[Salon] After the Horrors of October 7, Should Israel Be Athens or Sparta? - Opinion - Haaretz.com

[Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com>]

Title: After the Horrors of October 7, Should Israel Be Athens or Sparta? - Opinion - Haaretz.com

Some (all?) here may wonder what the question in the Subject line and the headline below has to do with U.S. politics today when Athens and Sparta are both ancient history. However, how they were governed and the “political ideas” they were motivated by, live on, and are particularly relevant to what “Traditional and NationalConservatives," to include their “Straussian” component, would have us adopt today. They’re the “ideas” of the prot0-fascists amongst the Greeks who included Socrates, Plato, and Xenophon, all three great admirers of Sparta and hostile to Athenian democracy. And favorites of Leo Strauss, and the “Straussians.” 

That in fact was Leo Strauss’s project, channeling “pre-fascist ideas” from the “Ancients” to sell fascist ideas to the U.S., after having to leave German fascism behind with his lamentations to Karl Lowith that, but for being Jewish, he preferred it, to to the Enlightenment ideas of 1789. As did his non-Jewish fellow ideologues Joseph Goebbels, and, at least, the fascist, if not the Nazi, ideas favored by Traditional Conservatives/Straussians Willmoore Kendall, M. E. Bradford, and John P. East, with the latter two making so clear in their books that Kendall was a Straussian, and they were too! Though all heartily claimed by Traditional Conservatives as well! (TP-Will provide the quotes from their respective books when time allows for anyone who disputes that!)

That “tradition” is carried on today by a new generation, the “New Right,” personified as much as anyone by John (Johnny, he prefers) A. Burtka, “Tradtional Conservative” as one-time Editor of The American Conservative (TAC) magazine and now as ISI Director, and leading National Conservative, and Straussian! Made clear in his recent book, Statesmanship: Selections from Xenophon to Churchill. With it heartily endorsed by the full gamut of “Conservative” thought leaders of today, beginning with the introduction by Larry Arnn, founder of the Claremont Institute and now President of the Straussian/Traditional Conservative Hillsdale College, and Trump’s “Court Historian” with the so-called “1776 Project.” With the “usual suspects” who promote war so much, West and East Coast Straussins together, Harvey Mansfield, Victor Davis Hanson, “NatCon” Patrick Deneen, and Neocons Dr. R.R. Reno of First Things and Dr. Yuval Levin of AEI for good measure! 

But let him tell about the book here with equally fanatical militarist Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m3w_x4Jg7M

"The Gateway to Statesmanship | John Burtka” (Xenophon at 8:15)

Socrates, Plato, and Xenophon, were always channeled by Leo Strauss, as “models” for how we should govern ourselves by Strauss and his fellow Straussians down to the present with Burtka today. While omitting their ideas were in fact identical to what later fascists would propound, celebrate, and govern by. I.F. Stone was one of the few who took the trouble to learn Ancient Greek so that he could read the original documents, as explained at the link below, and presented a realistic view of Socrates and his role as the teacher of the Athenian episodic Tyrants:

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/08/archives/if-stone-breaks-the-socrates-story-an-old-muckraker-sheds-fresh.html

The above having some sentences cut off in it, here is the newspaper article itself: 

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1979/04/08/111703388.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

And here is an accurate picture of Xenophon whom I’d researched in my own M.A. program in political theory: 

https://classicsofstrategy.com/2015/06/15/the-education-of-cyrus-by-xenophon-370-bce/

BLUF: "Xenophon was an Athenian rhetorician, soldier, and historian who lived from 430 to 354 BC. Little is known of his life until 401 BC, when he took part in an expedition that ended in a failed coup for the Persian Empire, recorded in his Anabasis. Later, for unknown reasons Xenophon was exiled from Athens. He settled in Lacedaemonia, (TP-Sparta) where he lived a comfortable life until the Spartan defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC. It seems that Xenophon was notably connected to Spartan leadership, for his assets were seized and he was exiled once again. He moved to Corinth where he lived out the rest of his days writing. He spent his youth in the midst of the Peloponnesian War, and claimed the preeminent philosopher Socrates as his teacher.

"Xenophon wrote The Education of Cyrus between the Peloponnesian War and the advent of Macedonian rule. He undoubtedly saw a great deal of political upheaval, whether it was the Spartan rise to hegemony over the Greek cities and subsequent decline at the hands of Thebes, or the political turbulence that rocked Athens after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War, or touring the Persian Empire with a mercenary army, concluding that Persia was a hollow kingdom, ready to be taken the Greeks if they so choose. In this twilight time of the Greek system of states, Xenophon appears prescient about the rise of new empires by choosing to reflect on the origins of an older empire, Persia, and the character of its founder, Cyrus the Great. It is worth noting the character of the reflection, however, lest we mistake Xenophon’s purposes in writing."

