December 19, 2023 • 54 mins
In episode 1599, Jack and guest co-host super producer DJ Danl Goodman are joined by author of The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy, Myke Cole, to discuss… The Modern Day Obsession With Spartan Culture, The Far Right's Bad Faith Reading Of History, Debunking The '300' Myth and more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three, eighteen, episode
two of Dear Danly's I Guys Day Show My Heart Radio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into America's share consciousness. I just dabbed for Dannel Jack,
just dab dab because I accidentally dabbed before we start recording.
(00:21):
And I just think it's still cool when you do that.
Hell in your forties.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's Tuesday, December nineteenth, twenty twenty three, less than a
week away from Christmas?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Oh right?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Ever heard of it? What ever heard of it anymore? America?
Or you too busy anyways? Trying to channel my inner
Fox News hosts, it's not going well. My name's Jack O'Brien,
aka do your nuts? Tang lo? Are they huge m
made of bone?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Where they found in Oxfordshire in the gravel en limestone?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is your scroed them like go boulder with a chef
like a light pole? Do you're not hang low? That
is curty christy Amagucci Mane. He wanted me to do
it as chain hang low by jibs, but I'm more
familiar with your ears hang low by like boy scouts.
(01:19):
I don't know, but Anyways, it's a reference to the
British doctor who fat saw the first dinosaur bone before
people knew about dinosaurs and said, that is no giant femur,
that is, in fact a giant's scrotum, And.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, here we are.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The rest is history. I'm thrilled to be joined in
my second seat by a very talented producer, musician, streamer,
esports commentator, the original editor of this show. He's constantly
streaming everything everywhere because he is that bitch on Twitch.
It's DJ Daniel good Man.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Aka soon to be NYC Daniel. Right, I'm leaving this
mortal coil of Los Angeles and putting on my most
comfortable down jacket and braving the cold, bitter winds of
New York City. Yeah, getting my tims?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
You figure, are you like lacing them up to like
three loops below and then just having the tongue hang out?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
What do we three loops tongue out? I'm actually putting
times on top of another pair of times. I'm trying
to as much as possible. I brought three Yankee fitteds wow,
slightly different sizees, so those two I can were on
top of each other. Yeah, I'm ready I'm trying to
work into calling the weather brick. I understand that is
the language, so you know, working on it.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The weather is brick.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, it's brickout. That's when it's cold for all you.
Because living in New.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
York City for a very long time, I've never heard that.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
There you go, Yes, it is. It is slang that
the youths are using, my understanding.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
At least Daniel as his ear to the to the
high school playground.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Now it's a thousand feet away, So yeah, what.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Is that voice? That voice is someone we're thrilled to
be joined in in our third seat. A prolific author
of fantasy and sci fi novels and nonfiction you've seen
on the Discovery Channel series Contact. His non fiction book,
The Bronze Lie is about the myth of the Spartan
warrior and why it's so popular with everyone but specifically
(03:31):
white supremacist. Also why it's completely full of to quote him,
so many holes that could drain pasta I don't know
if that's a direct quote, but it's like a analogy
he used that I loved. Please welcome Mike.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Co The weather here is absolutely brick.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Oh shit, sorry to hear that. Mike, what.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
We invited. I think, like, you know, you don't need
me to price crack. I think you probably hear that enough.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So oh man, thanks, No, yeah, not not anymore actually
that kind of thing. But uh, I've been thinking about
greeting all our expert guests with that. How how was
that for you? Good?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Pretty good? Yeact when I lived in DC, they came
to I don't remember, they came to a bar. They
were doing a tour.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
The guys from that ad.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Oh yeah, And I think that's so amazing. Is imagine
that making millions of dollars for that's what you're doing.
You walk in a room and you go, what the.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I mean, It's not not that hard for me to imagine.
To be honest with you, all right, Mike, we are
going to get into the content of the Bronze Lie
in a moment, but before we do that, we do
like to get to know our guests a little bit
better and ask them what is something from your search
history that is revealing about who you are?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
For me, most recently, it would be the email addresses
for the staff for my congressmen, because if you google
Mike pull Michael with the why of course, NPR one
a you will bring up me talking on National Public
Radio on the crisis and the volunteer fire service something
(05:22):
like seventy percent of firefighting in this country. And you
don't notice this in La Right, you're in a big city.
You see paid firefighters. That's not how it is in
most of the country. Most of the countries jack wagons
like me who are doing our jobs and then a
pager goes off and maybe we can go, and maybe
we can't. And with climate change coming on and people
not volunteering anymore, it's becoming a real problem and it's
(05:46):
become a real like cause for me. And I'm trying
to get I wrote a piece about it, the Slade,
I went on NPR, and I'm trying to get Congress
interested in it.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Nice. Oh yeah, what you said, something's coming on. I
don't know climage. Is that like a weather front or
something miliar?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Yeah, just you know, it's I don't know if you
guys have noticed, it's it's a little hotter, a.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Little yeah, you know the way.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't know about that. In California,
there's no fun.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
We're good out here. Things things are cool, that has
nothing to do with why Daniel is leaving California.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I'm sure nothing nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's so what would you what would a better supposed
to be. Would it be too that they were not
to volunteer, that there was a budget to fund firefighting?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, and this does not make me popular because a
lot of volunteer fire firefighters are militantly proud. When you
listen to that MPR show, you'll hear the other two
guys who are around there are just like, I do not
want to be paid. And I'm like, I get that
you don't want to be paid, but unless we have
a national paid fire service, maybe not tomorrow, but five
ten years, the house that burns going to be your own, Like,
(06:50):
it's going to be a problem. And it's it's just
getting worse and I I'm starting to ring the bell
on it. It's not cool. And also nothing too is Look,
the fire service were tied up pretty tight with the police.
So there's a lot of like baggage there, especially with
the young people that we need to recruit, right, And
so like, I don't I don't have a solution, but
the conversation needs to get started. And it's happening in
(07:12):
New York State and little but it needs to be
happening national. That's what I'm pushing for.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, amen, Amen.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So that was something I think that was one of
the first climate like horror scenarios that really like popped
into my brain and like stuck. There was the idea
that it gets hotter, there's more fire like wildfires, there's
more wildfires like belching shit into the air, which isn't
(07:40):
like the main cause of climate change, but it could.
It can't be good for it and help. Yeah, it
doesn't help, especially when you're not doing anything else to
address climate change, and then it creates this kind of
vicious cycle. Just I'd be curious to hear more from
you about just what climate change looks like from inside
the world of firefighting.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I mean, people think about fires, but I'll give you
and I'll give you a perfect example. Right now, there's
a massive hurricane hitting in Florida and it's sending unbelievable
reins up here. My pager has been going off all day.
