Sparta, Athens, 300, and Problems

Sanjay's recent guest post on 300: Rise of an Empire pointed out how rather than give the Athenians their due, the movie pumped up the Spartans yet again got me thinking. I'm going to take a page from David Brin or, God forbid, the obnoxious Internet Social Justice mob, and point out how "problematic" that is.

Before I begin, I'll admit the Athenians had their flaws. They were sexist even by the pretty bad standards of ancient Greece and in that respect the Spartans were superior. Spartan women could own property, testify in courts, and walk around naked in public just like Spartan men could. Athenian women were basically confined to the house in a manner more akin to Saudi Arabia than anything one might imagine in Europe.

But there's a reason Spartan (ruling-class women) at least had so much more personal freedom, and it's a bad one. Spartan society was very hierarchical--the Spartan men who were such fierce warriors ruled over a vastly larger class of slaves (the helots, who were indigenous to the area and conquered by the Spartans long ago) and the "dwellers-about" (conquered people who weren't enslaved). To dominate them the Spartan men had to specialize in war and thus had to rely on their women to a much greater degree. Restricting talent by virtue of gender was a luxury they could not afford.

Although only around 20 percent of the Athenian population could participate in government, it was a lot more open in terms of social class. Its citizen body dwarfed that of any other Greek city-state. That's a lot better than having a tiny ruling class kept in power by pure terror, including a secret police force. The democratic traditions of the modern West (and those non-Western societies that have adopted them) are based on those of Athens. In contrast, the Nazis aspired to make themselves into a new Spartan class ruling over Russian slaves. General Sherman's comments on the Confederate cavalry--in particular how they were men who did not work but were highly-skilled at war--echoes this. Like the Spartans or feudal knights, they could only spend so much time learning the skills of war because they relied on a vast number of subordinate laborers for everything else. The apotheosis of the Spartan ideal is S.M. Stirling's Domination of the Draka--a ruling class sustained by the labor of slaves outnumbering them ten to one who casually rape enslaved women, impale rebels, and constantly plot war to destroy any alternative to their social system. In contrast, the apotheosis of the Athenian ideal is modern-day liberal democracy.

The original 300 glossed over this massive flaw in Sparta's political system, but since it was told from the perspective of a Spartan loyalist, that makes sense. Rise of an Empire, though it certainly gives the Athenians credit for the great victory at Marathon, depicts the Battle of Artemesium as an outright defeat of the "amateurs" derided by the Spartans in the first film. This is straight-up inaccurate, and not in the harmless way the uber-ab-toned Spartans or the bejeweled circus freak Xerxes are--it was a strategic withdrawal due to the Persians' defeat of the Greeks on land at Thermopylae. And even at Athens' great victory at Salamis, the Athenians are losing despite Persian admiral Artemisia's arrogant blundering until the Spartan fleet (which numbered less than 20 ships at Salamis) and ships from some other barely-named Greek cities show up.

As Sanjay pointed out, here's a chance for the citizen-soldiers to show their worth, but yet they're rescued from defeat by the Spartans whose real-life contribution was pretty poor. Not only is that historically inaccurate, but it has its ideological problems. Democratic states with citizen armies tend to do better than despotisms with warrior classes when all is said and done. Compare the Confederacy (dominated by what Marx called "an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveowners" with the pro-Confederate whites outnumbered slightly by the white unionists and black slaves) with the Union, especially after the early run of bad Union generals.

On "Problematic" Elements in a Fantasy World

On Twitter this morning, I came across the following Tweet by Avery Edison, re-tweeted by well-known author Dan Wells, whose John Cleaver books I am a fan of.

Avery Edison ‏@aedison 20 Feb 2013

I HAVE CREATED AN EPIC FANTASY WORLD WHERE DOGS CAN FLY AND GOLD CAN SPEAK and also women are subjugated sorry that's how it was then OKAY?

This isn't the first time I've seen that argument. A particularly vocal member of New Millennium Diverse Fantasy (a Facebook group I would join if it weren't for how aggravating some of its members are) insisted the manifold cruelties of A Song of Ice and Fire cannot be defended on the grounds of "realism" because this is a world where there are dragons (capable of nursing from lactating human women no less) and the Others.

The argument is superficially plausible, but emphasize "superficial." The pre-industrial societies most fantasy worlds are based on (including Martin's) for the most part sucked. For everybody (by modern standards even nobles were poor), but women in particular had it bad. A feudal economy and/or social structure is going to produce elements the Internet Social Justice crowd will call "problematic" by its very nature. Power corrupts and putting all the power in the hands of rich, strong young men is going to have bad consequences for women, the poor, etc. For all its vaunted power, the medieval Catholic Church tried and failed to restrain private war, violence against the Jews, forced marriage, etc., and this was an institution that supposedly had authority over said rich, strong young men's everlasting souls.

