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All Those Naked Greeks
- galaxyLogic 3y ago> practice of regular nude exercise together in the gym enhanced group coherence among these men Makes sense, clothes and fashions separate us whereas nudity emphasizes our similarity. And when you are naked you can not hide weapons. You are what you are.
- zakki 3y agoWill be there a separation because of weapon?
- galaxyLogic 3y agoI'm just thinking about the egalitarian aspect. Maybe they fought each other in sports but with the same weapons. Not by the richest guy having the biggest weapons. That was the spirit I think. Incidentally naked sports seems to be and has been big in Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freik%C3%B6rperkultur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freik%C3%B6rperkultur https://chrisduggleby.com/archive/update-on-german-naked-winter-sports-event-safety-issues-due-to-popularity-of-nude-women-on-sledges-and-nipple-over-exposure/ https://chrisduggleby.com/archive/update-on-german-naked-win...
- AlpineG 3y agoGym(nasium) comes from greek word gymnos which translates to naked. Exercise was performed naked it seems.
- 9dev 3y agoI was immediately thinking there’s a reason we do exercises in special sports clothing, made from carefully chosen, light and breathable fabrics; something the ancient world hadn’t had access to. Instead, they would have to wear what I imagine to be heavy and inflexible pieces of cloth, which wouldn’t have been able to get rid of the sweat quickly. Considering that, I’m not surprised they would exercise naked instead.
- seydor 3y agosome of the explanations given sound quite fantastical, like those suntanned asses. Couldn't it just be that peopel were often naked because the greek summer is hot? People did not have swimming suits and one can easily suntan in a few days. nudity is not just a greek thing, it s natural in many tribes around the world. Some african tribes still perform their dances and fighting naked. There s a certain undertone in the article that men and women should be dressed for modesty reasons. While modesty and confinement at home was enforced on women, they all had probably seen various men naked
- jenadine 3y agoNudity is also common in countries such as Finland which has a strong sauna culture, where you find Sauna everywhere, including in the workplace. Also in the former East Germany, where FKK (naturism) was encouraged at the time
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cheese_van 3y ago>Also in the former East Germany, where FKK (naturism) was encouraged at the time Yes, in East Germany. There were political nuances to that. FKK very much proclaimed "we are free here in East Germany," much like the no speed limit in West Germany proclaimed, "We are free here too." Hard choice that, nude cavorting in nature or driving fast!
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoKraft durch Freude, for a dubious rabbit hole
- zerealshadowban 3y agoStrength Through Joy (KdF) was not the same as FKK. KdF was focused on the "beauty of labor", middle-class leisure, physical health, and (domestic) tourism.
- photochemsyn 3y agoLooking forward to the next Jordan Peterson lecture on how "the practice of regular nude exercise together in the gym enhanced group coherence among these men, extending bonds cemented in youth initiatory contexts forward throughout the lives of adult citizens." Clearly this is the origin story of idealistic Judeo-Christian manhood concepts, born from the crucible of Greco-Roman culture... People of the messianic bent always want to hold up the mythical perfect past, but when you dig into the details, it's always problematic... See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece
- sirspacey 3y agoTo quote TRON: Legacy “nailed it.”
- shakil 3y agoI'm no admirer of Jordan Peterson, but we don't have to speculate what the religious reaction to this nudity would have been. The Jews were there among the Greeks when all this was happening, and they didn't like it at all [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_nudity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_nudity
- jmopp 3y agoOne thing to also note is that the Jews would very much have stood out from pagan Greeks were they to run around naked, due to being circumcised.
- watwut 3y agoYeah, but Peterson is all about speculating and not about historical research. If you are interested in facts, you don't turn to people like him.
- resolutebat 3y agoThe article is quite clear that "vast swaths of people who lived in an ancient Greek city – women, local residents who were not born in Greece, foreigners, and poor men – were largely excluded from athletics".
- _ZeD_ 3y agothe real question is "why are you not naked?"
- readthenotes1 3y agoBecause the world is cruel to the unprotected
- irrational 3y agoIt’s cold.
- seba_dos1 3y agoWho said I'm not?
- seydor 3y agoBecause big tech has defunded nudity, even in statues
- nobodyandproud 3y agoTo spare my kids from a seared image of someone who doesn’t measure up to the Greek physical ideal.
- nologic01 3y agoA potentially insightful line of inquiry that the article does not explore is how and when did the practice of living (or pretending to live) nude end. Its pretty clear that the spread of Christianity had dramatic cultural implications way beyond purely metaphysical and religious aspects. A very large package of customs, morals and behaviors (including any hint of nudity) got summarily junked. But there is already the intermediate Roman period where it seems to be less significant. Maybe Roman authors offer some clues.
- jeroenhd 3y agoFrom what I remember from my classics classes, the Romans weren't all that into running around named as much as the Greeks were, even before Christianity came around. Many Romans revered parts of Greek culture (for a long time Greek was the language of scholars and the elite, which is pretty funny considering that Latin later fulfilled that same role hundreds of years later). Statues and other art were often inspired by Greek masters as well, with references to older Greek art all throughout Roman art. It's not too dissimilar to the artists of the renaissance rediscovering putting their works full of references to Roman and Greek antiquity. However, when it came to the ideals of clothing. The statues and other art works still contained plenty of visible skin, both a Greek influence and proof of a masterful artist, but the romans themselves were often prudes. There was some public nudity, for example in the baths, but day to day work involved wearing tunics (and sometimes togas,which were status symbols). Defeated tribes and slaves were dressed down to humiliate them. Somewhere in time the Greek beliefs and practices fell out of fashion, with the social status as a major driver for change. When you walk around in a robe to announce you're a citizen (most weren't), it's easy to associate those without clothes with lack of status.