We have floods, we have wires down, we have car accidents.
Nothing's burning right, But you remember the firefires do a
lot more and fight fires my pager's going off, Jack,
(08:23):
I can't go. I have a job.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You're talking to us.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Get off work.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
There's somebody on top of their car about to be
swept away, and you're talking to us.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Taking a break off rework. I will be able to
start answering my pager in the evening and when when
those calls start coming in. But also keep this in mind,
I train part time firefighting. Like one time, somebody that
I can't remember a party or something called it unskilled
labor almost knocked this dude out, Like what are you
talking about? Like, we have to know everything from time
(08:57):
not to running equipment, to binding used to calming people
down to building construction of the physics of I mean,
there is so much to know. And I'm training on
nights and weekends part time. You know, if I was
a paid, full time professional and this is the only
thing I had to think about, how much better at
this job would I be? And this is an important job.
(09:19):
I mean, Look, I say in the slave article, most
of the time when I screw something up, it's okay.
Some of the time when I screw something up, somebody dies,
Like that is serious. So and the thing is I
think that's so frustrating about it is that like this
decline of volunteerism, like I do, I definitely feel like
I'm screaming into the clouds or something like nobody cares
(09:41):
I talk about this stuff, and we always have to
wait until it's a crisis. I mean, did you guys
get the Hays from Canada in La You didn't dig?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
No, we didn't it? Okay from Canada? Calfornia, California.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I think some of yeah, some some of San Francisco
certainly did.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah, well, daniell I, you were gonna love it. Here
you go out man, because it looked like Mars. I
am not kid. Yeah, I was in I was in
dust storms in a rack and I came out my
door and I was like, oh, this looks familiar. Yeah,
but and like and like how much of that do
we need before before we're like, huh, we might want
(10:23):
to take this seriously.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So yeah, and a lot of that stuff, you know,
we we've talked before about how Joe Biden is like, well,
you know, we need to fund the police more because
they're our psychiatrists, they're our you know, and like, list
all these jobs that fall to the police because they're
not funded publicly. But we've also talked about the idea
(10:48):
that like some of the jobs that we currently throw
to the police can be done by you know, skilled
labor that is does not have a gun. You know.
So I don't know. I guess I hadn't really put
volunteer firefighters into that category until this conversation. And that's
(11:08):
on me, Like, this is.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Not something we go around teaching people, which is why
I'm looking. You know, I'm very very lucky I have
a small public platform. Yeah, I'm able to use that
to really drum up an issue that I really care about.
But what this is also pointed out is that I'm
the kind of person when you invite me to a
party and you want to talk about something like, I'm
going to ruin it, and you should not invite me
(11:33):
because it's going to get dark, it's going to get serious,
and by the time I walk out of there, you
are going to be so depressed.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, and that's what we're here for, That's right. Yeah. Similar,
I think people expect a certain thing from somebody who
works in comedy, and then I'm like, yeah, maybe not always.
What is something Mike, do you think is overrated.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
So overrated is up? We are over rated. I am
so sick of our faces and our opinions. I have said,
and I say this on that NPR show. The only
thing anybody means, no matter what they say on social media,
is look at me, Look at me, look at me.
And this is a question I have been trying so
hard to tangle with because we have a fucking opinion
(12:21):
on absolutely everything. Now you will find no more intractable
foe of Vladimir Putin than me, and you will find
no greater pro Ukrainian partisan. And every time I see
someone flying the Ukrainian flag, I want to bring a
map of Eastern Europe with the names of the countries
blacked out over to them and said, will you please
show me Ukraine? And we all know that ninety nine
(12:44):
point nine percent of them will not be able to
do it. Can you tell me the difference between the
dawn and the Zupprosian Gussips. That's really important to who
the Ukrainian people are. But you've got a strong opinion
on what's wrong and that stuff, because we sell our
asses out here right if you if you go viral
for lightning.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Some of us literally again I said some of us literally,
well yeah, selling our asses out here.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Sorry interrupt Dan following on only fans, it was a.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Terrible joke, but yes, please subscribe my only fans.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
But the but you go viral for lightning the firefracker
in your ass? You know, like your set, you could
be those one love guys walking around, you know. So
we are so incentivized to commoditize, to sign our name
and center ourselves. And I keep thinking about for like
what you guys do and for what I do. We
do public facing work. We can't not use social media,
and a lot of the time we are selling ourselves
(13:35):
and in comedy is so personal. I just shot a
spot for the History Channel. They didn't just pick me
because of my historical expertise, they picked me because of
my look, right, So how do you do that? How
do you center the work?
Speaker 3 (13:47):
You know?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
What am I doing here? Instead of crossing that line?
And to look at me, I'm you know, trying to
turn yourself into a brand. And I don't have a
solution to that. But that whole culture, which we can
all be forgiven for buying into, is what's for dinner?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That is the thing.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
It is the most overrated in the thing I'm most
sick of in this world.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
It's the only thing on the plate. It's the only
thing that's for dinner. Yeah, and a lot of respects.
It's it's tough. What's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Underrated is saying I don't know. Underrated is admitting that
there is a limit to what you are able to
be certain about. And as in a Storian, this is critical.
So you will see, hopefully you saw on the Bronze
Lie that I present sources and then I go and
here's what I think happened based on those sources. And
(14:36):
I think like most the Storians that come out there
and they go, the spartans were this or you know,
this is what happened here, And I'm always sitting here
being like, motherfucker, there is no way you could be
sure about that based on the deity you have. Yeah,
and I think a story is don't want to do it,
because look, dude, if we keep saying I don't know,
what the hell do you need us for? You could
do your own research like Alex Jones, you know, like
(14:58):
what do you need us for? But the truth is,
what is our job? Our job is to be the
Walking Cliff news Man. I went ahead and read through
Kennedy's and Dawafon and Proditus, and went to museums and
read all these boring historical journals so that you don't
have to. Now I can come here and explain it
to me, give you my opinion, but it is opinion.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
That ability to present expertise and be like, yeah, I'm
an expert on this stuff, but man, I don't know everything.
I mean, look, Robert mcnabara was an expert on defensive
Bard policy and Vietnam didn't work out so well did it?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Why What Haven War is an amazing documentary. Yet more
and more, I think that that the way you write,
the way that people who are kind of forward facing
with that caveat of we think, I think people sense
the truth in that more than yeah I can. I
(15:55):
remember reading historians and it being you can tell that
their editor was like, your voice is so authoritative, we
love it, and it's like, well, that's speaking authoritatively on
something that happened three thousand years ago is probably misleading.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Like just to say the least. I had a great
quote from my co author and mentor and dear friend
Michel doctor Michael Livingston. I really hope folks will check
out his work. His last book is as Inc He's
a medievalist. He's amazing and he once told me that
as in a story, and you have got to be
committed to getting it right, not being right, and that
(16:38):
is something I have carried with me into the rest
of my life. Is one of the most powerful things
I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Now, this episode is not about first Contact or UFOs,
but you were on the Contact documentary and I was
going to find a way to shorten this in anyways.