(If anything, this is a reason to call out fantasy worlds with princes, princesses, etc. for how they idealize a time that was very bad for almost everybody. George RR Martin's brutalities deconstruct these tropes--the handsome prince Joffrey Baratheon is a spoiled sadist, the pretty princess Sansa Stark is unbelievably naive and suffers for it, and rather than being a Perfectly Arranged Marriage, the union between King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei Lannister is unequal and abusive. And the violence the brutish Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch inflict on the Riverlands is based on a specific military tactic from medieval warfare.)

J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has been criticized by SF author David Brin due to how, despite its feudal-ish nature, the society is depicted as fairly benign. Perhaps the Stewards of Gondor keep a close eye on the nobles so they don't oppress the common people (in the vein of the Chinese emperors or certain Byzantine dynasties--and Tolkien himself compared Gondor to Byzantium, so that might actually work), but I don't remember this from the text. The Knights of Dol Amroth, in order to have the leisure time needed to become effective cavalry, almost certainly rely on the labor of a large number of peasants. Human nature being what it is, a more realistic portrayal of this type of society would see peasant unrest and complaints, especially in bad times. It's not like real history lacked for them in England or in France.

Now, this is not to say any story based on such a society HAS to be an atrocity pit. Even the pre-modern societies all of us can agree were cruel and restrictive (toward women and others) weren't nearly as restrictive as one might think. Misogynistic medieval Europe still produced personalities like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. And in fact, fantasy elements can actually serve to undermine social injustice.

For example, the Wheel of Time series (which I admit I haven't read) depicts magic as something only women can use safely. Such women would have a much greater capacity to defend themselves against male violence, which would reduce the need for male protection and thus male control. Even oft-criticized Martin depicts the ruling Targaryen dynasty, whose members of either sex have a unique ability to bond with dragons and thus have an overpowering weapon in war, forbidding the conquered Westerosi nobles from claiming the right of First Night over peasant women.

So if you're going to base your fantasy world on a pre-industrial society, depict it with all its rough edges. If you're going to depict it being less unpleasant than it was, justify it. Although Avery Edison's flying dogs and talking gold wouldn't make faux medieval Europe a less misogynistic place, a woman with feminist inclinations and a fire-breathing dragon (and the ear of a man with similar assets) just might.

The Patriot Act May Rise Again...

The Patriot Act, though its renewal was temporarily blocked, looks like it might be in place for another four years.

Congress to Vote on Extending Patriot Act

Not all of the Patriot Act is bad--I don't see any problem allowing the FBI access to CIA data in tracking terrorism suspects.

However, the parts that are bad are very bad.  The federal government being able to subpoena your library records and then gag the librarian to keep them from revealing this, for example.  And here's something else...

White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

I found the above link on my alternate-history forum.  It's dated to July, but it's relevant to this situation, since it involves the Patriot Act's "National Security Letters."

Imagine the blackmail potential being able to get into everyone's search history represents.  You could control people by threatening to reveal illegal music downloading, perusing pornographic Web sites, searches for already-written term papers, viewing Internet personal ads, wasting time when one should be working, etc.  You could say that those who avoid doing these dubious and/or immoral things would have nothing to fear, but even one slip-up could get an otherwise-virtuous person into trouble.  Say you download one song illegally and someone with access to your search history threatens to get the RIAA to sue you for a million dollars or something like that.  Even if laws and/or moral precepts have been broken, those who have done so do not necessarily deserveto be victims of a crime and that's what blackmail is.

Those blackmailed can be then used for nefarious purposes.  Here's an article science-fiction author David Brin wrote about just how dangerous blackmail can be:

The Hidden Danger to Public Servants

Blackmail can build upon blackmail--look at Brin's example of U.S. Marines blackmailed by the threat of revealing lewd photos of them with Russian girls into stealing information from the U.S. Embassy and then threatened with the revelation of their espionage to keep on doing it.

Imagine an opponent of the president or a powerful Congressman having a family member or friend blackmailed into spying on them.  Or even killing them--anyone remember the film Dial M for Murder in which a man blackmails another man into trying to kill his wife?

There's also the Fourth Amendment issues involved.  I'm pretty sure the principles still apply even though one's Internet history is not the same as one's file cabinet.  Given how the text of the amendment describes the right to be secure in one's "papers," I think you can apply that to one's personal information.

The vote won't take place until next week and many from the Tea Party movement have stuck to their small-government principles and opposed renewing the Patriot Act, at least without reforms. 

Anyone who wants to keep their privacy rights--and potentially much more--protected from government interference should write Congress via http://www.congress.org/ to let their representatives know that they don't want to be spied on.