Feel free to add common myths about the East that you’d like cleared up. Or how you’ve already cleared it up. It might help me or another reader.

  • Bolshechick [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 days ago

    Like think about the myth of Thermopylae: 300 brave Greeks sacrificed themselves holding off the countless Persian hordes, keeping the Greeks free of the despotic Persian empire.

    (Just ignore the thousands of Greeks that were there who weren’t the 300 Spartans, the fact that Sparya wasn’t exactly a free society, that Persia was a better society in basically every way, that the reason they didn’t conquer the rest of Greece was more that their supply lines were stretched that far away from thier power base, etc)

    We tell ourselves the same sorta myths now

    • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 days ago

      Sparya wasn’t exactly a free society

      back-to-me “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”

      • Sinisterium [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        6 days ago

        Thats more Athens. Sparta wasnt even a village, it was three hamlets and was almost run neoliberal and build on a perpetual enslaved class. Sparta became a myth and a tourist trap for romans and were defeated by an army of consensual similarly aged gay lovers.

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 days ago

      The reason Sparta could only send 300 was because they needed to keep most of their army in Sparta to keep the helots, their slaves, from rebelling.