holy fucking god above, your writing is pure delight.
That said, this is basically Brazil (except for the military part): "the education was bad, the slaving was bad, he elite class was bad, the class structure was overall bad, the military is was not bad, but not great either, other things were bad, like the inflexible political system and the unforgiving laws on who gets to be a citizen."
Ha thank you! As for the comparison with Brazil, surely there's a difference of degree? Sparta was actively bad in all of those, like much worse than the median country, whereas I assume Brazil is/was probably much closer to being an ordinary country? But I'll admit I don't know very much about Brazil!
But, of all days, today we're specially proud of our politics — a failed coup is being investigated and an entire meeting with former president planning the coup was recorded and made public. We are (sorry, were) a joke.
There is one way in which north Korea is definitely not Sparta, which coincidentally is the exact blindspot of Devereau's indictment: North Korea hasn't been (and isn't on a way to become) a regional hegemony for the last few centuries. Which begs the question, if their political system was so shit, if their military was, in fact, not even good (which, apparently, is measured by military historians by counting recorded battle victories and defeat. That reinforce my confidence in "roman statue pp" twitter accounts, since they share a similar methodology), and their economy so inefficient, *how* did they become or remained the top dog for so long?
It's unfortunate such a discrepancy between the analysis and the most well known and documented fact known on the subject pop up in Brett's work, because it raises the question of what is he not saying, or what is he wrong about. Or, worse, what is he dishonest about.
Wait, you seem to assume that Sparta has been the top regional power for centuries. Depending on definitions, I don't think that's true? They won the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC and dominated Greece for a few decades thereafter (until the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, which they decisively lost), but other than that, I don't think their control ever reached much further than the Peloponnese, which is pretty small. And after Leuctra they were in nonstop decline.
I believe Devereaux's point on the military isn't that Sparta was "shit", but rather that it was more ordinary than popular imagination has it. He does recognize that Sparta was especially good at certain things, like hoplite battles. (And bad at others, like naval power and diplomacy.)
More generally, it seems plausible that early Sparta set up a political, social, and military system that had some genuine advantages, and prospered under that system for a while; but over the long term the system got in Sparta's way because it wasn't adaptable enough. I think this is actually a valid comparison point with North Korea and other communist countries, too — at first central planning seems to make sense, standards of living rise, industry grows; but it never leads to long term prosperity. North Korea was a better place to live in than non-communist, authoritarian South Korea in the 1950s. Over time the trend has spectacularly reversed.
They were the dominating power of the peloponnese for almost 2 centuries. And yeah, it's a small region, but clearly none of it's predecessors, challengers or successors from a similar culturel framework did better on reach and longevity. If Sparta was bad, then the rest of the Hellenes were no better.
As for north Korea's long term prospects, I don't know. They are indeed much poorer than south Korea, and their culture have nearly 0 reach while the south is influencing the hip youth everywhere. Still... Current trends give us a south Korean population declining and aging faster then bloodshed could cull the Spartans, and while I don't trust Nork statistics, I have little doubt they're in a better, if poorer, shape. Longtermism is a double-edged sword, sometimes.
I mean Athens clearly did better than Sparta on reach and longevity — it's about as old, probably, but remained relevant far longer (under the Romans etc.) and in fact is still moderately relevant as a city. Militarily, it was probably roughly matched with Sparta (being better at naval power and diplomatic strategy, among other things). And its cultural influence (in philosophy, theater, architecture etc.) is considered one of the foundations of Western civilization. Do you dispute any of that?
Self-perpetuation is certainly an achievement of Sparta (and North Korea, so far), as both I and Devereaux pointed out. But I'd argue that's not necessarily an admirable historical achievement. It's more like the bare minimum to be historically relevant. (True, if South Korea fails at this bare minimum due to its low fertility, historians of the future might consider it far less admirable than it seems today.) And if self-perpetuation means perpetuating a terrible, totalitarian, violent society, we might even conclude that it's the opposite of an achievement.
holy fucking god above, your writing is pure delight.
