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I've heard this before. TBF, there is a lot of idealistic portrayals of Greek society and philosophers in western media, and Egypt and Persian peoples are usual

I've heard this before. TBF, there is a lot of idealistic portrayals of Greek society and philosophers in western media, and Egypt and Persian peoples are usually the bad guys. Whether you believe that is a deep set prejudice and active discrimination campaign or a natural tendency re the history of one's continent is up to you.

kardianos 5y ago
> I've heard this before. TBF, there is a lot of idealistic portrayals of Greek society and philosophers in western media, and Egypt and Persian peoples are usually the bad guys. Sometimes nations (Greek, Roman, Persian, etc...) killed and pillaged and from the perspective of someone writing what is now histories, yes, those people doing the killing would be termed "bad guys". > Whether you believe that is a deep set prejudice and active discrimination campaign or a natural tendency re the history of one's continent is up to you. You can actually measure sentiment to some degree. It sounds like you are trying to mind read. Don't do that.
ch4s3 5y ago
Pre-Islamic Persia barely appears at all in Western media outside of stories about Alexander the Great, the 300 narrative, some random Biblical stuff where Cyrus the Great does a cameo, and I guess the Prince of Persia video games. The only consistent negative portrayal seems to be around the 300, which while a-historic in its telling is just kind of a lazy trope.
- readthenotes1 5y ago
  That is a late 20th century phenomenon. If you go back into the 1800s and earlier, it was pretty common for a college kids to spend a lot of time learning to translate ancient Greek texts. 2 interesting and good reads are the cyropedia and the anabasis, both by xenophon, and neither portraying the Persians in a negative light.
- pm90 5y ago
  > Pre-Islamic Persia barely appears at all in Western media Wait, you’re talking about Hollywood/ PostWW2 Western media, right? Because if we look back at how Western historians generally framed the events of the eighteenth century onwards, its almost always been of eastern and oriental cultures as being savages and it was the “White Mans Burden” to bring them the light of civilization.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    I was responding to a comment about Western media. Which is a 20th century affair. I also think 18th and 19th century we working from a much more limited set of historical information. Persepolis was first excavated in the 1930s. Old Persian Cuneiform wasn't fully deciphered until around 1850 and was the basis for decipherment of other languages using cuneiform. It wasn't until then tat any primary historical texts could even be studied. Whereas Greek never disappeared and ancient greek was studied from the classical era onwards. A lot of what we knew about old Persia prior to the 1850s came from people like Xenophon who had a particular ax to grind in contemporary (to him) Greece and used Cyruus and Persia as stand in for ideas he wanted to compare and contrast with Athens and Sparta.
jvanderbot 5y ago
With no way to edit my comment to include the corrections below, I'll just state that my opinion has softened.

kardianos 5y ago

> I've heard this before. TBF, there is a lot of idealistic portrayals of Greek society and philosophers in western media, and Egypt and Persian peoples are usually the bad guys. Sometimes nations (Greek, Roman, Persian, etc...) killed and pillaged and from the perspective of someone writing what is now histories, yes, those people doing the killing would be termed "bad guys". > Whether you believe that is a deep set prejudice and active discrimination campaign or a natural tendency re the history of one's continent is up to you. You can actually measure sentiment to some degree. It sounds like you are trying to mind read. Don't do that.

ch4s3 5y ago

Pre-Islamic Persia barely appears at all in Western media outside of stories about Alexander the Great, the 300 narrative, some random Biblical stuff where Cyrus the Great does a cameo, and I guess the Prince of Persia video games. The only consistent negative portrayal seems to be around the 300, which while a-historic in its telling is just kind of a lazy trope.

readthenotes1 5y ago
That is a late 20th century phenomenon. If you go back into the 1800s and earlier, it was pretty common for a college kids to spend a lot of time learning to translate ancient Greek texts. 2 interesting and good reads are the cyropedia and the anabasis, both by xenophon, and neither portraying the Persians in a negative light.
pm90 5y ago
> Pre-Islamic Persia barely appears at all in Western media Wait, you’re talking about Hollywood/ PostWW2 Western media, right? Because if we look back at how Western historians generally framed the events of the eighteenth century onwards, its almost always been of eastern and oriental cultures as being savages and it was the “White Mans Burden” to bring them the light of civilization.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  I was responding to a comment about Western media. Which is a 20th century affair. I also think 18th and 19th century we working from a much more limited set of historical information. Persepolis was first excavated in the 1930s. Old Persian Cuneiform wasn't fully deciphered until around 1850 and was the basis for decipherment of other languages using cuneiform. It wasn't until then tat any primary historical texts could even be studied. Whereas Greek never disappeared and ancient greek was studied from the classical era onwards. A lot of what we knew about old Persia prior to the 1850s came from people like Xenophon who had a particular ax to grind in contemporary (to him) Greece and used Cyruus and Persia as stand in for ideas he wanted to compare and contrast with Athens and Sparta.

jvanderbot 5y ago

With no way to edit my comment to include the corrections below, I'll just state that my opinion has softened.