But I do think coverage of UFOs and what what's
out there and what all the data means is a
(17:06):
place where this very thing is somewhat important and missing
a lot of the time is like, you know, well
do we know?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
We don't.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
We actually don't know what all this means. We don't.
I think that's what's interesting about it is that it's
hard to like find a definitive answer given all the
clashing facts and videos and I wouldness testimony that we've seen.
What what is your take on that? As a part
time historian, how do you think about.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
The uf you're talking? Yeah, yeah, so, I mean I
think that of the most convincing stuff, including the mis
Carrier group stuff like it's just not there's no there there,
but really they're oh, absolutely, And in fact, look, look,
I'll probably Discovery is not going to be thrilled with
me for saying this. But one of the things when
(17:59):
you do reality TV, they put one minute on for
every hour that they shoot, you know, they could make
you say anything. And Mike and I went in there,
we were like, this is bullshit, this is not true.
And we went ahead and there were a couple of
things in there that we really were stumped on. If
you look at the episode where there was soil that
was rejecting water, we were we were like, this is
(18:23):
we don't know what this is. But there were a
lot of things in there were were like, this is nonsense.
And when we watched the show, they were like they
cut it, you know, they cut it to sell the
story they wanted to sell. Now does that mean that
I don't believe in aliens in UFOs, No, absolutely not.
That's not a responsible position to take. I certainly would
not be shocked at all if we find things in
(18:44):
the future. There was an incredible article about poison gas
emanations that we just detected and radio signals that cannot
be explained. So there's definitely the possibility out there. But
in terms of the mystique and swagger that that discovery
portrayed in that show, I mean no way. But I'll
say this, it's funny because all look, I try to
(19:05):
be a serious historian, and all of these fans of
my work will coming me and be like, how could
you do this? How could you do that ancient alien show?
And my answer was, motherfucker, I got twelve million people
watching me. One percent of those people go look at
my history. I just reached more people than you will
ever reach in your entire career. I think that trade
(19:27):
off is worth it. Also, TV is a blast. It's
the most funny you could do. Is. I love it,
And that's why I just did this spot for History Channel.
I want to keep doing it. Well gosh, I guess
I should warn networks, like, eventually, if you try to
make me say bullshit, eventually I'm going to tell the truth.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
They were just like cutting it. You're like, I think that,
like it was just carrier is sense? You think it's sense? Okay,
I mean you're not.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
You're not far off jet.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Right. All right, well, we're gonna have to have you
back to explain the Kniamtz carrier stuff because that that's
one of the ones that I'm like, damn.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Let me. Let me give you an example. There's one
scene where a you will see a UFO go from
a completely stationary position and break off to the left.
That is a bead of water of the flour camera lens.
Mike and I grow like, it's that's what it is.
It's not a UFO. And then there's this other scene
where like, by god, it's hovering and it's like, no, dude,
(20:32):
the cameras on gimbals and it's rotating so it looks
like it's hovering.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It's real interesting, interesting. Let's take a quick break and
we will come back and talk about the bronze Lie.
We'll be right back and we're back, and Mike, until
(20:59):
reading your book, I hadn't realized how much the Spartan
myth is just fucking everywhere. Like I of course remember
the movie The three hundred. I recognize that it has
been incredibly like has just stuck around and becomes this
like myth and this meme or this meme that like
(21:22):
Trump riffs on and I definitely at the time was like, man,
there's some weird ideas in this fucking movie at the time,
but yeah, as you point out, like I hadn't really
put it together. Oh yeah, there's so many high school
sports mascots, college sports mascots, and it feels like a
(21:42):
lot of the most famous names in history are kind
of obsessed with this myth. And so you went in
started kind of poking at it and questioning whether Spartans
are the greatest worri to ever lives, as depicted in
(22:03):
three hundred and elsewhere. And when you wrote about that
in The Daily Beast in the New Republic, you started
getting death threats. So I kind of just wanted to
start there because I think that drives home like what
what is important here? Like how this how much energy
below the surface is riding on this shit? Like who
(22:24):
are the types of people who you think are threatening
to kill you over this? What are they so mad about?
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Well, let me let me be clearer, like, I think
the types of people who are threatening to kill me
with this, I can't prove it. They're probably fourteen year
olds like in their basement. I wasn't ten terribly frightened.
But I think that first of all, I think that
the Spartan myth it isn't just the far right, it's
all of us. Our whole conception of what it means
to be a man that you endure hardship, that you
(22:52):
stoically and without complaint, you know, stand in the gap
like that idea comes from the ancient crete concept of erected.
It's conveyed us through the Spartan mess. This whole idea
of being a strong, silent type, being a man of
few words that doesn't exactly use the word Spartan. It's
tied to that. So it's not just like the far right,
although that was what I sought to come after with
(23:14):
that book because it was really bothering, But it really is.
It's in the air man like, it's it's how we
came up. And I think that's important to recognize. But
the best story about this, other than the death threats
this mighty fucking cert image that dude. Wow, he posted
on Twitter to his one million plus followers. Back on
(23:34):
the Twitter, we should be careful, uh, he goes. This
dude is so afraid of the bronze age mindset he's
talking about me that he wrote a whole book about it,
and he tweets a picture of the cover of my
book to his one million followers.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Break thank you, and he's thank you.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Tweeting out the cover of my book to one million people.
And I'm like, if even one percent of them raged
by it, and they did, Jack, it was a very
good day for me.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
So the far rights reaction to it, But what did it?
What does it say? It says that this to them
is a religion, It's an article of faith, right, this
symbol it's so to us, it's what is three hundred movie?
To them, it's the cross Man Like, that's that's serious.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I think. Yeah. We we end up talking about that
more and more that as religion has faded in our
day to day lives in America, like things are replacing
that that that that's not exactly how we view those things,
but it comes up when we're talking about the unprecedented
(24:40):
power of like Taylor Swift, or the myths and the
Star Wars universe and why people view, you know, a
Star Wars movie with a woman protagonist as like an
affront to the very core of their identity. That I
think that's right. I think more and more the stakes
on these kind of non religious like things we view
(25:05):
as pop culture are actually like life and death to people,
and like their entire personas are like shot through with it,
like down to a spiritual level.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Absolutely, And the Spartan myth plays on this really great
human insecurity. Dude, you are not good enough, you are
too weak, you are not tough, you cry too much,
you're not working hard enough to get after your goals.
