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Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

smithsonianmag.com

131–135 of 135 posts

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who else do you think has more accurate and objective accounts of ancient history than ancient historians? Modern historians who've synthesised the work of ancient historians and figured out, insofar as possible, what actually happened. Like, the sources are generally _contradictory_, and contain things which cannot possibly be true, and often supernatural elements. > You really think that an internet rant is a bet…

That blog post is not scholarly work. It's one guy's opinion - rather, one guy's internet rant . Rants are no good sources of information and I wish I didn't have to explain why, but they are primarily aimed at emotions rather than the intellect. If you want to read modern analysis, then read scholarly works, not blog posts on the internet. And it doesn't matter who the author is, a rant on the internets is a rant on…

> That blog post is not scholarly work. It's one guy's opinion - rather, one guy's internet rant.

Sure, something is coming off as an internet rant here. To most of us, tohugh, it's not that blog post.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you link is the worst kind of telling of history: overflowing with bias, preaching and pontificating and making moral judgments left and right about things that happenned more than 2000 years ago. It is an internet rant, designed to provoke clicks and outrage, and its only reason of existence is the existence of the film, 300, a fantasy, that presents a fantastical image of Sparta, that the author then pr…

In the end, you're downvoting me for calling out an angry rant on the internets as an angry rant on the internets and for calling out your intellectual laziness that accepts to get its knowledge second- and third-hand, from angry rants on the internets, as intellectually lazy. This is the internets. A toxic shithole full of intellectually lazy and wilfully ignorant people who don't want to know, don't want to learn,…

> This is the internets. A toxic shithole full of intellectually lazy and wilfully ignorant people who don't want to know, don't want to learn, don't want to read and study, just want to be entertained and outraged and cancel each other out. Like a good, old, Roman mob.

You're coming out of this looking as nothing so much as a prime example of exactly what you complain about.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I'm of the opinion that this "do your own research" is generally bad advice. I never used the words "do your own research" and I will very please ask you to not quote me as saying words I didn't actually say. Further, "do your own research" is what conspiracy theorists say. Are you saying that my advice to read Herodotus and Thucydides is on the same level as spreading anti-vaxx propaganda or 5g-conspiracy theorie…

>> I'm of the opinion that this "do your own research" is generally bad advice. > I never used the words "do your own research" and I will very please ask you to not quote me as saying words I didn't actually say. Here, let me remind you: >>> Read history; and make up your own mind. Wow, huuuge difference. > Further, "do your own research" is what conspiracy theorists say. Exactly. And if you want to be taken for som…

Oops. Either add or remove a "don't" there, to make it make sense.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#134
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willingness to have sex with another male is not being "gay". Attitudes towards gender and sex are not just a new thing, many cultures, historically, have had far more fluid concepts of these things.

Willingness to have sex with another male is literally the definition of homosexuality. What are you talking about?

"Willingness to have sex with another male" does not preclude willingness to have sex with a female and therefore is not the definition of homosexuality.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#135
post #15

I was surprised to learn spartan society had pedophilia built in similar to a mentor system. Will Durant wrote about it, but I never hear anything in pop culture except the warrior bit.

I loved Durant. Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine. You won't regret it.

Checking it out from the library, many thanks for the rec.
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