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Published: 2014-02-28 17:51:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 268; Favourites: 21; Downloads: 5
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I don't know. In the olden days it was more about royalty cred. An air of "cultural elevation" was the sought after thing. From the commie 1970s it became not done even for the rich to display themselves as anything other than "common". Since then the public attention seems to have shifted toward the glorification of the commoner, like the reality TV show about sewage workers. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I do hate the ancient Greeks for their idea of cultural superiority. The snobs! I personally feel ambiguous towards "culture". I see it as less important than social justice.
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Well i don't think that it's good at all... We have to know about sewage workers and about all the working classes but not through TV shows..TV shows are trying to make the viewers who don't belong to these classes feell sorrow about them and at the same time a kind of superiority. To maintain this superiority they feel obliged to defend the system that ensure it to them.When the "lawers" classes see on TV their life ,they believe that the "good system" cares about them ,doesn't ignore them and they hope that maybe something will change for them....The illusion of superiority and the illusion of a possible change...My opinion is that a classless society would be the best,
As for the cultural superiority ... Wich ancient Greeks do you mean.. I don't believe in any kind of cultural superiority. Each culture has it's own value.Greek philosophers maybe could be an exception and idon't mean that they are superiors from others but they were -if i am not wrong- the founders of philosophy However i don't feel superior as Greek...Social justice....... It's important ,i agree but in a society where there are inequalities an injustices... I would prefer a society without these characteristics instead of asking to be corrected..In the system we leave social justice is absolutely needed.
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With the ancient Greeks I mean the arrogant bunch from Athens, not the Spartans for example, and I don't think the Macedonians could be bothered as much with "cultural superiority" either, but I don't know. And I'm doing the Atheneans a favor by accusing them only of feeling "culturally superior", because in reality they felt "inherently superior", which is even worse. I'm absolutely convinced that it's no coincidence that Western Europeans started looking upon others as sub-humans after they came in contact with the ancient Greeks through their writings. As if the spirit of inherent supremacy was magically transmitted. And I personally don't think that the pure evil of this European supremacist thinking has yet been fully understood and dealt with, even after the colonialism and the slave trade and the Holocaust.
The idea that the ancient Greek philosophers invented philosophy perfectly illustrates the issue. Every society has its philosophies and there were very deep and elaborate philosophies around even before Athens existed. What they did do was to formalize reasoning, an act that has been attributed to Socrates, even if no one really knows who he was exactly, or where his knowledge came from. The point being that back then Greece wasn't some oasis of knowledge in a desert of ignorance, as "they" liked too look upon themselves, but a society in constant interaction with its surroundings, which "borrowed" knowledge from others all the time (Pythagoras studied "magic" = mathematics and technology in the Middle East for 35 years). Which is fine, and the ancient Greeks definitely made their own contributions, and praise for that. The problem I have with them is that "if they could look further than others because they stood on the shoulders of giants, they would have been the last to admit it". The "we are superior part". The horrible impact on both ancient Greek society itself and on later developments in Europe is in my opinion only poorly understood. I don't mind people showing an interest in the ancient Greeks, but I do see a slavish adoration for them (and a gross exaggeration of their historic role with it), especially among the "cultured" ones among us. And I hate that!
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I have no respect for Spartians and Macedonians... i am sorry... Spartians were taking children from the age of seven years old and they were teaching them how to be warriors...It was a crime... As for the Macedonians... Alexander the Great decided one day to civilize other peoples conquering them..Sooo many crimes.... Atheneans .... They had slaves indeed but they were dealing with spirit. They were trying to develop the way of thinking... They were always searching without accepting something a priori..If next greek generations had learned something from them maybe we could avoid the five centuries of subjugation...But no.... We are superiors beacause we are GREEKS and we have Parthenon and Acropolis and we "gave" to the whole humanity our "lights" through Greeks philosophers and scientists and ancient writers. and ..and... What are we doing now?NOTHING!!!!!Our system of education does not include at all any kind of philosophy and young people have no idea who was Platon,Sofokles,Evripides Socrates..... So we have masses of not thinking people .. so convenient...Athens was't the perfect example of Democracy i agree but nothing is perfect..
Any culture has it's own value as i said before...and there is no parthenogenesis in anything..I don't believe that someone needs a kind of knowelege to start thinking... A seven years girl yesterday said to her grandmother "GOD DOESN"T EXIST" Why she asked and she said:GOD SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD .HE IS NOT because he doesn't help me when i ask help with my test and he doesn;t help so many poor and ill children. We say crap... GOD DOESN"T EXIST"This is a wonderful start of thinking... Later knowlege will be necessary because you have to answer in many philosphical questions..Evolution takes place gradually. Someone "gives" this, someome else takes it and goes farther...I don't have any slavish adoration for any one but i respect and admire all those who try to "open"my mind.
I also have no problem with cultured people if they have a real culture and they want to share it with others. They could be rally useful. I hate All those who are trying to impress with their supposedly culture..
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I was taught in school that the Spartans even threw babies off a cliff who were deemed unfit to fight. Though they also saved Athena's precious ass on occasion if I remember well..
Please don't mix up the achievements of the ancient Greep philosophers with their society's ideas of supremacy. I'm not sure at all that the majority of the philosophers shared that view, they might have considered it too "banale" to even consider. Thales did feel that Greeks were superior above all others, that I'm sure of, which is interesting because he wasn't an "ethnic" Greek himself. It seems like a case of being "more British than the British themselves".