That said, this is basically Brazil (except for the military part): "the education was bad, the slaving was bad, he elite class was bad, the class structure was overall bad, the military is was not bad, but not great either, other things were bad, like the inflexible political system and the unforgiving laws on who gets to be a citizen."
Ha thank you! As for the comparison with Brazil, surely there's a difference of degree? Sparta was actively bad in all of those, like much worse than the median country, whereas I assume Brazil is/was probably much closer to being an ordinary country? But I'll admit I don't know very much about Brazil!
It's a joke :)
But, of all days, today we're specially proud of our politics — a failed coup is being investigated and an entire meeting with former president planning the coup was recorded and made public. We are (sorry, were) a joke.
There is one way in which north Korea is definitely not Sparta, which coincidentally is the exact blindspot of Devereau's indictment: North Korea hasn't been (and isn't on a way to become) a regional hegemony for the last few centuries. Which begs the question, if their political system was so shit, if their military was, in fact, not even good (which, apparently, is measured by military historians by counting recorded battle victories and defeat. That reinforce my confidence in "roman statue pp" twitter accounts, since they share a similar methodology), and their economy so inefficient, *how* did they become or remained the top dog for so long?
It's unfortunate such a discrepancy between the analysis and the most well known and documented fact known on the subject pop up in Brett's work, because it raises the question of what is he not saying, or what is he wrong about. Or, worse, what is he dishonest about.
Wait, you seem to assume that Sparta has been the top regional power for centuries. Depending on definitions, I don't think that's true? They won the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC and dominated Greece for a few decades thereafter (until the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, which they decisively lost), but other than that, I don't think their control ever reached much further than the Peloponnese, which is pretty small. And after Leuctra they were in nonstop decline.
I believe Devereaux's point on the military isn't that Sparta was "shit", but rather that it was more ordinary than popular imagination has it. He does recognize that Sparta was especially good at certain things, like hoplite battles. (And bad at others, like naval power and diplomacy.)
More generally, it seems plausible that early Sparta set up a political, social, and military system that had some genuine advantages, and prospered under that system for a while; but over the long term the system got in Sparta's way because it wasn't adaptable enough. I think this is actually a valid comparison point with North Korea and other communist countries, too — at first central planning seems to make sense, standards of living rise, industry grows; but it never leads to long term prosperity. North Korea was a better place to live in than non-communist, authoritarian South Korea in the 1950s. Over time the trend has spectacularly reversed.
They were the dominating power of the peloponnese for almost 2 centuries. And yeah, it's a small region, but clearly none of it's predecessors, challengers or successors from a similar culturel framework did better on reach and longevity. If Sparta was bad, then the rest of the Hellenes were no better.
As for north Korea's long term prospects, I don't know. They are indeed much poorer than south Korea, and their culture have nearly 0 reach while the south is influencing the hip youth everywhere. Still... Current trends give us a south Korean population declining and aging faster then bloodshed could cull the Spartans, and while I don't trust Nork statistics, I have little doubt they're in a better, if poorer, shape. Longtermism is a double-edged sword, sometimes.
I mean Athens clearly did better than Sparta on reach and longevity — it's about as old, probably, but remained relevant far longer (under the Romans etc.) and in fact is still moderately relevant as a city. Militarily, it was probably roughly matched with Sparta (being better at naval power and diplomatic strategy, among other things). And its cultural influence (in philosophy, theater, architecture etc.) is considered one of the foundations of Western civilization. Do you dispute any of that?
Self-perpetuation is certainly an achievement of Sparta (and North Korea, so far), as both I and Devereaux pointed out. But I'd argue that's not necessarily an admirable historical achievement. It's more like the bare minimum to be historically relevant. (True, if South Korea fails at this bare minimum due to its low fertility, historians of the future might consider it far less admirable than it seems today.) And if self-perpetuation means perpetuating a terrible, totalitarian, violent society, we might even conclude that it's the opposite of an achievement.