Controversial History Hot Takes

[XRay]

On 9/19/2021 at 9:42 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Part of the appeal of Sparta for CONFEDERATE TRAITORS living millennia afterwards I suppose is SLAVERY.

That is my hot take on Making Sparta Great Again. Nothing is manlier than threatening unarmed helots with the Second Amendment, make them work the fields, and do your laundry for free.

Anyways, I agree that Sparta is kind of cool in a vacuum, but there are cooler states in my opinion when looking at the bigger picture. If we are going to talk about ancient machoism, I bet my manhood on Rome. Rome's big size and long history left us a grand legacy, where numerous modern states can claim and/or trace their ancestry, lineage, and roads all the way back to Rome. All we got from Spartan impotence is a quick squirt at best on the silver screen.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, XRay said:

That is my hot take on Making Sparta Great Again. Nothing is manlier than threatening unarmed helots with the Second Amendment, make them work the fields, and do your laundry for free.

The helots did outnumber the actual warrior Spartans IIRC, imaginably inducing a fear similar to that of parts of the Antebellum South.

 

10 hours ago, XRay said:

Anyways, I agree that Sparta is kind of cool in a vacuum, but there are cooler states in my opinion when looking at the bigger picture. If we are going to talk about ancient machoism, I bet my manhood on Rome. Rome's big size and long history left us a grand legacy, where numerous modern states can claim and/or trace their ancestry, lineage, and roads all the way back to Rome. All we got from Spartan impotence is a quick squirt at best on the silver screen.

True, Rome is far more significant than Sparta. -Though let's not forget it was also a very slave-heavy society. Who do you think kept those baths warm?

And, Sparta is also less significant than Alexander the Great. Whose short life of conquests brought an end to Achaemenid Persia (admittedly an empire in internal disunity)  and replaced ancient pharaonic Egypt with the Ptolemaic dynasty. Thereby spreading Greek culture and wisdom, infinitely more Athenian than Spartan in nature, outside of Greece itself. Sparta for all its bellicosity arguably didn't do anything quite as impactful over its entire lifespan (and they were not the only ones who stayed to the end at Thermopylae).

Edited September 22, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[XRay]

22 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

True, Rome is far more significant than Sparta. -Though let's not forget it was also a very slave-heavy society. Who do you think kept those baths warm?

And, Sparta is also less significant than Alexander the Great. Whose short life of conquests brought an end to Achaemenid Persia (admittedly an empire in internal disunity)  and replaced ancient pharaonic Egypt with the Ptolemaic dynasty. Thereby spreading Greek culture and wisdom, infinitely more Athenian than Spartan in nature, outside of Greece itself. Sparta for all its bellicosity arguably didn't do anything quite as impactful over its entire lifespan (and they were not the only ones who stayed to the end at Thermopylae).

Yeah, Rome (and Athens and practically everyone else too for that matter) had slaves and it is a huge part of their economy, but Sparta seems to take it to the literal extreme where helots practically provide all the economic contributions, as Spartiates are focused on military matters and are not really allowed to work like normal people.

[Etrurian emperor]

On 9/22/2021 at 5:45 PM, XRay said:

Yeah, Rome (and Athens and practically everyone else too for that matter) had slaves and it is a huge part of their economy, but Sparta seems to take it to the literal extreme where helots practically provide all the economic contributions, as Spartiates are focused on military matters and are not really allowed to work like normal people.

That and starting each year by declaring war on the Hellots, and beating up or outright murdering each Helot they came across.

 

On 9/22/2021 at 6:39 AM, XRay said:

Anyways, I agree that Sparta is kind of cool in a vacuum, but there are cooler states in my opinion when looking at the bigger picture. If we are going to talk about ancient machoism, I bet my manhood on Rome. Rome's big size and long history left us a grand legacy, where numerous modern states can claim and/or trace their ancestry, lineage, and roads all the way back to Rome. All we got from Spartan impotence is a quick squirt at best on the silver screen.

Yes. In terms of size and territory the Roman empire isn't anything truly special compared to some other Empires. But it was uniquely stable, long lasting and influential as far as empires go. 

[XRay]

6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yes. In terms of size and territory the Roman empire isn't anything truly special compared to some other Empires. But it was uniquely stable, long lasting and influential as far as empires go. 

Rome is not super huge like the Mongols or the Umayyads, but its empire is still probably well over a hundred times bigger than the tiny Peloponnese peninsula that the Spartans controlled.

Spartan manhood is so sad you can stuff several dozens of Peloponnese inside Germania and Gaulia Cisalpina, where uncivilized German barbarians masqueraded as the Holy Roman Empire.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 minutes ago, XRay said:

Rome is not super huge like the Mongols or the Umayyads, but its empire is still probably well over a hundred times bigger than the tiny Peloponnese peninsula that the Spartans controlled.

The Umayyads didn't last a century. And for the successor Abbasids, it seems they got not even a century before power became decentralized. -Although cultural flourishing can occur in states that have begun to decline politically. Aristotle wasn't born until after Athens lost the Peloponnesian War. And cultural achievements can outweigh sheer borders.

With Rome, we're looking at steady expansion over ~300 years. With the defeat of Carthage and conquest of Greece, we can Rome began to become a great empire by 133 BC. And despite periods of civil war and imperial succession crisis, we can say it doesn't enter true political decline until Marcus Aurelius dies in 180. -Yet setting this date leaves out Septimius Severus, and after the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian and Constantine (dies in 337), strong emperors in their own right. I'm not quite sure when the so-called barbarians begin chipping away at Roman territory, but if it is not until the 300s, then that's ~400 years of a relatively stable and large empire. That seems pretty good. Even better-ish if you think the Eastern Roman Empire by itself was sizable, since that survives the Germanic onslaught and doesn't get its Arabian shellacking until 634.

[XRay]

12 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Umayyads didn't last a century. And for the successor Abbasids, it seems they got not even a century before power became decentralized. -Although cultural flourishing can occur in states that have begun to decline politically. Aristotle wasn't born until after Athens lost the Peloponnesian War. And cultural achievements can outweigh sheer borders.

That is true. However after reading about it more on Wikipedia, while the three caliphates had lethal power struggles at the very top, the state and bureucracy itself seemed relatively stable, so the transition between the three caliphates to me seemed more like a change in leadership like how Romans changed their emperors. It can also be argued that since all three caliphates had familial ties to Muhammad, it can be argued that leadership technically did not change much since it was managed by the same extended family, just different branches of that extended family. The third Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, Uthman, was an Umayyad and his family took over and slap their own name over the caliphate not long after his death, but he still had family ties to Muhammad by via marriage with the prophet's daughters. The Abbasids right after the Ummayads descended from Muhammad's uncle.

The fracturing of the Abbasid Caliphate got messy like the Holy Roman Empire, but before that from 632 to 861 Muhammad's large extended family retained control at the very top across two caliphates and the first half of the third caliphate, so that 200 years seems like a pretty good run.

Edited September 28, 2021 by XRay

[henrymidfields]

A third hot take from a Japanese:

I never completely understand the romanticization of Shinsengumi, Byakkotai (two loyalist samurai groups against the new Meiji government), or any faction of the old order fighting to the death in historical drama. At some point, you have to see the writing on the wall. Now, if it was something like the 1930s where the usurpers are fascists and the loyalists are more democratic (or at least not as authoritarian), then yes, I can understand, because you're trying to protect your society from actual harm. As for the Shinsengumi or the Byakkotai I consider them to be more a case of tragedy where one is too ingrained in his/her culture, and cannot shake out of it.