What are some prevailing myths that just make you mad Veeky Forums?

What are some prevailing myths that just make you mad Veeky Forums?

Mine might be the whole Spartan myth. This whole myth that Spartans were a martial society geared at creating elite soldiers.

In reality the Spartans did receive some martial training, in the form of practicing basic military formations and having the ability to maintain a cohesive formation, and that was good enough in the context of Classical Greece which the other Greeks were amateurs when it came to warfare and were untrained ad hoc militias.

Towards the end of the Classical period in Greece the Spartans lost their edge since the other Greek City states started to have something resembling a military. Ariostle sums it up very nicely.

>And we know of the Lakonians(Spartans) that while they persisted by themselves in their hard exercises they surpassed all others, but now they are left behind by the rest both in gymnastic and in military contests; for they used to stand out, not because they exercised their young men like this, but only because they trained, and others did not.

Aristotle, Politics 1338b

So in the context of their culture, yes, they were special because they had something resembling a military force out of a bunch of amateurs but in the grand scheme of things they weren't anything special and their martial prowess is very exaggerated.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megalopolis
youtube.com/watch?v=hMQmU0epVr4&
youtube.com/watch?v=aP-ipqWEAAE&
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

The Holocaust.

Xenophon was an Athenian general who lived among the Spartans for much of his life. In his literary works he praises the Spartans for their political achievements and barely says anything on their military. The reason why we regard the Spartans as elite military men is because they made a myth for themselves that they and we bought into.

The Spartans were admired, not for being soldiers, but for being aristocrats. Basically every Spartan was rich landowner at the top of a social structure with a society of largely slaves under them and who worked for them. Basically everyone was jealous of the Spartans because all they had to do was go to war from time to time (which they weren't better at than anyone else, the people of Argos were viewed as the military badasses) and didn't have to farm or anything.

Also they had a cool political system with two kings and a council of elders which every thought was cool.

Really the only reason the myth started was because of Thermopylae which was the greatest piece of propaganda in history thanks to Herodotus. Basically what actually happened was the entire allied Greek army was by the Persians before turning tail and running. The Spartan king Leonidas then bravely decided to fight a delaying rear guard action (not fight to the death) with his brave band of 300 Spartans........................AND ELEVEN HUNDRED OTHERS. They then were outflanked, attacked from the rear, had their line of retreat cut off before they could flee, and were massacred. Because the Spartan king made the decision all the credit went to him for his "last stand" when he only intended to fight a rearguard action. Then Herodotus came into the picture and wrote about how he could remember all the names of the 300 Spartans and basically did some revisionism.

By the time the Macedonians and Romans came along, Sparta was a backward town that still had kings and was easily defeated and conquered.

That just because we have a general idea for something means that its eternal and unchanging.

yeah right op thats why they literally btfo'd every great empire that ever walked through the pelopenese

>athenians
>romans
>macedonians
>persians
>ottomans

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megalopolis

Also the Spartans fought against the Greeks after accepting Persian Sheckles

And yet, how can you trust Aristotle's words when he himself was very biased?

/thread

That Romans weren't black

LOOK AT THEY SKIN MAN THEY WAS BLACK!

Doz nigga chose a BLACK stone fo a rezun!

You whiteys wuz in cavez till we taught you everythang! Then you STOLE it all from our brains, forevaz.

the funniest part is that it's mostly aryaniggers bringing up "pale blue-eyed" statues as proof that various Middle Eastern people were "white"

Intentionally painting and recording people as blue eyed and blonde/red haired > Aged and discoloured paint or dark coloured stone

>the people of Argos were viewed as the military badasses
So you mean Argonians?

the point of the statues is that they used alabaster and lapis lazuli

>And we know of the chickens that while they were plucked of feathers they surpassed all other birds in humanness, but now they are left behind; for they used to stand out, not because they exercised their young men like this, but only because their feathers were plucked while others were not
>t. aristotle

>Treaty of Versailles was harsh

Because by the end of the classical period Sparta starts losing pitched battles. By the Hellenic era Sparta military record is mixed. Aristotle notes that other city states start doing something the Spartans did, give their hoplites military training. So while the Spartans use to give their hoplites some amount of training the other city states did not provide any training, they were basically untrained. So he makes not that the Spartans had the edge in the past not because they had hardcore training like they insisted but because they had some training rather than none.

Argives, sadly

The reason that the Spartans are the ones we remember at Thermopylae was because the reputation for being the greatest warriors among the Greeks existed before Herodotus.

This, it wasn’t harsh enough.

09/11

>communism and socialism killed over 100 million people

They can't be manly, they were dickless in Daggerfall

Well yeah, they are all lusty maids.

Wunderwaffe wanking mostly, including Tigers, Panthers, experimental aviation trash.
Also the meme that Germans weren't pants on head for most things in WW2 in general.

Gets me everytime.

The meme that everyone thought the earth was flat until Columbus

>prevailing myths
The historical Socrates. Fedora tippers who refused to believe in a historical Joshua bar Jospeh still cling to a character invented by Plato.