Look at these people, Look at these people who could
withstand any privation, who would die rather than surrender. Be
(25:38):
like them, And honestly, that idea of a religious avatar
that's in almost every faith. That's Jesus Christ, that's the
prophet Muhammad, that's the Buddha himself. Right. If you don't
know how to act, just watch these people and act
like them. And the Spartans the same thing.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah. So, I mean there's some pretty straightforward ways for
like aspects of the Spartan myth that we see in
three hundred that you kind of go back and debunk,
Like there's the myth of how they treat children who
aren't like who aren't like born with a six pack
and like immediately able to like do twenty twenty pull
(26:18):
ups when you like hang them over a cliff that
they like throw them over into the sea. And I
feel I feel like that's a very potent part of
the myth because it's like, well, they did it, so
what are you going to do. But at the same time,
it's also like a profound endorsement of eugenics.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Right, just right, but like just the important thing they
didn't do.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
It, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
They love their children and they raised them, and there's
all these examples of it. King of guess Allawis the second,
who was one of the most famous warrior kings of Sparta,
was born with a club foot, right, he was limping
like it was. It's just bullshit. It's hot buttered bullshit.
And the thing that's so frustrating is that all it
(27:07):
takes to stick a pin in this balloon is you
read the sources like I'm reading the same ship that's
been available for twenty five hundred years. Where the fuck
is everybody you know? Like you know, all I did
was keep poor, like none of this stuff is the secret,
none of And the thing is people have been talking
about it like I'm certainly not new to this conversation.
(27:30):
I'm just the first person to systematically sit down and
in a pop narrative aimed at regular people, lay it
out in a book. That's all that's not It's not
like I said, it's not rocket scent.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, Trump just started like openly saying in
campaign speeches that illegal immigrants are poisoning the blood of America.
This just feels very kind of everywhere, and like it's
not going away.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Right, And Jack, like, I hear the desperate your voice,
and I feel it too, man, Like I cannot believe
we're back here. And that is part of what I
did with this book, Like this was an act of desperation,
like what can I do? Where can I strike a blow?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You know?
Speaker 4 (28:12):
And this was one of the few places where I
felt I could, I can speak the truth about something
I care.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, and you did learn the languages, which I was
gonna do. But then I saw that you did it,
so I don't I appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Doing that, So I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I'm not going to do that now. So I hadn't
realized that one of the things that is notable about
spartans from a historical perspective is that like they didn't
leave that much or like they were like it's called
la kana, like the it has the same like worship
of Spartan's has the same root where it is laconic, right,
(28:52):
because they weren't like giving a lot of information on
one of the details that I found particularly interesting is
like they they seemed to have a sense of branding.
Like you mentioned this idea that they kept mystery about
themselves by not fighting the same opponent more than once
mm hm, which feels wildly and practical like if you're.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Well, But also keep in mind that that is the legend.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
That's the legend, you know.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
They did fight the same opponent more than once. In fact,
they're repeated battles against the city State of Thebes, which
modern day is known as Steva. They wound up being
defeated by tactics because the Fievens, I think, had a
really good idea of what they were going to put
into the battlefield.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So it's always hard to play an opponent the second time,
as anybody who follows sports would know. But it just
the idea that they would only fight an opponent once
like suggests like even the idea that they would like
put that out there about them, suggests that they're like
the Harlem Globetrotters of War, that they just like are
just yeah, we we kind of put on a show.
(29:56):
We're like a road show. But like you can't, can't
let you see it more the once.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
So I look, and I can't prove this, but if
I had to, if I had to give my educated guests,
I would say that they didn't start that. Man the
Athenian started that. And one of the things I did
in the New Republic piece is showed that, like, we
don't have any writing from Spartans, none, It's all fanboy
stuff from outside Xenophon who was this like huge Spartan
(30:23):
like this dude loved the Spartans and and and the Kennedy's.
It was an enemy of them, and you know they
write this legendary stuff. And I think somewhere along the
way the Spartans looked around and were like, holy shit,
we got something going here. We need to lean into this.
This is working out. I think that's probably what happened.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Mhm.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It feels like throughout it is this fantasy of being
able to, like you say, at a certain point, like
people aren't machines, in the book, But it seems to
be the fantasy of the Spartan myth like at the time,
and of like fascism in general, like turn humans into
(31:04):
beautiful war machines, take away the softness, the follibility, the
inconsistency of humanity. But of course that's a fantasy, because
that is the human condition, Like all of those things
are part of the now condition. But it seems like
the ideal of the fake Spartan society that made its
way down to us over the decades was both their
(31:27):
fantasy and our fantasy. So there is like something universal
and powerful about it, which is what makes it so
kind of terrifyingly powerful and so terrifying that it's you know,
being allowed to rise back up because it's it's kind
of always there. We just had a sense of how
(31:48):
dangerous and powerful it was for so long, and now
we're back to a place where it's being allowed to
just kind of run rampant again across the world.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Well and being marshalled to a specific political end, like
here is this what icons can we use? Right you
know where? You know, look, we as the modern Trump movement,
you know, raising the cross is probably not gonna work
for us here, although he's popularly evangelicals too. I just
do not understand that. But okay, sure so, but we
could pick this up, man, I mean that video. I
(32:21):
don't know if you've seen it. It's incredible. There's a
video with it's three hundred. It's the scene where the
Persian messengers are kicked into that pit and you know this,
and it's Trump's head over like glued on too, and
and Soros and Obama getting kicked around. Man. By the
(32:42):
time I found that video, and this was years ago,
it had been watched five million times. It is amazing
how powerful this stuff is.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, and of course that movie came out in two
thousand and sixty six, when like Obama was first becoming
a thing and you know, has gained popularity. And man,
they love to put Trump's head on the body of
just like a ripped soldier, don't they.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
God. I've been very, very lucky not to see him.
But I am pretty sure Jack, you don't look like that.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
All right, let's uh, let's take a quick break and
we'll come back and keep busting this myth. We'll be
right back and we're back. Okay. So this one is
(33:42):
kind of unrelated. But it's a thing that whenever I
read about or hear about, like ancient Greek city states
going to war with one another, I think in my
mind for most of my life that those are like
mad of armies of people. But aren't weren't the communities
(34:04):
like fairly small?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
I think it varied. You know, you see figures of
ten thousand thrown around all the time. Certainly the armies
are bigger in some battles and smaller in others. I know,
failings on failings battles and a few hundred I certainly
compared to modern armies, you know, modern professional armies. Yeah,
it's a totally different game in terms of the number
of personnel that can be marshaled, but it does vary.
