Greek Aristocracy

10 posts

President Camacho
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Nazism holds a special place in popular culture as The Most Evil Ideology Ever Concocted and Stalinism is simply another failed Marxist experiment.

If you want to blame anyone for promoting liberal democracy as heaven on Earth, blame the Western Jewish academic. I don't think Western proles hate Nazis because they have such a "grotesque" visceral reaction to goose-stepping and mass political rallies. On the contrary, most white children have a taboo fascination with the Swastika and other relics of NS mythology.
Thermonuclear_Warrior
I presume you refer to Spetsnaz GRU. To suggest that there is "basically no difference" between the Spetsnaz and the SS is pretty silly. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, I still think that the "GRU agent" socialization process described above, assuming there is martial training during youth, would produce something akin to a modern-day Spartan. Of course, they would not be interchangeable or equivalent to an ancient Spartan, but that is the best you can hope for in "our modern and degenerate age of cities of millions, ideologies, mass movements, and the like."

First off, there is no single unified model of an "ancient aristocrat" to make such a comparison. Ancient Greek and Roman aristocrats changed in habit, outlook, and behavior over time. I'm even stretching a bit to speak of "ancient Spartans," considering that Spartans were not exactly at their best in later periods, particularly during their struggle with Thebes. Accordingly, I can only refer to the values alluded to in your passage. Values like "excellence," "superior blood," "skill in arms", "work for the state," participation in "festivals, splendid ritual [ . . . ] all linked with religion, which in its extension as myth was the starting point and root of all culture," "the aim" "to develop the body," and "perfection of beauty" reminds me of the Schutzstaffel. Not all of those aspects would apply to the GRU as you claim; the GRU does not concern itself with "superior blood" and "beauty." I am also not certain they participate in any ritualistic festivals, or had their own wedding ceremonies, and so forth and so on.

Also, I do not get the whole Heinrich Himmler picture followed by fat dude wearing Nintendo products picture. If you think Himmler looks like a skinny nerd, well, then fine. Save the fat guys for the Fade jokes. (I think it is easily discernible that I was not referring to Himmler himself exemplifying aristocracy, but he had a pretty cool castle!)
Thomas777
One of Burnham's insights was that anti-Nazism was (by the 1960s) becoming an ideological perspective in its own right, owing to conventional Marxian historiographical claims that 'Fascist reaction' (precedented by the counter-Enlightenment theorists and their alleged prejudices) in the early 20th century was an inevitable occurance as workers' states emerged in Western states, and buttressed by New Left claims about tendencies towards brutality inherent to the European mind, deformed by centuries of class exploitation and arbitrary dominance by not just bourgoisie producers who had confiscated capital and wealth but by common men who had been inundated with deformed values by their masters in a deliberate capacity so as to preserve super-structural features of society upon which the dominance of owner/producers relied.

Jews of course added a religious component to this narrative, but the underlying claim of contemporary liberalism is that government must condition all peoples against Fascism lest progress be sabotaged and conspiracies arise to breach the permanent peace.
Bronze Age Pervert
The excesses and crimes of Nazism are what made liberal democracy look like the golden age.
Bronze Age Pervert
You are in a way backing up my point that there is no comparison between the two, and I'd prefer we keep to the topic, namely the qualities of ancient Greek aristocracy and if anything like this can be recreated today. There are clear historical parallels between medieval Italian aristocracy and archaic Greek aristocracy, so it is not as if it's limited to one particular location or time. The problem is if there is any alternative to modern mediocrity other than nihilistic brutality, and you're not showing that there is.
Thomas777
The Third Reich committed ''crimes''. It was imperative to ally with the Soviet Union in order to prevent crime from happening in Europe, right?
Thomas777
There isn't. This was the impetus for Junger's and Sorel's call to provide ample opportunities for creative violence to the proletariat and to make labor ''heroic'' through permanent mobilization and the practice of general strike.

It could be speculated that non-state actors who practice violence in the present day are motivated at least in part by similar instincts and not piety or patriotism or ''religion'' as is claimed by most academic and reporting media sources.
President Camacho
You missed the point, Thomas beat me to it.

Stalin was killing millions of people and annihilating Russian culture before anyone knew who Hitler was, but it's Hitler who is Satan incarnate. The Nazis at least allowed (and even encouraged) Jews to emigrate from the Third Reich during the 1930s, while [perceived] enemies of the State in the Soviet Union were mercilessly executed in peacetime.

