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If you’re interested in Prof. Devereux’s work on Ancient Greece you should check out this podcast he was on where he discussed his views on misperceptions of Sp

If you’re interested in Prof. Devereux’s work on Ancient Greece you should check out this podcast he was on where he discussed his views on misperceptions of Sparta https://youtu.be/VngbinpNGIE?feature=shared https://youtu.be/VngbinpNGIE?feature=shared

eru 2y ago
If you prefer the written word, see https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/
- asimpletune 2y ago
  Actually, I think it’s valuable to see him defend his views when pressed to do so. Of course you should read the article as well, but the interview is invaluable. His blog is shared on HN a lot, but this was the first time I ever saw the man himself asked to actually account for why he believes the evidence supports his conclusions. Also the article in question, from the interview, was this one https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/22/sparta-popular-culture-united-states-military-bad-history/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/22/sparta-popular-culture-... but they edited the title after he did that podcast. It used to be “Spartans Were Losers: The US Military’s Admiration of a Proto-Fascist City-State is Based on Bad History.”
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    When I grew up, during the Cold War, the US admired Athens, and ascribed admiration for Sparta to the Other side.
    - bell-cot 2y ago
      Given that Athens was (usually) democratic-ish, vs. Sparta was a militaristic monarchy, and the Soviet block was very heavily militarized during the Cold War... Not an expert, but my understanding is that Soviet education & propaganda idealized Sparta. Edit: I was unaware of the US military admiring Sparta...but developing an admiration for the ideals of your previous #1 Enemy, whose nation collapsed from within...yeahhh. Perhaps a few service academy instructors need to further explain "Do Not Copy Losing Strategies" to their Military Thinking 101 classes?
      - orthoxerox 2y ago
        > Not an expert, but my understanding is that Soviet education & propaganda idealized Sparta. Not really, the Spartakiad was named after Spartacus, not Sparta.
        bell-cot 2y ago
        (Yes, I know about the Spartacus thing. In the bigger picture - he is a great individual hero. Though having your military idealize somebody whose uprising was brutally crushed in just 2 years might fail to encourage a victory-oriented mindset.) From a few quick searches, I'm not getting anything about Soviet views on Sparta - just crap about the US-based "Sparta vs. Athens" Cold War analogy, or Soviet takes on (modern) Greek communism, or Eastern Orthodox ties between Greece and Russia, or Imperial Russian views on the Greek War of Independence, or ... This being HN - there is probably someone who either knows, or is fluent in Russian to be able to effectively search on the topic.
        082349872349872 2y ago
        FWIW, searching for Спарта or Лакедемoн on https://diafilmy.su https://diafilmy.su turns up nothing (albeit a couple of Spartacus filmstrips), while searching for Афины does turn up https://diafilmy.su/7799-afiny.html https://diafilmy.su/7799-afiny.html . (I had wondered why there was a "Star City" filmstrip included in the search results; it appears to be because of a cosmonaut using a Spartacus-named fitness machine: https://diafilmy.su/uploads/posts/2015-04/1429074979_08.jpg https://diafilmy.su/uploads/posts/2015-04/1429074979_08.jpg ) Someone with better cultural knowledge will do better than I, but I'm getting the feel that the closest approach to Sparta was that the Soviets didn't gender-separate their scouting programs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrS6z4tUtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrS6z4tUtI
      - eru 2y ago
        > Edit: I was unaware of the US military admiring Sparta...but developing an admiration for the ideals of your previous #1 Enemy, whose nation collapsed from within...yeahhh. Perhaps a few service academy instructors need to further explain "Do Not Copy Losing Strategies" to their Military Thinking 101 classes? The Soviet economic system is a sufficient explanation for their collapse. I don't think their admiration for (a made up, idealised) Sparta made a difference one way or another. And even if it did, we can't tell; no one ran a controlled experiment, and it's at most a very small factor. Compare: the Soviets also ate potatoes. But you'd be hard pressed to say that we should avoid eating potatoes.
globalnode 2y ago
got to 11:20 where he says if you think this is marine boot camp, it is not, the things being trained are fitness and conformity... and i couldnt help but burst out laughing... he may be a great historian but seems to lack an understanding of contemporary issues.
Wytwwww 2y ago
Probably not the nicest comment but that interviewer seems outright insufferable and heavily biased due to some reason. Basically questioning everything Devereux is saying without being able to form almost any coherent argument. IMHO that's really not how you should approach an interview with a highly educated/knowledgably professional as a lay person. Also focusing way too much on semantics and getting stuck in relatively minor details while mostly ignoring the bigger picture. Must have been pretty annoying for the interviewee to sit through...
navane 2y ago
Interviewer: "We have no data point supporting this view" Brad: "We have this one [name and number]" Interviewer: "But do we have any one but this one?" Brad gives two more Interviewer: "Ok, but that's just three data points."
rsynnott 2y ago
> He joins us on this episode of the Ancient Greece Declassified podcast to explain why he thinks that the traditional image of Sparta as an egalitarian society of warrior badasses is a lie. So I'm a bit confused, because, well, _is_ that the traditional image of them? Like, maybe if your only context on them is that one film, but even the traditional/old-fashioned _historical_ view of them wasn't _particularly_ complementary.
- asimpletune 2y ago
  I think that’s a really important question to start with, and further along that same point is what exactly is Devereux’s thesis throughout that interview.
hopw_roewur_ne 2y ago
I tried reading Devereux's blog posts on Sparta but bounced off of them. Watching this I remember why. He's punching so hard against a popular image of Sparta as invincible warriors that he sometimes starts painting his own opposite-world parody of Sparta. For example: After 19:40, not finding it enough to say that Thermopylae was maybe a one-off and that there are multiple examples of Sparta surrendering instead of fighting to the last man, he has to exaggerate: > Spartans surrender all the time. Still an informative interview, though.

