stuttgart Declaration of 1945
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p-55_Lang.html

“While the senseless and unnecessary terror bombing campaign is well known, certain aspects of the hunger blockade which the Allies imposed on German-occupied Europe are less familiar. It is a little known fact that Allied leaders vetoed efforts of the Famine Relief Committee, formed in 1942, to send food to the hard-pressed civilians of occupied Europe after an initial success in Greece, where, in cooperation with the International Red Cross and with the permission of the Germans, tens of thousands of lives were saved by food supplied from Allied nations. Thereafter Allied leaders, above all America’s Franklin Roosevelt and Britain’s Winston Churchill, were obdurate in their refusal to cooperate with the Famine Relief Committee and the Red Cross. These men used food as a weapon during the war; afterwards they profited from the lurid images and descriptions of the horrors of the concentration camps at the war’s close. Many of these horrors were the direct result of Allied policy makers’ refusal to cooperate with international organizations such as the FRC and IRC.

“That this is not mere speculation is evident from the final report of the Famine Relief Committee. As the victorious Allies advanced into Germany, and the FRC handed over the balance of its funds to the Friends’ [Quakers] Relief Service, the Committee’s last report concluded:

“It should have been obvious to all intelligent people that our food blockade of the continent of Europe would bring untold torture and suffering to our friends and allies and would do little or no harm to our enemy ... It has been possible to obtain proof that our food blockade did not shorten the war by a single hour ... History will judge our government harshly for its futile persistence in the policy of total blockade of foodstuffs. [6]”

More, here:

Red Cross Humanitarianism In Greece, 1940-45
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p-71_Lang.html

I find the arguments here immensely satisfying, for their civility, incisiveness, and for the little facts one picks up while follwing them. Keep up this standard or make it even higher: there aren’t nearly enough forums of discussion out there dealing with this general subject intellectually.
I just wish more intelligent people from the ‘other’ side would come to the site to state their view - intelligent, in this case, meaning able to spell, having a working knowledge of English grammar, etc. Seriously! It seems that the best rebuttals that most commenters seriously disagreeing with Majority Rights come up with here are along the lines of “yo yo u KKK cRaCkers is fuked”, or some puffed up woman proudly proclaiming that regular contributers here must have no girlfriends/wives - QED!
I’m sure there are smarter lefties out there, and it’d be great to see them up against some really good arguments, doing it properly - conceding points here, making actual GOOD points there, and, above all, addressing the arguments put to them.. Perhaps I should follow the bloggers of this site to lefty places where they comment. Any assistance here would be much appreciated. Though maybe it’s hard to find ‘smart lefties’: if they regularly employed my desired combination of real life evidence and reasoned thought they’d probably become trad-cons too. Keep up the good work! DM

Gimli Battles the Race Card
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11870

LOTR Films Too Eurocentric
http://www.vdare.com/francis/lotr_racist.htm

Jim West wrote:

“So I take you think that an aversion to sodomy means you are sexually repressed.  That’s kind of ridiculous if you ask me. 

If what you say is true about the Spartans it would seem to me to be a mark against them. “

Why do you ‘take it’ that “I think an aversion to sodomy means you are sexually repressed?” Because I am basically implying the fact that Christians basically mortify flesh and consider nudity SIN, SIN, SIN?  Generally, they’re the same happy bunch that wants to put covers on the genitalia of Classical Greek and Roman statues?  How silly ...

I personally have nothing against sodomy—consenting adults can do as they please as far as I am concerned.  You may look to the bible for your inspiration, but I prefer the old Roman saying:  Sic mulcet, fondit!  If it moves, fondle it!

I most certainly do not consider the Spartans’ penchat for ocassional sodomy to be a mark against them ... quite the contrary, I consider it a fond memory of happier times in the White world (ie… slave morality nowhere to be found).

Rnl’s thoughts re the film’s Occident v Orient dichotomy are surely somewhat unformed. The ancient Persian ‘Orientals’ were predominantly Aryan in origin and were DNA tests available in those days it is more than likely that the results would show a closer affinity between the combatants than could be obtained by a similar random test conducted in Harvard Yard.

Rnl’s thoughts re the film’s Occident v Orient dichotomy are surely somewhat unformed. The ancient Persian ‘Orientals’ were predominantly Aryan in origin and were DNA tests available in those days it is more than likely that the results would show a closer affinity between the combatants than could be obtained by a similar random test conducted in Harvard Yard.

While I am skeptical also on the “genetic” part, this most certainly was not the case from a cultural stand-point.  The Greeks considered the Persians “outter Babarians” of sorts, as opposed to the “uncivilized” reference given by Greeks to many other Europeans at the time (The Greeks had emporium in the Balkans, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, and the Ukraine—they were well familiar with other Euros).  They considered the Persians as a completely different race of people (the word, “Europe,” after all, is from classical Greek/Myth).  They were not indistinguishable from other Europeans (specifically, Greeks) for sure.

The Spartan social structure, where every male citizen was also a warrior, was only made possible by slavery; without slavery, without the Helots, the Spartan system would not have worked.

Since you advocate the Spartans as models of virtue, do you also advocate slavery? Is slavery justified in your opinion?

Posted by PF

The Spartans were a very very philosophical people.  They saw that the World was full of Dichotomies.  One can’t have Heat without Cold, Day without Night, etc.  Well, you can’t have Freedom without Slavery.  Their Republic was based on a combination of different things in their right proportion.  Two Thirds were free while One third was feudalized.  Someone had to do the Work.

