ICYMI: This Is (Not) Sparta!

Angry Planet

Matthew Gault

War, Politics, Conflict, Government, History, News

4.3 • 882 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When you hear the word Sparta, there’s an immediate association with war and the military. Of the Greek City States, it’s the one most associated with battle. Spartan men were expected to be warriors and their society was geared almost entirely toward training for war. For generations, military leaders have drawn inspiration from Sparta.

Much of the romance around Sparta centers Around the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, where the Persian Empire crushed a small and ill-equipped collection of elite soldiers. Since then, historians, propagandists, Hollywood, and the American military have turned Sparta’s epic defeat at the gates of fire into a myth of slavery vs freedom, east vs west, and democracy vs despotism. But the thing is … a lot of what hear about the Spartans is bullshit, the truth is more complicated.

Here to help us unpack modern day mythos around Sparta is Pauline Kaurin. Kaurin is the Chair of Military Ethics at the US Naval War College and the author of The Warrior, Military Ethics and Contemporary Warfare: Achilles Goes Asymmetrical.

Disclaimer: Pauline Kaurin's opinions are her own and do not reflect the opinions or policy of the US Naval War College.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love this podcast.
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0:12.0	Hello angry-planted listeners, it's Max. in the show description to support now.
0:16.0	Hello angry planet listeners, it's Matthew again. Today we are bringing a remastered blast from the past.
0:19.0	There was a time when Jason was in the wilderness between jobs and was not on the show.
0:25.0	And when that happened for a brief time we had a former special operations guy
0:30.0	as the co-host and we talked about Sparta and it was a really good episode and I've never
0:33.9	cleaned it up and put it back up and I'm doing that now. If you like the show and you want a new
0:41.6	episode well you can get one of those if If you go to angryplated.substack.com or angry
0:46.3	planet pod.com. We just posted a great episode about Taiwan. For just nine dollars a month
0:51.0	you get access to those two bonus episodes.
0:53.6	Without further ado here is this is not Sparta. One day all of the facts in about 30 years time will be published.
1:11.0	When genocide has been cut out in this country almost with impunity and when it is near
1:18.8	completion, people talk to intervention. You're going to get freedom, people.
1:28.0	Freedom is never safeguarded peacefully.
1:34.0	Anyone who is surprising you of freedom isn't deserving of a people approach. So, Hello, welcome to war college. I'm Matthew Gault. And I'm Derek Cannon.
1:59.0	When you hear the word Sparta, there's an immediate association with war and the military. Of the Greek city
2:04.4	states, it's the one most associated with battle. Spartan men were expected to be warriors,
2:08.9	and their society was geared almost entirely towards training for war.
2:13.0	For generations, military leaders have drawn inspiration from Sparta.
	...

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