- nologic01 3y ago> Somewhere in time the Greek beliefs and practices fell out of fashion It is interesting that successor cultures tried to pick and chose elements (for example Byzantines reviving philosophical systems and academies) but in the end it did not stick. While you would think that scientific or artistic concepts like theater are not a take-it-or-leave-it package with e.g. specific customs around nudity or gender roles, in practice social evolution doesnt work like that...
- Ekaros 3y agoOften the clothing was pretty impractical too. Not Greek, but Roman the Toga prevented from most activity. Semi-circular piece of cloth you wrap around yourself and you hold in place with your other hand. And the common clothing like tunics also likely limited the movements to some extend and could be hard to keep on during being active.
- asimpletune 3y agoFWIW, competing in sports naked was more of a Spartan thing that spread in popularity. Thucydides said that the Olympics used to be actually clothed (like sometime before 450 BC I mean), and that the Ionian style was more luxurious, with a gold thread that was fashionable to tie men’s hair.
- thw3242343fasd 3y ago> Greeks saw the uncontrolled, erect phallus as a source of fearsome power. Reminds me of Shiva in India, which is not surprising since the classical world had much in common: they shared gods and stories freely without the curse of religion. That said it has always been quite amusing to see the obsession of the West to appropriate the classical Greco-Roman-Egyptian culture as if it were some sort of proto-Western entity. It quite obviously is not, except for anything other than PR purposes. The obsession in history writing has led to a state where everything good across the old world has been attributed to the Greeks (or at best to the Arabs cf. history of math) to the point that 'serious' people are trying today to gently move Buddha into being 'Greek' or at least 'Persian'. Indeed, like Jesus, Buddha can't not be white, and can't not be proto-Christian. Irony being that Christianity itself (like Islam) was so terrifyingly destructive that it literally wiped everything but the trace of that culture; Europe continues with this genocidal mania to this day (see all of USs wars). The only reason the Greeks are heroized today is because of their race, and because they were the only people still in Christendom at the dawn of renaissance (Persians were called whiter by the Greeks). Philosophy-wise and technology-wise, both the Indians and the Egyptians were superior in any case, and the crown-jewel of non-dualism is in (albeit waning) practice today, both in India and across Asia. Hell even the crown jewel of Geometry, that of Euclid, was found in Egypt, and the 'real' trigonometry only starts in India, yet both of them have been turned 'Greek' (aka white). The schema of racial obsession in history, and its continued application today, reminds us how hollow all this woke power-grab is.
- dudul 3y ago> Europe continues with this genocidal mania to this day (see all of USs wars). Damn Europeans and their US wars! This line made my day.
- troad 3y ago> The schema of racial obsession in history With respect, I don't think I've ever seen as much 'racialising' of history as you just wrote in your comment. Perhaps it may be worth reflecting on who has the 'racial obsession' here?
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- VoodooJuJu 3y ago[flagged]
- flangola7 3y agoWhy are you mad at historians? What issue do you take with that text?
- jaqalopes 3y agoOn the topic of the nude statues, I have no evidence for this idea, except: modern toy dolls are often "nude," with the idea children will put clothes on them. Is it possible that the Greeks put different clothes and decorations on their nude base statues, clothes which are now gone, evanescent as the paint that once adorned the marble statues as well?
- cynicalsecurity 3y agoNope.
- jareklupinski 3y agoi wonder if some future civilization will find the clothing store mannequins we throw away today and wonder if that was the best we could do now I'm wondering if David was actually made to stand outside a tunic store, but Michelangelo just got carried away with the simple commission, and the rest of the story about the cathedral was made up
- fouc 3y agoNudity amongst men was kinda common in swimming pools up til the 1970s. http://treyspeegle.com/010113/2021/1/24/for-50-years-the-ymca-amp-most-schools-required-males-to-swim-naked http://treyspeegle.com/010113/2021/1/24/for-50-years-the-ymc...
- cheese_van 3y agoDuring my freshman year in North Chicago we swam nude. That was 1970. There was no controversy among the students about it, and I don't recall any adult discussion about propriety. There was a very large concentration of military dependents at the school, and I was one, and military disregard for personal preferences about nudity was considered normal and expected. Nude swimming perhaps got us ready for that experience? The effect of diminishing body shame was probably beneficial as well. Eh, I escaped high school unscathed and I suppose brought away that nudity and sexuality were two very different things.
- mofsux-daxCyc 3y agoPosting under a throw-away account: In terms of the Greeks fighting with their genitals exposed, I think the descriptions of the Philistines in the Bible is interesting. Many scholars think the Philistines were Greeks who migrated to the Eastern Mediterranean during the great Bronze Age collapse. There are some parallels between Goliath and his armor and his mode of battle challenge to single combat and the Iliad. In terms of nudity, what I find interesting is that when the Philistines are talked about in the Bible stories, the most common description is “uncircumcised”. That is normally not the first thing that comes to mind to describe a man, unless he is naked. Thus, the depictions of naked Greek warriors may actually reflect some actual truth beyond just an idealized representation. So, unlike the Michelangelo statue, when David and Goliath fought, it may have been Goliath who had his genitals exposed.
- Tagbert 3y agoThe Greek athletes were not completely naked. They typically wore twine on their foreskins to keep their phalluses from flopping around. This was nicknamed the “dog tie” - basically “leash”. It was only feasible if you were uncircumcised. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kynodesme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kynodesme
- ano-ther 3y agoCould the scene on the drinking cup be an allegory on the gymnasium? They are building bronze bodies and there are “tools athletes used to scrape oil, mud and sweat from their bodies following a workout”. They mount a new head on a statue, which could symbolize the beneficial effects of sports on the mind.