The Spartan Constitution: Laws To Die For | Ancient Greece Revisited
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- The Spartans were not brave for saying "we are not afraid to die," as any suicide bomber could say the same. They were brave for knowing that their death would not bring them everlasting life in some heaven far, far away. They were brave because - unlike the suicide bomber - they were not afraid to live.
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Writer and Presenter - Michalis Michailidis
Director/Cinematographer/Editor - Adam Petritsis
Music - Penny Biniari
This is one of the best channels on UA-cam. I've shown and recommended 'Ancient Greece Revisited' videos to friends and family; something every other viewer should do. This channel deserves much more than 9,000 subscribers.
Before there can be laws, man or God given, there must exist a value system upon which it is based. Machiavelli hinted at this when he describes the perception of "virtu". The law or leader must emulate this quality. Without a concept of "virtu", honor and integrity have no foundation upon which to build. Law is dependent upon men of honor to both uphold and to obey it.
boyo alert!
If I could meet one man from the ancient world, it would be Lycourgus.
Ah the irony when counter-apologetics turns into apologetics of its own. As if Lycurgus didn't have to consult the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi just so the Spartans would accept his law reforms. How is your projection of modern values into antiquity any more valid than that of the Christians?
Remember when the Oracle at Delphi told the Athenians they should surrender to the Persians during their 2nd invasion? What did Themistocles say? “Ask them again!” :-) That is the difference between “service” and “lip service”.
Also, what you must understand is that for the Greeks, gods themselves were not moral. How could Zeus be responsible for “family laws” when he cheated on his wife and had illegitimate children? Greek gods where “a-moral” and the people who worshiped them understood they had different concerns than humans did, and should never be considered in the legislative process.
Dope vid bro. I had never realised this. Great insight, very wise
Haha... I like how you said that!
Thank you for watching.
This channel has videos with good information, this channel deserves 1M views/likes and more than 5M subs
Thank you so much! Help us spread the word to 1M subs!
The Spartans are highly looked upon by the G-D, due to their integrity honor and commitment. The stood and died as RIGHTEOUSNESS. And they needed no hope for salvation, They. Lived in such as they needed NO SAVIOR.
Love not fear is the true motivation of morality, for it is only love, not fear, that gives a man courage; and it is only a love for what is moral, just, and noble, that gives a man moral courage ! Now, you maintain in this video that true moral courage requires a staring into the abyss of utter non-existence, yet still having the courage to die in obedience to the law (or for a moral cause). I think we must add 'or for a moral cause' in order to be fair to you, otherwise one might claim that an atheistic communist or atheistic fascist displays moral courage in willing to fight and die for his nation and/or ideology. He is willing to die in obedience to laws imposed upon him by his dictator, nation, ideology. But that is clearly not what you mean by having moral courage, I think; instead, you mean a willingness to die for a truly moral cause -- in other words, a sacrificing oneself for what is morally right. That is what you mean... however, you would also require this moral hero to be devoid of any hope of personal salvation. Only then would you consider this to be an act of moral courage. But what really matters is the motivation, not whether someone has any other hopes, fears, or desires that are besides the motivation. In other words, you must admit that it is at least theoretically possible that someone could still hope for salvation, without this being his motivation for doing the right thing. I recently watched a video on UA-cam of young man who was waiting to cross a busy street, and as he was waiting, a small child ran across from the other side while a car was rapidly approaching ! The young man immediately saw the danger the child was in, and he acted immediately to save the child by running into the street and picking her up and taking her back to safety -- just in time as the car sped past missing them both by mere inches! Now, I will grant that if this young man performed this heroic act only because by doing so, he believed that he would earn for himself an eternal place in heaven, that his act would not truly have been a moral one -- yet still somewhat heroic, nonetheless. Here's the point, however: suppose this young man acted simply out of humanitarian love for this child, and out of a moral love for doing the right thing, could we deny that he had acted morally simply because he also happened to be a believer in God and salvation? No, only if he acted purely out of a self-interest of gaining for himself a place in heaven, could we justifiably claim that he lacked real moral courage. Now, of course, I have no way of knowing this young man's real motivations, nor his religious beliefs, if any... but, what I do know is that if his motivation was simply to save this child from being killed or badly injured, then he displayed real moral courage -- regardless of whether or not he believes in God or in personal salvation.
Thank you.. again and again.....
A wonderful topic. Thank you for the upload!👍👍👍
Love your videos, but the phrase 'immortalized by the film 300' is going a bit far 😂 'Immortalized by the original Greek historians' perhaps, and, in the twentieth century, there happened to be two films about the event (there's an earlier film from the 1950's, I think - oh, and a less impressive sequel to 300 too.) But great documentaries despite the occasional hyperbolic phrase 😊
Perhaps immortalized was the wrong word indeed. But English is still a second language :-)
Lycurgus by way of Apollo
Lycourgos by way of the Spartan people. Don’t fall for the Apollo "fluff", they never really did in my opinion.
While it is true that religion has historically been fear-based going back to its very beginnings, there is no necessity of it being so, because a man who truly loves God will obey him out of love for God -- not because he is afraid of him. Moreover, the assertion that the 300 were more afraid of their own laws than of Xerxes, would imply that at bottom they were still acting out of fear -- and, therefore, not real courage. No, it must be that the Spartans had real courage not because they were afraid of their laws, but because they loved and revered them so much that they were willing to sacrifice themselves in order to defend those laws and their homeland. But if this is true, then men are equally capable of loving God, and so obeying him, not out of fear, but out of a true love for God and for morality !
That is a wonderful observation, and it reminds me of Steven Pressfield's book "Gates of Fire", where a Spartan has a similar revelation near the end of the novel.
But here is the problem: love of God and love of the Law come as the culmination of a certain effort and understanding. Some might get it as naturally as they breathe, sure, but these cases are rare and special, as for most, a long road towards understanding that love is necessary. Monks would not exist if that was not true. So... the problem of the lawgiver is NOT how to rule over the enlightened, but over the "many," the "vulgar" as Plato would call them (us, possibly). That is the political problem! And for that, currently, there is still the idea that "fear of God" is needed. Entire continents believe it with a fervor, and not without reason, as all societies have historical memories of decadence and anarchy. So, in that context, the great achievement of the Greeks was to transfer this fear into the human realm, thus making it dynamic, able to change and adapt to the circumstances.
@@AncientGreeceRevisited My only reply here is that while we have some fundamental disagreements, I do appreciate your video, and I even appreciate your point-of-view as being an honest expression of secularism, and as an intellectual challenge to anyone who still believes in some kind of divine authority. Looking forward to more of your informative videos, and challenging points-of-view that we can perhaps debate more in the future. Thank you for posting the video, and for your reasonable replies to my own comments. Good day, and God Bless you, sir.
One of the most interesting channels I have come across in a while
Many thanks!
Where did the delphic maxims come from?
The Seven Sages?
@@AncientGreeceRevisited the 7 sages the ancient lawgivers, whom i believe lived to embody these maxims, but it is said the maxims came from divine origin, and similarities from the maxims can be seen in the bible, even in the commandments, which is interesting since the maxims predate the bible by several 100s of years.
At the end of the day, one must be able to look at oneself in the mirror. Sociopaths excepted, anyone who can do this is a just person and true justice is the only reason for laws to exist. I think that constitutions that emphasize this, together with the recognition of natural rights are as close as humans can come to self governance at an individual level.
Absolutely outstanding