(34:29):
I mean, we do have battles of tens of thousands,
twenty thousand that we that we see it. It's quite
a few.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah. It's just like the idea of like how many
people were in Sparta at the time when they were
at their height, Like just in the society in general.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Here we go, Jack, and I will tell you I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I can find out, but I don't city or for dead,
I have an answer to that question. I have a
military history and focusing on this, but one important aspect
of ancient Greek warfare that I do think is worth
mentioning that people are very confused about, specifically when it
comes to the Spartans, is this idea of professionalism, is
that the average ancient Greek hoplight, which is what we
(35:12):
call the you know, the heavy infantrymen with the bronze
armor and the shield and the spear. That was not
what they did, man. They were farmers, or they were
leather workers or whatever it was they were doing, mostly farmers,
and you would the horn would sound, and you would
run to your ollar shed and you would grab a
rusty old spear and shield your grandfather had hand down,
(35:32):
and you would muster in the square with no training
and almost no command. And the way they thought this
fail anx, this block of dudes with shields overlapping was
designed so that amateurs could pull it off. And that
belief that professional warriors of any kind and certainly not
the Spartan's.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
On Huh So they how did did they just get
the reputation through sheer tyranny of like, of will of
people like wanting that to be a real thing or.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
No, no, I mean they did one thing different. So
in most ancient Greek city states, you have populations of
young people, right they grow up, they start jockeying for power,
and you send them off to found a colony. Here.
You go, go get a boat, go make a town
over there, do your own thing. And that's how most
Greeks dealt with that, but not the Spartans, and largely
because they weren't on a seafaring people, so they were
(36:24):
the first, or maybe not the first, but among the
first to subjugate their neighbors. And when they subjugated them,
they enslaved them in a cast based slave system, which
is to say, your kids will be born and die
as slaves. And that was almost unique. The Sallians did
it too, And because those slaves were doing all the
agricultural work in the housework, well, the knights of Spartan society,
(36:45):
who we call them oil, they were free. They were
free to and people think they were free to train
for war, but we have no evidence that they actually
trained for war. We'd see them playing sports. In fact,
Aristotle tells us that the Spartans were tougher than other
Greeks in the field, not because they trained hard, but
because they trained at all. And the reason they were
(37:06):
able to do that was because there were a whole
society of slates and on all their ship form.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Wow. But just digging back into the film, like it's
so thoroughly coated with eugenics. Like the the person who
dooms them is like this hunchback who is mad at
them because he wants to get to fight, I guess,
and they're like, or just like join their society, and
they're like this ain't no. Everyone gets a trophy as society.
(37:36):
We are Sparta. And then he's like, all right, well
then I'll cheat and like get you all killed and
like So that's on top of the baby's all being
thrown into into the ocean for not being able to
do push ups.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
It's nonsense. It's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
The whole thing that fialtis, which by the way, is
the modern Greek word for nightmare. That's how fucking famous
this dude is, This dude who ever existed, is that
it's a secret path across Cali Dromo. I have been
to KLi Drome. I found every path over that mountain
in a few days. There's no secrets there. And you're
gonna tell me that Xerxes, the king of accumented Persian,
(38:14):
which was the biggest and most sophisticated empire in the world,
do the basic reconnaissance to find the paths over the mountain.
Of course not, they knew, and they hired local malley
and guides the people who lived there to show them
a way. And that what was considered a betrayal by
the Greeks. Right, these fuckers they went over and worked
for the persons. They could blame them in a lot
(38:36):
of cases. You have a much better life working for
Xerxes than be different from Leona Dasser or any other
Greek king that became this figure of fialities, this deformed
punchback who was who is a betrayer? No, No, this
was good intelligence on the part of the Persians.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, there's a part where you talk about a poet
having to emphasize these values because they need these values
to actually be held up like they need them to
be more. I remember writing about this back in at
Cracked that, like a lot of the samurai myth some
of the misconceptions about samurai are based on like the
(39:15):
laws of the Samurai that were written because samurai did
not like. The idea that samurai were super loyal to
their master is based on these laws which are were
put in place because they were not loyal to their master,
like they were free. It was like be the equivalent of,
you know, a modern day professional athlete. Like they're like, no,
(39:39):
I'm going to go to whoever pays me money, because
that's and so they wrote these laws to be like,
you must be the most loyal And it's like reading
the high school student handbook and being like, man, those
high school students in the United States in the seventies
were incredibly obedient. It turns out it's like, wait, what
(40:00):
the fuck.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
It's like the student the student conduct code. You know,
you should not playgiarize. Wow, man, these people never plagiarize.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, but it seems like there's some of that happening
in Sparta as well.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Right, Oh, absolutely, you're exactly right. And to that point
on the Samurai the TV show Showgun is about to
come out, which is a fictionalization of the actual real
life Showgun took a galleys and his conquest of Japan
turns on a betrayal. It turns on switching signs. So
like all of that loyal onto death stuff, I guess
(40:34):
there's some exceptions.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Right, yeah, turns out, but what what are some of
the values that get emphasized with Spartans that weren't actually
there beyond throwing their children over right?
Speaker 4 (40:49):
And I want to be I want to be clear here.
You know. One of the things that kind of bugged
me about this book is I absolutely wrote this book
to deflate this icon for the mic Cernoviches of the
world and for the real far writers. But what's happened
because of the erosion of discourse in this country is
that a lot of people took that book and we're like, yeah,
the Spartans sucked, and like trying to use it to
(41:11):
clobber people. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
The Spartans did not suck. They were humans, right, They
were extraordinary sometimes and they were wame sometimes, like we
all are. And that's the thing I'm driving at. So
when we look at the poetry of Turteos, that's the
poet you're talking about, and the things he extolled us,
Certainly some Spartans were not doing those things. He was
(41:33):
not exhorting them to press to one of the things
the values. Don't get hit in the back right, That
means you're running away. If you're young, don't let the
old people fight. Get out there in front of it
and get up in your enemy's face, put your shield
on his shield, your foot next to his foot, close
enough to kiss him, and do the job. There. These
are the kinds of things that the Spartans are legendary for.
(41:55):
Did they all do it? Hell no, some of them
probably did, And that's important to remember too. And the
poetry is so what makes me crazy is that there's
so much that's fascinating about the Spartan It's like, look
three hundred Jack, it's about a disaster they lost, you know,
all these friggin nra guys come and take them, you know, like,
come and take their weapons. The great quote of the
(42:15):
autotos Jack Xerxes came and took them. After day he
cut that dude's head off, He took their weapons away,
and he paraded his head on a skin. So that's
the cry of a loser. Why are you shouting that?
Why not talk about real Spartan successes. Why not talk
about the times they really work? Straud in there and
(42:36):
that poetry of Tourteus. I'm so glad you brought it up.