eru 2y ago

If you prefer the written word, see https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/

asimpletune 2y ago
Actually, I think it’s valuable to see him defend his views when pressed to do so. Of course you should read the article as well, but the interview is invaluable. His blog is shared on HN a lot, but this was the first time I ever saw the man himself asked to actually account for why he believes the evidence supports his conclusions. Also the article in question, from the interview, was this one https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/22/sparta-popular-culture-united-states-military-bad-history/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/22/sparta-popular-culture-... but they edited the title after he did that podcast. It used to be “Spartans Were Losers: The US Military’s Admiration of a Proto-Fascist City-State is Based on Bad History.”
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  When I grew up, during the Cold War, the US admired Athens, and ascribed admiration for Sparta to the Other side.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    Given that Athens was (usually) democratic-ish, vs. Sparta was a militaristic monarchy, and the Soviet block was very heavily militarized during the Cold War... Not an expert, but my understanding is that Soviet education & propaganda idealized Sparta. Edit: I was unaware of the US military admiring Sparta...but developing an admiration for the ideals of your previous #1 Enemy, whose nation collapsed from within...yeahhh. Perhaps a few service academy instructors need to further explain "Do Not Copy Losing Strategies" to their Military Thinking 101 classes?
    - orthoxerox 2y ago
      > Not an expert, but my understanding is that Soviet education & propaganda idealized Sparta. Not really, the Spartakiad was named after Spartacus, not Sparta.
      - bell-cot 2y ago
        (Yes, I know about the Spartacus thing. In the bigger picture - he is a great individual hero. Though having your military idealize somebody whose uprising was brutally crushed in just 2 years might fail to encourage a victory-oriented mindset.) From a few quick searches, I'm not getting anything about Soviet views on Sparta - just crap about the US-based "Sparta vs. Athens" Cold War analogy, or Soviet takes on (modern) Greek communism, or Eastern Orthodox ties between Greece and Russia, or Imperial Russian views on the Greek War of Independence, or ... This being HN - there is probably someone who either knows, or is fluent in Russian to be able to effectively search on the topic.
        082349872349872 2y ago
        FWIW, searching for Спарта or Лакедемoн on https://diafilmy.su https://diafilmy.su turns up nothing (albeit a couple of Spartacus filmstrips), while searching for Афины does turn up https://diafilmy.su/7799-afiny.html https://diafilmy.su/7799-afiny.html . (I had wondered why there was a "Star City" filmstrip included in the search results; it appears to be because of a cosmonaut using a Spartacus-named fitness machine: https://diafilmy.su/uploads/posts/2015-04/1429074979_08.jpg https://diafilmy.su/uploads/posts/2015-04/1429074979_08.jpg ) Someone with better cultural knowledge will do better than I, but I'm getting the feel that the closest approach to Sparta was that the Soviets didn't gender-separate their scouting programs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrS6z4tUtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrS6z4tUtI
    - eru 2y ago
      > Edit: I was unaware of the US military admiring Sparta...but developing an admiration for the ideals of your previous #1 Enemy, whose nation collapsed from within...yeahhh. Perhaps a few service academy instructors need to further explain "Do Not Copy Losing Strategies" to their Military Thinking 101 classes? The Soviet economic system is a sufficient explanation for their collapse. I don't think their admiration for (a made up, idealised) Sparta made a difference one way or another. And even if it did, we can't tell; no one ran a controlled experiment, and it's at most a very small factor. Compare: the Soviets also ate potatoes. But you'd be hard pressed to say that we should avoid eating potatoes.

globalnode 2y ago

got to 11:20 where he says if you think this is marine boot camp, it is not, the things being trained are fitness and conformity... and i couldnt help but burst out laughing... he may be a great historian but seems to lack an understanding of contemporary issues.

Wytwwww 2y ago

Probably not the nicest comment but that interviewer seems outright insufferable and heavily biased due to some reason. Basically questioning everything Devereux is saying without being able to form almost any coherent argument. IMHO that's really not how you should approach an interview with a highly educated/knowledgably professional as a lay person. Also focusing way too much on semantics and getting stuck in relatively minor details while mostly ignoring the bigger picture. Must have been pretty annoying for the interviewee to sit through...

navane 2y ago

Interviewer: "We have no data point supporting this view" Brad: "We have this one [name and number]" Interviewer: "But do we have any one but this one?" Brad gives two more Interviewer: "Ok, but that's just three data points."

rsynnott 2y ago

> He joins us on this episode of the Ancient Greece Declassified podcast to explain why he thinks that the traditional image of Sparta as an egalitarian society of warrior badasses is a lie. So I'm a bit confused, because, well, _is_ that the traditional image of them? Like, maybe if your only context on them is that one film, but even the traditional/old-fashioned _historical_ view of them wasn't _particularly_ complementary.

asimpletune 2y ago
I think that’s a really important question to start with, and further along that same point is what exactly is Devereux’s thesis throughout that interview.

hopw_roewur_ne 2y ago

I tried reading Devereux's blog posts on Sparta but bounced off of them. Watching this I remember why. He's punching so hard against a popular image of Sparta as invincible warriors that he sometimes starts painting his own opposite-world parody of Sparta. For example: After 19:40, not finding it enough to say that Thermopylae was maybe a one-off and that there are multiple examples of Sparta surrendering instead of fighting to the last man, he has to exaggerate: > Spartans surrender all the time. Still an informative interview, though.