Why does the far-right like so much the 300 of Sparta? (user search)
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  Why does the far-right like so much the 300 of Sparta? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Why does the far-right like so much the 300 of Sparta?  (Read 1298 times)
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
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« on: June 14, 2020, 07:32:40 PM »

Thermopylae is a fairly standard Classical reference for anyone wishing to extol the virtues of extreme military pigheadedness at the expense of sane policy, so there's your answer.

The question is why anyone who isn't far-right would view ancient Sparta with anything but horror and contempt.

Well, historically it was viewed very positively by the radical left as well, going back to Rousseau. Very much the preferred Polis of the Soviet Union. But, again, that is not so surprising!
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Filuwaúrdjan
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Posts: 67,706
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« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2020, 02:10:40 PM »

While Lord of the Rings has been accused of a similar dynamic (oliphants, scimitars, dark-skinned men from the south and east), Tolkien scholars can rebuff these claims in a way that I do not believe the makers of 300 are able to, even were we to grant that the movie may take place through the lens of "myth" (and I think the key distinctions here are that Tolkien was deeply respectful of Middle Eastern cultures and myth and incorporated them into his work, and that LotR at its essence did not revolve around cultural geopolitics; 300, on the other hand, has as its central point that confrontation of Europe and Asia).

You know, I've never seen 300 the film nor read the comic, but from everything that I have heard, I'm going to guess that there is in neither something equivalent to this passage:

'It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace - all in a flash of thought that was quickly driven from his mind.'

Of course in The Lord of the Rings, the Southrons and Easterlings only ever function as auxiliaries. To the extent that there is anything 'Eastern' about Mordor and its aesthetic (and there isn't a great deal; mostly it is a combination of Mediaeval English aesthetics of evil and the worst of industrial England), it echoes a... er... well... different historical sense of 'Eastern' to the various Classical and Mediaeval Empires: the Huns and the Mongols.
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Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
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Posts: 67,706
United Kingdom


« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2020, 08:24:17 PM »
« Edited: July 08, 2020, 09:01:07 AM by Filuwaúrdjan »

I really do love that passage and it says so much more about the nature of what we're reading than a million critiques of villains carrying scimitars. That said--and I'm no Tolkien scholar--I am curious as to what we should make of an essentially in- (or sub-) human enemy in the form of the orcs and goblins. What few glimpses we get of their society are fairly interesting, but I note that they're not the type of folks for which the usual prescription of mercy might be recommended.

Orcs are best understood in the context of Tolkien's broader project to construct his own complete mythological system: they are the real and genuinely terrifying monsters that the goblins of fairy tale and Germanic legend are a sanitised folk memory of.

Quote
In that same vein, I've also been reading Chronicles of Narnia of late, and I had actually been hoping to ask you what you thought of Lewis' treatment of Calormen.

A mish-mash of various 'Eastern' empires from pretty much the entirety of human history (not an exaggeration: the general tone is unmistakably Ottoman1 - something much more common as a cultural reference in English literature of the time than now of course - but there are clear references to the Achaemenid Empire, to Assyria...) all artfully thrown together to provide a contrasting culture to the distinctly European Narnia. As such it is undeniably 'Orientalist', although I will stress that it is very well done Orientalism, as the fictional society that emerges is not exactly like any of those on which it is based, and does have a certain (surprising?) coherence and solidity. But it is fundamentally geared around the idea of Eastern otherness, decadence and capriciousness, even if Lewis placed Calormen to the south of Narnia rather than to its East.2

Recent charges of racism (except to the extent that you can view Orientalism as racism or fueled by it; but this is a complicated area and one that, in this case at least, I feel rather misses the point) and 'Islamophobia' are less credible. Calormen is defined as distinct from Narnia and Arkenland by its culture (and especially its religion, but we'll come to that in a moment) rather than in racial terms, and there's very little sign that Lewis even gave this aspect much thought. He clearly thought of the people of Calormen as being of a darker complexion than those of Narnia, but are they supposed to resemble Turks, Indians, Arabs, Persians or Indians? It doesn't particularly matter, because that is not the point: Lewis was really only interested in ideas.

More interesting is the Cult of Tash, something that an increasing number of critics have seen as an allegory for Islam so vicious as to be actual libel. Were it based on Islam than this would be undeniably the case, but this is a misunderstanding based, and the irony here is a little rich, on an ahistorical and highly problematic conflation of the Middle East and Islam. Because you do not need to look particularly far to find the actual inspiration for Tash, and that is in Assyrian depictions of some of their more sinister looking deities. It is at this point that you realise exactly what the Cult of Tash is an allegory for: that of Baal and other figures of Canaanite and Mesopotamian religion. Which, given the Biblical underpinning to the Narnia books, is hardly a surprise.

1. Note the name!
2. Where he, instead, placed God: a reference to the traditional practice of facing churches in Europe towards the compass point symbolically associated with Jerusalem.
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