It's beautiful and it talks about real valor, it talks
about how to be a warrior, and admitting that not
everybody lived up to it doesn't make it any less extraordinary.
And the fact that for most people they will never
even know about Tritastes except listening to you on a
top of their podcast talk about it breaks my heart.
(42:58):
All they know about is just freaking bigoted, shitty movie
which tells us craft story about people who ever existed.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Going back to the movie, you know, three hundred is
not it's by far not the first movie to glorify
soldiers or this kind of training style or fighting in
a way that you know, Ben's history a little bit
or a lot of it, and just portrays this lifestyle
that has you know, been co opted by right wing
(43:28):
people or just in general bad actors as it were.
And what I'm kind of curious about is, I know
you are a real history historian, maybe not a pop
culture historian, but what do you think is the inflection
point for this kind of narrative that allowed three hundred
to exist? Like before this, we had movies like Gladiator.
We had movies like Braveheart. We had movies now, of course,
(43:50):
not the exact same thing, but these movies that portray warfare,
portray this kind of very like, you know, powerful, strong,
prow warrior fighting for their people, et cetera. What is
the inflection point that allows three hundred to exist? And
why isn't that the thing that people held onto Why
is it spartans these days?
Speaker 4 (44:11):
Yeah, that is a really fascinating question, and like, I
don't know that I have an answer for it, but
I do see one positive sign in a pop culture reference,
and it is John Snow fighting. I don't know if
you remember in Game of Thrones that scene with shields
pressing in and all of them being crushed together and
(44:32):
the absolute bloody, futile chaos. The what George rr. Martin
e voked throughout Game of Thrones, both in the books
and in the television shield, the capricious randomness of how
ned Stark was killed, This idea that these great events
and the turnings of them are so chaotic and random,
and that that violence and the unpredictability of it and
(44:53):
what it does to people, that is a change I'm seeing.
I mean, there have been books before, also white on
the Western front. There's that famous poem Delgat to Korum.
As people have been talking before about how truly horrible
war is, and I speak as someone who's been rocketed
and shot at it, and I certainly look, you know,
(45:15):
I went to Iraq a true believer, right Like, I
went there to do something and had a first hand
experience of how futile that was, and how when you
introduce violence as a means of policy and try to
change people with it, how that is completely not going
to do what you want it to do and not useful.
And I do see something in the pop culture that's changing.
(45:36):
And as we live through Gossip, as we live through Ukraine,
as we live through Africa on fire, you know, and
like it looks like the straight of Taiwan might be next.
Right with what China's doing with the Philippines, there is
I feel a shift in the public's tolerance for that myth.
(45:56):
And I see that in the push for a ceasefire
right now and the sickness with Hillary Clinton coming out
there and go look kind of have a suspire ale
mostery group and people being like, all right, well, that's
nice for you. In an air conditioned office. There's people
dying here, how about that? And that is something I
didn't hear wrong, I never heard it, or if I
heard it, I heard it from peacenicks and hippies, and
(46:18):
now I hear it from everybody. So maybe the inflection
point is now, Dan And if so, Man, God, look,
I have spent my entire life either at war or
studying war, and you will not find someone more committed
to endgames like it is just an absolute evil.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us on
the Daily zeit Geist, for writ in the book, and yeah,
where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me. I'm easy.
My name is spelled m y k E c O
l E. So if you go to Mike Coole dot
com spelled that way, you'll pull up my website. I
am using social media. Look, social media, you got to
use it when you're in public facing work. But it's poison.
I don't care. Oh, Fred's is gonna be better than X.
Threads are gonna be better than X. And here's all
the people I'm gonna block. Threads is not gonna be
(47:06):
better than X because the problem is us and we're
on threads. So you will find me in all of
these places and variations of that name x, Facebook, Threads,
Instagram as Mike Cole, but don't expect me to post much,
and certainly don't expect me to weigh in on political
and social issues about which I know knowledge.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying, Yes,
So I.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Would like to direct people to the Instagram account of
an author named Christian Cameron, and you can find him
at at Christian c h r I s t I
A and Underscore Cameron c A m e r O
and Underscore author.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
A U t h O R.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
The reason I want you to check him out is
not just for his writing. And he paints toy soldiers
and he's a total nerd, but he is a real reenactor.
He is a guy who gets every stitch of thread,
every scrap of metal and rivet in the armor that
he wears exactly right. And he goes out there and
he fights. And if you want to understand how ancient
medieval people fought, you can read every book in the world,
(48:10):
you can go to every museum in the world, but
until you put on that gear and you get toe
to toe to someone, you will not be able to
ask and answer the critical questions. And he does it,
and he does it right. And if you see those pictures,
you will be looking into the past and it is amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Don you give an example of like one of the
things that you feel like you figure out from the reenactment,
because you kind of mentioned that in the book and
that was kind of new to me. I wasn't really
familiar with yet the idea of using historical reenactments to
actually do research.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Sure, so one of the big questions among ancient warfare
nerds I don't thin anybody else cares about this is
this idea of that when the phalanx clashes clash, did
they push shield the shield and push against each other
or did they stand off and fence with their spears?
And that actually makes a big difference on how those
battles were fought. And then you can check that again
it's the written sources and tell if these guys are
(49:01):
full of shit or not. Well, when you get behind
a shield, I have discovered some people disagree with me,
but this has been my experience. Man, I do not
want to be three feet away from me. I want
to be right up there where I can use my
ass and where my face isn't exposed because I'm up close.
Like when you're what happens when you're boxing with someone
and you feel outmatched, you grapple man. You don't stand
(49:24):
back and get punch in the face. And the point
is these kinds of little questions you can only answer
them by doing them. And for years, professional historian scholars
PhDs they really and they don't do it anymore, but
they used to really look down their nose at nerds
making the armor. Well what do you guys do? And
this is costplay? No, no, no, it is not costplay.
It is history and that account I just give him
(49:47):
Christian Cameron, author, that is the best example of it
I know.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
All right, amazing Daniel, Yes, sir, thank you so much
for joining. Where can people find you? Follow you? And
what's the work a media you've been enjoying? Honestly you can.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
I deactivated Twitter, I'm barely using Instagram anymore, and I
am divorcing myself from social media entirely. So I'd prefer
it if you didn't find me to answer my question.
It's not really a question from earlier. But when you're
talking about being in a public facing kind of area
or a public facing business like we all are, I have,
and I'm very lucky to be in the position that
(50:23):
I am right here. I love working with Jack, I
love working at iHeart, I love making podcasts, and I
found that using my position now to platform people who
would like to use their voices and be out there
is the best use of my work in forward facing media.
