Let's Talk About Sparta

And its new incarnation the United States of Spartica

I have been asked by certain people why “Trapped in Sparta”? The Answer Woman is here to explain. Although I had thought the history of Sparta was sufficiently well-known that it was self-explanatory.

At the age of approximately 15 years, I fell in love with ancient Greece. Not really Sparta though, primarily with Athens. I was too young and there was no internet to inform me about the level of misogyny that existed in ancient Athenian culture.. I absorbed what was called their mythology and felt it was a religion I could believe in, seriously regretting that the one-god thing had ever taken off as it did. I read the plays and I read the history. And I recall when my high school English class was assigned to do an oral report on a writer we admired, I was censored from reading my report on Sappho. I had no idea why. How far we’ve come!

Tragically, I finally learned that Athens idea of democracy was pretty much the same as our founding fathers/terrorists idea of democracy. More for them, none for those considered inferior for their bad choice in being not male and/or not white.

Sparta was very different. It was a military oligarchy with fighting skills as number one on their goals budget. Boys at age 7 were sent off to barracks where they learned reading, writing and fighting. They were the best warriors in ancient Greece. The Spartan girls had the best deal in ancient Greece. They also went to school, like Spartan boys, but got to stay home, learned pretty much the same as the boys except for the fighting stuff. However, they were taught self-defense as well as a variety of athletic skills. Spartans were encouraged to keep themselves healthy and in good shape. Spartan women also got to wear shorter outfits than in other Greek city-states, giving them more freedom of movement. They were also allowed to own property. I couldn’t even get a library card in my own name in Seattle in 1970 - because I was married!

The way they were able to provide these luxurious lifestyles was due to the accommodation of the Helots. The Helots were slaves who were not individually “owned” but owned by the state who assigned them to Spartan individuals. They did have occasional killing sprees to teach the Helots who was boss and to keep them in fear. They once put out a call for 2000 of the bravest, most ambitious Helots and promised them their freedom. Instead, they were never seen again. Not something you could fool people with twice. Turns out nobody wants a brave, ambitious slave. Seems like slave owners prefer broken down and fearful slaves.

The Spartans spent a great deal of time and effort in keeping their slaves oppressed. They were the job-doers and as such, allowed the Spartans to be free of the annoying work of keeping themselves alive; growing vegetables, killing chickens, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, cleaning walls and floors. They also didn’t seem to produce any particular art or literature of lasting value. Although if they had a library, I believe that Spartan women would have been able to acquire a library card in their own name! Two thousand years ago!

So much of their time was spent in oppressing another class in order for the Spartans to have the lives they did. There were far more Helots than Spartans, but the Spartans were healthy and well-trained and made sure the Helots were neither, although vaccines had not yet been invented, or gmo-patented fake food, or chemical pesticides, or phtalates, or plastic, or electricity or CAFO’s. Or EMF towers. However, although there’s no record left to verify this, I do suspect they may have been offered crickets to eat.

The Spartans spent so much time preparing for war, preparing for uprisings of their oppressed majority or attacking another city-state, that when they were finally defeated by Thebes, they had no resources in how to deal with a life they had to be responsible for without oppressed people to protect them from reality. They were unable to survive and thrive without their oppressed class.

A healthier alternative might have been to lay down their weapons, stop preparing for war, become peace lovers and learn from those they oppressed how to take care of themselves and share equally with the Helots both the work and the glory. I bet had they done that, they would have left a legacy of art and culture since that is usually born in the working - or should I say the Helot - class. The Russian Jews are a good example of that. Living impoverished, fearful lives in Russia, they emigrated in large numbers to the U.S. That was before they became “white”. They were listed as either “Hebrew” or “Oriental” (which is now considered racist). Not a great trade really except in the U.S. there were no pogroms but they were still limited as to jobs and education, except not as much as in Russia at that time. So the ignorant, uneducated peasants that arrived here in the late 19th to early 20th century started a cultural enlightenment in art, literature and music. Unfortunately they also had something to do with the creation of the atom bomb.

To sum up, why “Trapped in Sparta”? Because it’s never been my goal to live as a slave in a military oligarchy. In fact, one that can be said is even more toxic than Sparta. At least in Sparta the Helots knew to despise the Spartans. And at least in Sparta, those who benefitted from the system were also the ones who had to endanger or sacrifice their lives to it.

The new Sparta, or Spartica, is so good at what it does that many of the Helots take pride in fighting and dying for the benefit of this Spartan system. These Spartans never endanger their own lives, just that of others they consider to be inconsequential. Do they even condemn the system which has them endangering their lives, being forced to be guinea pigs for a death care system masquerading as health care or when they are sleeping on the street, living with a lifetime of addiction or other problems as a result of the PTSD suffered from our Spartican wars for glory and plunder?

Our Spartans don’t need as many of us - as in there are many, many more of us than of them. They are attached to their robot toys and actually believe they can replace us with them. Just as they’ve replaced the food we’re meant to eat with gmo fake food. You can get fat eating plasticized food, but I’m pretty certain you won’t get healthy. You can’t replace what was made by Gaia with what is sewn together in a factory. Can they make a fake planet to live on when they completely denude and sterilize this beautiful one that they are unable to see?

Like the Spartans of old, they seek to keep us quiet through fear. Every day they come up with something new that we should fear. Their one act of creativity. I like the quote of FDR “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. But sometimes it helps to be a bit fearful, to know your enemy. It isn’t a germ and it’s not climate change, and it’s not extraterrestrials. I hear that is one they’re planning for this year. There is but one thing we need to fear and that is our government which is in collusion with criminal psychopaths. If Charles Manson had money, he’d be Bill Gates, but he along with the rest of his conspirators secreted away in Davos, is who our government is attentive to, not us.

Sad to say, the Helots were only freed when they were rescued by Thebes. I don’t know if we can wait for a modern day Thebes, but that might be what it takes. I keep thinking of Harriet Tubman saying that she’d rescued 1000 slaves but could have rescued 1000 more had they only known they were slaves. That’s true for too many today. I do believe that life moves in cycles and we appear to be at the bottom of a particularly bad cycle, but this too with time, will change. I just worry about how much damage our current Spartans can do before the upswing to a better world. It will happen!

“Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is possible. She is on her way. On a good day I can hear her breathing.” Arundhati Ray