The relationship between the philosophers and the society they lived in was very complex. I think they were looked upon with great suspicion, and being devout atheists (or at least that what I suspect they were), they themselves saw their fellow citizens basically as a bunch of superstitious idol-worshipping idiots. I don't think the activities of the philosophers received wide-spread support in ancient Greece, though the leaders would have probably seen its use. But leaders always find themselves in a spagate between progressive ideas and the disgruntlement of the population, that's one thing that's the same wherever you go, whether it's democracies or dictatorships.
The question to ask is why they did get involved with abstract matters in the first place. In my opinion the point was that ancient Greece was an ultra-paranoid society in which every slightest criticism on that society would have been seen as an attack on the gods, with potentially dire consequences (see the story of Socrates). From that point of view the abstract provided a safe haven for them, for their fellow citizens simply couldn't understand how all that would relate to the society they were so eager to defend.
From that point of view the ancient Hebrews were a step further than the Greeks, because they invented the notion of social criticism and self-reflection. But on the other hand it's precisely this ancient Greek ultra-conservatism that yielded what we now know as philosophy. Therefore in my view Greek philosophy came into being not so much because of ancient Greek society, but despite it. And indirectly because of it again of course.
Btw I've read that according to recent research the ancient Greek system of "democracy" had little to do with politics and a lot with religion, and offered a kind of distribution as to who were responsible for which parts of the worship of the gods. The ancient West Germanic tribes, who were looked upon with disdain as "barbarians" by the Greeks, did have democratic on both a political and legal basis. I mean, who TF did those arrogant bastards think they were to label anyone "not us" as barbarians and therefore lesser beings. I personally don't see any amount of knowledge about ancient Greece as having much value without at least a basic understanding of the impact of this idea of superiority on the ancient Mediterranean and later on Europe. It introduces the very idea of sub-humans. The Romans were brutal bastards in many ways but they didn't have a notion like that.
I once read in a book about "meta history" by some Dutch Dr (i.e. not just someone) that while the ancient Greeks felt superior to anyone "not us", there was a single people who they saw as superior to themselves. They called these people the Perfect People of the South. They're supposed to have been Africans from Ethiopia or Sudan, though no one know for sure. And yes, they had black skin! I've tried looking it up on the internets but so far to no avail. It seems obvious that this would have been a fact the Western Europeans later would have loved to sweep under the carpet..
Ancient Greece was a link in the chain of human civilization, nothing more, nothing less. In my opinion.
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There is a misunderstanding here because of my awful English....I never said that Greek philosophers were intersting or were talking about any kind of superiority..I should make it clear.. IDON"T BELIEVE IN ANY KIND OF SUPERIORITY...I believe in equality.. I like philosophy but i don't have any obsession with Greek philosophers or greek culture..And of caurse i don't have any racial prejudice. I am really sorry if you understood something like this..My political theory has nothing to do with superiority or racism. I always try to see what is under the carpet.....Any way i agree... Nothing more nothing less...
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I'm not blaming or accusing you of anything. I wasn't referring to your beliefs but to what I've come to know as fairly mainstream views among the higher educated. Have you ever noticed that when people want to suggest "cultural elevation" and erudition they always throw in something about the ancient Greeks? At least they do over here. And I don't think it's some form of projection, I think it's something that existed in ancient Greek culture itself, this sense of superiority, and the tragedy (to me) is that only very few people seem to be able to see it because the idea that those ancient Greeks were superior was poured into our minds from when we were young. It appears a lot in the art world, where people often tend to really look down on the "unenlightened" or something. I've also found it in almost the same form among Western buddhists btw, though I think it's more of a Western than a Buddhist problem. And when people talk about ancient Greece it's always as if it were some semi-perfect society, and everything is expressed in terms of "higher" and "elevated". I personally think that we would have a much more human and amusing (in all its shortcomings) view of ancient Greece if only we could manage to do away with all that "elevated" nonsense! And perhaps a more grim view in some respects. When I mentioned those slaves I wasn't referring to the fact that the ancient Greeks had slaves, because back then everyone did, but I do suspect that the Greeks were particularly cruel to their slaves in the sense that they saw them as tools rather than as humans. I've heard that the Greeks laughed at the Romans for allowing their slaves buy themselves free, that small and simple fact means a lot, at least to me. I don't hate the ancient Greeks, but I do hate how the Western Europeans have put them on a pedestal. That's what I mean with a "slavish adoration". They were humans, and as such most of the time a bunch of weak and prejudiced retards, just like us
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The truth is that there is an "adoration" about Ancient Greeks and Greek culture and civilization..I can't figure out the real cause .I always fear how it can be used at a national level.. Maby as a hyper Nationalism.. This is why i am against any kind of "superiority"
PS I get flu and i have a lttle fever ... This is why i can't argue as much as i would like to do. It's your lucky day today
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I can't believe my luck! Get well soon!
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Is it an irony? Thank you!!
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hahha i like your comment. it's rather cool! as i recall you don't like to belong to groups, but you like requests...is that right? we'll see, cause i'm going to request this!
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hahaha! you try to make people think you're not very nice, but i can tell, you're actually a great guy.
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