So instead of being like, here's what I think about something,
(50:43):
I'm in the business of here's what this person thinks
about something, and trying to do that as opposed to saying,
whatever the hell I think, because truly it doesn't matter
because what I care about is smash Burgers and who
is currently winning Dancing with the Stars even though the
season just ended, so honestly, my opinions are so it
was Soshi Gomez. Did you see the Do you see
(51:03):
the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness she plays?
I can't I literally can't remember the Marvel superhero's name
because there's so many at this point, I can't remember.
But she was in that and she was great, and
she was really good on Dancing with the Stars, anyway,
that's not the point. A piece of social media or
a piece of media that I have been liking that
is not. That is the new Miyazaki film The Boy
(51:24):
and the Heron. Go see it. Go see a movie,
Go see an animated picture. Go to the movies and
participate in the culture of Japanese animation of Hyo Miyazaki,
an incredible director. Go see the movie. And if you
haven't had yourself a nice meal, go to someone who's
cooking food on the street and go get it. If
you're happened to me in Los Angeles, go to Brothers
(51:45):
Cousins Tacos, my favorite taco stand in Los Angeles, because
I will be deeply missing it when I leave for
the East Coast. But yeah, other than that, go support
your local business. Go see a movie, and then go
follow Mike there you go, Thank you my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore Obrian
liking things like this tweet from Jesse McLaren, who tweeted
shout out to the Beach Boys for landing on the
festive lyric Christmas comes this time each year, and then
Andy Ryan tweeted two elderly English ladies greeting each other
(52:19):
and it's alo Vera and evening Primrose Oil. Alo Vera
Evening Primrose Oil. I just enjoyed the good, wholesome Twitter fun.
You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist. We're
at d Daily Zeikeeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook
fanpage and a website Daily zeitgeist dot com where we
post our episodes and our footnote food doors where we
(52:42):
link off to the information that we talked about in
today's episode, as well as a song that we think
you might enjoy. DJ Daniel Goodman is there a song
that you would recommended people?
Speaker 3 (52:51):
There? There always is, and it might be a little
much for some people, But since I rarely get to
come here, I'm going to I'm going to sing a
song of drum and bass that I love so much.
A British group, Chasing Status, just released a new album
called two Rough, Volume one, and one of the songs
on that album, called on the Block, is such a
(53:12):
massive tune. I am just in my car, gritting my teeth,
driving the speed limit, but with my hands tightly gripped
on the steering wheel, just banging my head. So if
you are into something that is going to keep you
up at night, or power you through a long drive,
or get your workout going, whatever it is that you
need something driving to get you going. So listen to
Chas and Status' new album Too Rough, Volume one. The
song on the Block is a real like ooh, it'll
(53:34):
get you moving songs. So anyway, that's my recommendation on
the block with Chasing Status.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
We will listen to that in the footnotes. The daily
es Eite Guys is the production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio ap Apple
Podcasts or wherever you go to listen to podcasts. That's
going to do it for us this morning. We are
back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and
we will talk to you all then Bye bye
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three, eighteen, episode
two of Dear Danly's I Guys Day Show My Heart Radio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into America's share consciousness. I just dabbed for Dannel Jack,
just dab dab because I accidentally dabbed before we start recording.
(00:21):
And I just think it's still cool when you do that.
Hell in your forties.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's Tuesday, December nineteenth, twenty twenty three, less than a
week away from Christmas?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Oh right?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Ever heard of it? What ever heard of it anymore? America?
Or you too busy anyways? Trying to channel my inner
Fox News hosts, it's not going well. My name's Jack O'Brien,
aka do your nuts? Tang lo? Are they huge m
made of bone?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Where they found in Oxfordshire in the gravel en limestone?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is your scroed them like go boulder with a chef
like a light pole? Do you're not hang low? That
is curty christy Amagucci Mane. He wanted me to do
it as chain hang low by jibs, but I'm more
familiar with your ears hang low by like boy scouts.
(01:19):
I don't know, but Anyways, it's a reference to the
British doctor who fat saw the first dinosaur bone before
people knew about dinosaurs and said, that is no giant femur,
that is, in fact a giant's scrotum, And.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, here we are.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The rest is history. I'm thrilled to be joined in
my second seat by a very talented producer, musician, streamer,
esports commentator, the original editor of this show. He's constantly
streaming everything everywhere because he is that bitch on Twitch.
It's DJ Daniel good Man.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Aka soon to be NYC Daniel. Right, I'm leaving this
mortal coil of Los Angeles and putting on my most
comfortable down jacket and braving the cold, bitter winds of
New York City. Yeah, getting my tims?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
You figure, are you like lacing them up to like
three loops below and then just having the tongue hang out?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
What do we three loops tongue out? I'm actually putting
times on top of another pair of times. I'm trying
to as much as possible. I brought three Yankee fitteds wow,
slightly different sizees, so those two I can were on
top of each other. Yeah, I'm ready I'm trying to
work into calling the weather brick. I understand that is
the language, so you know, working on it.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The weather is brick.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, it's brickout. That's when it's cold for all you.
Because living in New.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
York City for a very long time, I've never heard that.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
There you go, Yes, it is. It is slang that
the youths are using, my understanding.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
At least Daniel as his ear to the to the
high school playground.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Now it's a thousand feet away, So yeah, what.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Is that voice? That voice is someone we're thrilled to
be joined in in our third seat. A prolific author
of fantasy and sci fi novels and nonfiction you've seen
on the Discovery Channel series Contact. His non fiction book,
The Bronze Lie is about the myth of the Spartan
warrior and why it's so popular with everyone but specifically
(03:31):
white supremacist. Also why it's completely full of to quote him,
so many holes that could drain pasta I don't know
if that's a direct quote, but it's like a analogy
he used that I loved. Please welcome Mike.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Co The weather here is absolutely brick.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Oh shit, sorry to hear that. Mike, what.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
We invited. I think, like, you know, you don't need
me to price crack. I think you probably hear that enough.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So oh man, thanks, No, yeah, not not anymore actually
that kind of thing. But uh, I've been thinking about
greeting all our expert guests with that. How how was
that for you? Good?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Pretty good? Yeact when I lived in DC, they came
to I don't remember, they came to a bar. They
were doing a tour.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
The guys from that ad.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Oh yeah, And I think that's so amazing. Is imagine
that making millions of dollars for that's what you're doing.
You walk in a room and you go, what the.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I mean, It's not not that hard for me to imagine.
To be honest with you, all right, Mike, we are
going to get into the content of the Bronze Lie
in a moment, but before we do that, we do
like to get to know our guests a little bit
better and ask them what is something from your search
history that is revealing about who you are?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
For me, most recently, it would be the email addresses
for the staff for my congressmen, because if you google
Mike pull Michael with the why of course, NPR one
a you will bring up me talking on National Public
Radio on the crisis and the volunteer fire service something
(05:22):
like seventy percent of firefighting in this country. And you
don't notice this in La Right, you're in a big city.