You know PF, I have lived the agrarian lifestyle.  I lived at the barest minimum.  Most People of today don’t have any concept of what it takes to live.  Life back then was very strenous and TIME-Consuming!  The most simplist tasks were time consuming.  Slavery is a necessity for any High Civilization. 

See, the Greek Ideal was Order.  Just like the Cosmos is Ordered--So they too imitated the Cosmos.  All things are righteous in Nature.  Everything has ONE Job and they keep their station--The same was true in the Spartan Commonwealth.  Slavery is a Necessity.

Furthermore, the Bible does NOT teach that Slavery is Morally wrong!  The Orthodox Church has NEVER condemned slavery nor will it.

Slavery is an INSTITUTION just like the Family is an institution, the Church is an Institution, any Military organization is an Institution.

If you complain about slavery amongst the Spartans, then one has to give up the victories obtained at Thermopylae and Plateia because Slavery made those victories possible!

That’s fine, I have no interest in kids, pets (or men) ... you can have them all to yourself, you sicko.

You contradict yourself: Sic mulcet, fondit!  If it moves, fondle it!. 

You just made a blanket pro-homosexuality statement which could certainly be interpreted as pro-pedophilia (do children not move also?).  How exactly did I misinterpret you?  Given the fact that I didn’t, your insult was unwarranted, not to mention childish. 

An aversion to male homosexuality is almost ubiquitous among heterosexual males, Christian and non-Christians alike.  (I myself am not Christian).  We could argue about whether this aversion is hard-wired (I think it is) but it is clearly rational, as homosexuality is unquestionably a social negative.

LindsayWheeler:

I don’t object to Spartan slavery on moral grounds, that not being my ‘thing’. I am against a selective application of moral universalist criteria, thats why I bring this up. You don’t have to be moral in my book, but insofar as you are moral, you have to be consistant.

For example, you talk about Nazi occupation. If slavery is OK for Spartans to use against Helots, whats wrong with the Nazi’s invading and running your country?

You’re an advocat of moral universalism when your own people needs succor from Western powers, but when your ancestors enslaved an entire people, it is OK because its just an ‘institution’, and a completely necessary one: and it’s OK to glorify them, even to hyperbolically idealize them.

Please don’t fool yourself, the Spartans and the Nazis were very similar, in some ways deliberately so because the Prussian’s emulated the Spartans. The only difference was that in one scenario you were doing the ass-kicking, in the other you were getting your ass-kicked. This, and no moral principles of yours, determines your interpretation of events.

That is why you just lamented the harsh treatment of your Aunt and advocated slavery within the space of a few paragraphs. You have no moral principle on this particular issue and you are being steered entirely by ethnic interests.

I just don’t like two-facedness.

Yes, you right on that Fred.

Furthermore PF, the Spartans lasted 1000 years on their land unmolested.  The Nazi reign lasted 12 years and ended in bloodshed and destruction.

The proof is in the pudding.

WLindsayWheeler:

Nazis were egalitarians who hated aristocracy and royalty!  The Spartans were hierarchical who had and maintained and treasured their aristocracy and Royalty!  Big Difference

You have things ass-backwards there, I’m afraid. Both peoples had egalitarian tendencies and aristocratic tendencies, but behind the Prussian military movement was the whole Junker aristocracy/Prussian Officer system which was actually the most feudalistic in Europe, and they retained effective power after their nominal deposition in WWI. Have you ever seen the picture of Hitler kneeling before Von Hindenburg- it has more than merely symbolic meaning.

The Spartans, when they are mentioned in Ancient sources, are almost always mentioned in light of their egalitarian, communitarian practices- let me paraphrase Plutarch, ‘all Spartans eat the same black broth out of the same wooden bowls and share the same table, this prevents them from becoming corrupted.’

The Spartans were arch Conservatives and Arch Traditionalists.

These are words that correspond to concepts you regard as ‘good’, but which must have meant totally different things to the people living then. The Spartan Mind is something little known, because so little writing exists about them, virtually none of which comes from Spartan authors themselves- do you think you have summarized the Spartan mentality with these two words?

The Nazis were Neither. The Nazis were progressive and psuedo-conservatives.

The Asian societies you deplore are often very traditional and arch-conservative, are they therefore good? The Turks are pretty conservative, generally speaking, arent they?

The Spartans were PIOUS, the Nazis were really atheists and agnostics who played at paganism.

<blockqoute>The Spartans were admired by All.  The Nazis aren’t admired by practically anybody.</blockquote>

Both of these above statements are more about PR or cultivating a certain image than you may realize. This explains itself in regards to the latter quote, in regards to the former, we only have the pro-Spartan literature of neighboring peoples, but nothing from Sparta itself. So of course they can be viewed as pious, having the benefit of thousands of years of historical distance and historical amnesia due to the lack of textual evidence. They could really be whatever you want them to be, actually. All we concretely know is a few details of their laws and customs, a list of kings and battles, and the fact that they were awesome fighters. Attribute whatever good qualities you want to them, no one will be able to say otherwise.

Furthermore PF, the Spartans lasted 1000 years on their land unmolested.  The Nazi reign lasted 12 years and ended in bloodshed and destruction.

So let me get this straight- if the Nazi’s had been sufficiently religious and conservative like the Spartans were, and if they were admired by all, they would have the right to enslave you like the Spartans enslaved the Helots? It’s just a matter of being enough like the Spartans, and then one gets license to enslave? As far as the proof being in the pudding, does that mean that if the Nazi’s had succeeded in overrunning and conquering Greece, and not been defeated by the Allies, then you would agree to be enslaved by them? The proof very nearly was in the pudding, Lindsay.

I just want it to be clear to the other members of the forum how this person is playing upon Anglo-Saxon moral universali