[lit-ideas] A response to a hypothetical JL about Spartans
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:15:40 -0800
As I was downstairs fixing my second cup of espresso, I thought of JL and
thought he might think I had severely oversimplified the Spartan hoplite
experience in my previous note; so I decided to rush into print to forestall
his objections - if perchance he is out by his pool and not all ready
writing his response.
Oh wait! I have nothing to worry about. The Lit-Ideas autocratic censors
will keep his notes for several hours while they count them, one, two,
three, etc., and they are very slow counters. I forgot about that. Oh
well. Since I've begun I may as well go ahead.
JL knows it wasn't just the communal living that turned young men into
fighting Spartan-hoplites. As very young teenagers they were assigned
tutors who taught them how to be hoplites. One tutor to one young
teenager. If the teenager misbehaved or fell short of the ideal, the tutor
would be punished. JL knows that the relationship between the tutor and
teenager was often homosexual and the Spartans didn't discourage that. I
must be quick to respond to that anticipated JL observation and assert that
this was not part of Marine Corps training. Whether it is in Gurkha or
French Foreign Legion training I don't know.
Some of the peculiarities of Spartan training were due to its being a
slave-owning society. A relatively small number of Spartans controlled a
large number of slaves. No Spartan had to work because the slaves did that
for them. They could spend all their time training, and this training
wasn't just to fight neighboring city states. Sparta was paranoid about
slave revolts. Perhaps the main reason they trained so hard was because of
the need to keep the slaves subdued. Even if it wasn't the main reason, it
was an important reason and kept the Spartans at it more assiduously than
the Athenians. But the Athenians grew at a much more rapid rate than
Sparta. It went out trading with the world while the Spartans stayed near
Sparta lest if they got too far away the slaves revolt.
In the West a father, at least fathers of old, would teach their sons how to
be men. In America this was close enough to the teachings young Spartan men
received to equip them to be good soldiers. But a modern father, one who
is soft through a devotion to luxury, won't be teaching his son how to be a
man - at least not the sort of man to make a Spartan hoplite or a Marine.
And if the U.S. should ever draft young men willy-nilly thinking they are
all equal then there were be more horror stories of former soldiers who can
no longer "cope." The fighting experience will be a shock to their
sissified training - that is training to be a wimp and a sissy rather than a
fighting man. Many a Hollywood movie would lead the viewer to believe
that every soldier will be forever damaged as a result of fighting in a war.
That just isn't true. Only those who are raised to resist being fighting
men will be damaged - and perhaps not all of them because I've observed that
pacifists can be as verbally violent as the most violent of people; so their
pacifism may only be skin deep and easily removed with a good dose of basic
training - not Marine Corps boot camp, God forbid. Let them be drafted by
the Army. Keep the Marine Corps a force for only those who want to join.
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
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