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-08-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/after-the-horrors-of-october-7-should-israel-be-athens-or-sparta/00000191-9020-d466-a799-fbf523800000

After the Horrors of October 7, Should Israel Be Athens or Sparta? - Opinion - Haaretz.com

Aug 27, 2024 1:11 am IDT

"At the time that they [the Spartans] try to instill in their sons a spirit of heroism from childhood through a strict education, we [the Athenians] live a life of contentment" (Thucydides, "The Peloponnesian War")

The contrast between ancient Athens and Sparta has of late returned to the Israeli public discourse. The difference between the two city states, which had already been noted in ancient times in historical and philosophical writings, became axiomatic.

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It held that Athens was the cradle of democracy (a not entirely accurate claim as there were other democratic regimes in ancient Greece) and was a thriving center of theater, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy and the visual arts. Sparta was a militaristic power, where education was focused on developing physical strength and preparing young people for military service. Athenians were free-spirited and open-minded while the Spartans were conservative and closed off from the outside world and its influences.

In Athens, it was not always easy to distinguish (at least on the surface) between a citizen and a resident alien or a slave. Many foreign artists and craftsmen lived and worked there. In Sparta, young men were, as part of their education, sent to rural areas "to hunt down" and kill slaves. The Spartans from time to time expelled the foreigners in their midst for fear they would have a baleful influence on the natives.

The debate in Israel revolves around the question which of these two kinds of societies we should be – Athens or Sparta?

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After the horrors of October 7, many asserted that Israel had no choice but to become "Sparta" again, as it was in the early days of the state. According to this line of thinking, Israel erred when it adopted liberal-universal values and legal practices. They misled Israelis into thinking that Palestinians were also human beings and that we could live side by side with them in peace, if only they could have what every human being deserves. In other words, Israel had become "Athens."

By this way of thinking, Israel's response to the October 7 massacre was a renunciation of these values in favor of national unity and a renewed eagerness to fight. A less extreme version of this stresses the need to rehabilitate Israel by building a bigger and stronger army, instilling an ethos of national responsibility and sacrifice, a renewal of Israeli statehood and acceptance of the necessity to continue fighting.

Side by side with the calls to adopt the Spartan model, there are those calling for preserving the "Athenian" components in Israel's post-war society. They want a synthesis between a barracks state and an enlightened, democratic and peace-loving country.

The contrast between Athens and Sparta was a common motif in Greek and Roman writings in antiquity, but a synthesis was also recognized. Those of us who are debating what kind of society we should be should pay attention to the subtleties.

Activists carry messages for U.S. President Joe Biden as relatives of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024.Credit: Maya Alleruzzo,AP

While the Spartans never spawned a culture as developed and Athens, they had their poets. Although most of their works were lost in later generations, they were well-known and admired by their contemporaries. Plato said the Spartans enjoyed non-Spartan poetry, especially the Homeric epics. The visual arts also thrived in Sparta, mainly during the archaic period (between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE). Their festivals for honoring their gods included singing and dancing.

And Athens? That open city, which was a center for cultures and honored beauty and wisdom, was almost always at war! In the 5th century BCE, it was a maritime power that controlled an international alliance (that included cities on the shores of the Aegean Sea and its many islands and the Adriatic). Its allies were forced to supply it with ships and warriors or pay taxes (most of which were directed to further strengthening Athens). Allies who sought to withdraw from the alliance were brutally punished. In areas conquered by Athens, it established cleruchies – colonies that served as garrisons, usually while expropriating nearby lands and distributing them to the settlers. The Athenian army was among the strongest in Greece.

Athens waged wars with other Greek cities on land and overseas that sometimes lasted for months. The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies was precipitated, according to the Athenian historian Thucydides, by Sparta's fear of Athens' military might. It lasted 27 years, with short breaks, and ate up a considerable share of the public purse.

From the middle of the 5th century BCE, Athenians were subject to mandatory military service (although, in fact, they were only called up in times of need). Young men between the ages of 18 and 20 underwent military training.

The words that Thucydides put into the mouth of Pericles, the leader of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, in his funeral oration at the end of the first year of the war, express an ethos that will surely sound familiar to Israel: "They may be deemed fortunate [those]who have gained their utmost honor, whether an honorable death like theirs, or an honorable sorrow like yours, and whose share of happiness has been so ordered that the term of their happiness is likewise the term of their life."

Greece of ancient times was characterized by war, and in this respect Athens was no different from other cities. It was a magnet for those seeking culture and thought, but those who today seek an example of a "correct" form of society should take the time to fully understand the ways of Athens and Sparta.

Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz is a professor emeritus in the Tel Aviv University classics department.