The training was still pretty hardcore. How many city states made their soldiers murder and get away with it? How many city states take their toddlers and beat them into soldiers as soon as they can hold a spear? Sure that meant less than the superior formations their enemies would beat them with, but individually they were still abused, stoic baddasses

>Hitler was an evil man who tried to kill all the Jews

Horrible fucking thread.

Sage.

Why

>"I'm a contrarian and thus right", the thread.
Horrible.

Thats not even true though. Spartans youths didn't even learn much combat or training until they were young adults. They mostly learned etiquette and poetry early in their life. The helot slave killing was only done by spartan social elites and was for controlling the slave populace, not military training. Not to mention the Spartan army was verifiably average during the Hellenic period.

>athenians dominated them later in history
>romans never lost to them
>macedonians literally BTFO the spartans
>spartans literally allied with the persians
>basically a small farming settlement with absolutely no political or military significance by the time the ottomans came around.

socrates didn't claim to beat death and ressurect

>basically a small farming settlement with absolutely no political or military significance by the time the ottomans came around.
Same with the Romans, in fact the Romans re-instituted the agoge because they wanted a living museum.

i have a felling that 40% of Veeky Forums threads became
>well they weren't thaaat great

You just laid facts on those lefties EPIC style!

>frog-feels pseudocreativity complex didn't kill Veeky Forums
>reddit is just a boogeyman

>Nationalist China put more effort into fighting the commies than fighting the Japs during WW2

less talked about topic but it drives me up the wall

It's worth expanding this and adding the belief that the Greek Hoplite during the Classical period was a highly trained warrior who revolutionized warfare and paved way to the Western way of warfare.
It's actually the opposite as Ariostotle noted here that in the past the Greek City States were bested by the Spartans because they had some training rather than having none.

Indeed the sources explicitly tell us the Ancient Greece did not train their hoplites for war. Xenophon makes mention of this as he writes
>“I tell you, just because the state does not publicly train for war, you must not cultivate it any less yourself". Xenophon, Mem . 3.12.5

There's also sources which shows us the Ancient Greeks had disdain for militray training. Some even mocking those that taught hoplite training. The Anceint Greeks placed valor above martial skill. Even the Spartans didn't have much martial training, they themselves never practiced weapons training. What was in place was instead gymnastic exercises but it might be more to the point in that the Ancient Greeks valued good fitness rather than any martial application.

The Greek Hoplite than isn't this highly drilled soldier but an untrained amateur. And the Hoplite did not revolution warfare since heavy infantry was common in the Mediterranean such as the Assyrians and Egyptians. When the Persians invade Greece the Greeks note that many of their soldiers are similarly armed. Even the Persian immortals wore armor made up of iron scales.

>macedonians
>romans
>not being relevant enough to warrant the attention of other polities means they got btfo

>ottomans
kek

My pet theory was that Socrates was locally famous for being a massive autiste, so Plato chose him for his "wise and questioning fool" character as a bit of irony that's been lost to us.

What would that make Diogenes? Also, how would Aristophanes's portrayal of him in the Symposium fit into that?

Sparta was a martial society, you're being ignorant here

Diogenes was an Athenian Sam Hyde
I don't have a flip answer for the other one so I'm just gonna say I was probably wrong.

Academia on Sparta has had a big shift in these past years. Most of what is thought to be common knowledge on Sparta is pretty much obsolete today.

youtube.com/watch?v=hMQmU0epVr4&
youtube.com/watch?v=aP-ipqWEAAE&

This excellent video by Invicta, done in collaboration with an actual historian, presents us with the most up to date academia on the Spartans.

Actually from what my history professor says, it's very likely that the Spartans we're actually quite good warriors if for no other reason than because they needed to be. They were outnumbered by the neighboring people they enslaved, the Helots, around 10 to 1 and so to maintain military control over domestic peoples, they required military strength.

Additionally, the primary reason for their shortcomings was due to their refusal to accept and utilize currency and develop a strong economy. In early Greece, all Greeks were relatively poor compared to neighboring nations and in this environment, the Spartan system did just fine. But as soon as empires grew from the colonization of Sicily and the like, it couldn't sustain itself.

I do agree with most of the other components of the myth being BS though. Spartan society was most definitely not founded in 800 BC by Lycurgus, and more than likely came to full development around 530 BC just prior to the formation of the Peloponnesian League in 520. And I'm not saying that they were as godlike as their myth makes them to be--much like Athenians weren't born from the soil of Attica--but they most certainly would have required an above average focus on military to maintain control over domestic peoples so effectively.

Source: Dr. Greg Anderson of the Ohio State History Department.

Yeah, yeah, they’re all Byronic heroes. That doesn’t mean anything when niggas roll up wit da sarissa

Or a massive retard. Kinda like the pet nerd in high school everyone would be nice to as a joke.

That the SS were the elite of the German military. They were almost completely a reserve force till the end of the war and then they were filled with 16 year old kids who had never ween combat before.

Oh, and SA being synonymous with Waffen SS, which was a fraction of the paramilitary force.

Sersiously. My grandpa told me about what a bunch of pussys the Waffen SS were. Sure they had the fancy equipment, but as soon as push came to shove they were the first to run. Of course only until they were transfered back to France.