There will never be a state that commited more "excesses and crimes" than Stalinist Russia, yet American academics remain free to defend Stalin.
Bronze Age Pervert
There is a unified model of an ancient Greek aristocrat, they even had their hero in characters like Achilles, whom they tried to emulate. There are variations in time, but Burckhardt limited his discussion here to what he calls the Agonal Age, or what is more commonly called the Archaic Age, until around the end of the sixth century BC. There was indeed a more or less unique way of life that these societies had, and he explains it somewhat in that passage. The fundamental driving principle of this life was the principle of the agon, or the striving for personal excellence, or concretely to "always be the first and outshine the rest." This has next to nothing in common with the life of an SS man. Let me go through the similarities you claim to see.

"Excellence" doesn't count because the Greek definition was besting rivals in competitions of various kinds, whereas the SS man didn't define his excellence by whether he could outdo his comrades or his commanding officer or Hitler.

"Superior blood" is irrelevant because for the Greeks it was defined as your family and clan lineage and most families had heroic and divine ancestors, whereas in the case of the SS man it is a scientific-biological definition--the man himself could have been recruited from the bottom of society and of unknown parentage, maybe even a bastard. This is not the aristocratic definition of superiority in blood. One is superior if one has many illustrious ancestors in one's family.

"Skill in arms" you may have a point, but it's not enough on its own.

"Work for the state," well a Mandarin court official is also defined in his life by work for the state. What is meant by work for the state is giving good advice in the ruling assembly (this, together with physical courage, is the ancient Homeric virtue) and performing genuinely political work, that is, foundation of foreign colonies, diplomatic missions and forging alliances, giving advice in assembly regarding matters of war and peace and other public things. This does not remotely reflect the "work for the state" that even high-ranking SS officials did, which amounts either to bureaucracy, police work, or strictly soldiering (if not slaughtering civilians).

"Religious festivals": had strictly propaganda value in the SS, who did not likely believe that Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu. There are such "religious festivals" right now in North Korea. It's a cheap scam carried out by modern mass-states that no one really believes in. To compare a genuine pre-modern religious ritual to this is I think perverse.

On the other hand the differences are decisive; some of these I've already mentioned in this and previous posts. To this I add that the adulation of Hitler expected of the SS would have been unthinkable for Greek aristocrats to show to a living human being, they would have considered this a form of slavish Oriental behavior. These were men fiercely jealous to protect their own powers and privileges; if anything they had more in common with modern Afghan warlords than with the SS.

I will agree with you that the SS tried to co-opt these images and ideas, but one should not be fooled by the dirty tricks modern states use to prettify their sordid business.

Now as to the rest of your message, if a modern SS man or GRU operative is "the best we can do" then that supports my point that it's impossible in the modern world. I don't find these types impressive for the reasons I mentioned several times, and they would have been seen as deluded and slavish by a Greek or Roman.

I posted the pictures of Himmler because it is important to see the face and physical type of the kind of man you claimed was forming a modern Spartan aristocracy in 20th century Europe.
Bronze Age Pervert
Look the Jewish influence in American academia didn't really take off until after the 1960's, yet the Nazis were seen as evil incarnate long before. That Stalinism is not seen yet as an equally great evil by everyone (though it is seen as such by many, including many on the New Left) is irrelevant to the point that it was the historical record of Nazism as such that made liberal democracy look good by comparison. This was and is certainly true for the peoples of Europe, who don't prefer Nazis or Fascists and mostly did not even at the time (see what Mussolini says about Italians not being affected by Fascism after 20 yrs). Stalinism I would argue also makes liberal democracy look good to many people, and it's because of its crimes and the poor quality of life it is known to bring. But I don't hold this against Stalinism because I'm not sympathetic to its fundamental principles (to accelerate modern progress) whereas I'm sympathetic to the rhetorical claims of certain kinds of Fascism or certain elements from Nazism (to oppose modernity) even if they didn't really put these claims in practice; I said their crime was to bring a bad name to such claims and make modernity look good by comparison.

Right now in the Muslim world the much more intellectually primitive anti-modern Islamic factions are serving the same function, the indirect glorification of liberal democracy by way of contrast. And it will end the same way.