You see paid firefighters. That's not how it is in
most of the country. Most of the countries jack wagons
like me who are doing our jobs and then a
pager goes off and maybe we can go, and maybe
we can't. And with climate change coming on and people
not volunteering anymore, it's becoming a real problem and it's
(05:46):
become a real like cause for me. And I'm trying
to get I wrote a piece about it, the Slade,
I went on NPR, and I'm trying to get Congress
interested in it.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Nice. Oh yeah, what you said, something's coming on. I
don't know climage. Is that like a weather front or
something miliar?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Yeah, just you know, it's I don't know if you
guys have noticed, it's it's a little hotter, a.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Little yeah, you know the way.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't know about that. In California,
there's no fun.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
We're good out here. Things things are cool, that has
nothing to do with why Daniel is leaving California.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I'm sure nothing nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's so what would you what would a better supposed
to be. Would it be too that they were not
to volunteer, that there was a budget to fund firefighting?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, and this does not make me popular because a
lot of volunteer fire firefighters are militantly proud. When you
listen to that MPR show, you'll hear the other two
guys who are around there are just like, I do not
want to be paid. And I'm like, I get that
you don't want to be paid, but unless we have
a national paid fire service, maybe not tomorrow, but five
ten years, the house that burns going to be your own, Like,
(06:50):
it's going to be a problem. And it's it's just
getting worse and I I'm starting to ring the bell
on it. It's not cool. And also nothing too is Look,
the fire service were tied up pretty tight with the police.
So there's a lot of like baggage there, especially with
the young people that we need to recruit, right, And
so like, I don't I don't have a solution, but
the conversation needs to get started. And it's happening in
(07:12):
New York State and little but it needs to be
happening national. That's what I'm pushing for.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, amen, Amen.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So that was something I think that was one of
the first climate like horror scenarios that really like popped
into my brain and like stuck. There was the idea
that it gets hotter, there's more fire like wildfires, there's
more wildfires like belching shit into the air, which isn't
(07:40):
like the main cause of climate change, but it could.
It can't be good for it and help. Yeah, it
doesn't help, especially when you're not doing anything else to
address climate change, and then it creates this kind of
vicious cycle. Just I'd be curious to hear more from
you about just what climate change looks like from inside
the world of firefighting.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I mean, people think about fires, but I'll give you
and I'll give you a perfect example. Right now, there's
a massive hurricane hitting in Florida and it's sending unbelievable
reins up here. My pager has been going off all day.
We have floods, we have wires down, we have car accidents.
Nothing's burning right, But you remember the firefires do a
lot more and fight fires my pager's going off, Jack,
(08:23):
I can't go. I have a job.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You're talking to us.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Get off work.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
There's somebody on top of their car about to be
swept away, and you're talking to us.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Taking a break off rework. I will be able to
start answering my pager in the evening and when when
those calls start coming in. But also keep this in mind,
I train part time firefighting. Like one time, somebody that
I can't remember a party or something called it unskilled
labor almost knocked this dude out, Like what are you
talking about? Like, we have to know everything from time
(08:57):
not to running equipment, to binding used to calming people
down to building construction of the physics of I mean,
there is so much to know. And I'm training on
nights and weekends part time. You know, if I was
a paid, full time professional and this is the only
thing I had to think about, how much better at
this job would I be? And this is an important job.
(09:19):
I mean, Look, I say in the slave article, most
of the time when I screw something up, it's okay.
Some of the time when I screw something up, somebody dies,
Like that is serious. So and the thing is I
think that's so frustrating about it is that like this
decline of volunteerism, like I do, I definitely feel like
I'm screaming into the clouds or something like nobody cares
(09:41):
I talk about this stuff, and we always have to
wait until it's a crisis. I mean, did you guys
get the Hays from Canada in La You didn't dig?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
No, we didn't it? Okay from Canada? Calfornia, California.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I think some of yeah, some some of San Francisco
certainly did.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah, well, daniell I, you were gonna love it. Here
you go out man, because it looked like Mars. I
am not kid. Yeah, I was in I was in
dust storms in a rack and I came out my
door and I was like, oh, this looks familiar. Yeah,
but and like and like how much of that do
we need before before we're like, huh, we might want
(10:23):
to take this seriously.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So yeah, and a lot of that stuff, you know,
we we've talked before about how Joe Biden is like, well,
you know, we need to fund the police more because
they're our psychiatrists, they're our you know, and like, list
all these jobs that fall to the police because they're
not funded publicly. But we've also talked about the idea
(10:48):
that like some of the jobs that we currently throw
to the police can be done by you know, skilled
labor that is does not have a gun. You know.
So I don't know. I guess I hadn't really put
volunteer firefighters into that category until this conversation. And that's
(11:08):
on me, Like, this is.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Not something we go around teaching people, which is why
I'm looking. You know, I'm very very lucky I have
a small public platform. Yeah, I'm able to use that
to really drum up an issue that I really care about.
But what this is also pointed out is that I'm
the kind of person when you invite me to a
party and you want to talk about something like, I'm
going to ruin it, and you should not invite me
(11:33):
because it's going to get dark, it's going to get serious,
and by the time I walk out of there, you
are going to be so depressed.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, and that's what we're here for, That's right. Yeah. Similar,
I think people expect a certain thing from somebody who
works in comedy, and then I'm like, yeah, maybe not always.
What is something Mike, do you think is overrated.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
So overrated is up? We are over rated. I am
so sick of our faces and our opinions. I have said,
and I say this on that NPR show. The only
thing anybody means, no matter what they say on social media,
is look at me, Look at me, look at me.
And this is a question I have been trying so
hard to tangle with because we have a fucking opinion
(12:21):
on absolutely everything. Now you will find no more intractable
foe of Vladimir Putin than me, and you will find
no greater pro Ukrainian partisan. And every time I see
someone flying the Ukrainian flag, I want to bring a
map of Eastern Europe with the names of the countries
blacked out over to them and said, will you please
show me Ukraine? And we all know that ninety nine
(12:44):
point nine percent of them will not be able to
do it. Can you tell me the difference between the
dawn and the Zupprosian Gussips. That's really important to who
the Ukrainian people are. But you've got a strong opinion
on what's wrong and that stuff, because we sell our
asses out here right if you if you go viral
for lightning.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Some of us literally again I said some of us literally,
well yeah, selling our asses out here.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Sorry interrupt Dan following on only fans, it was a.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Terrible joke, but yes, please subscribe my only fans.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
But the but you go viral for lightning the firefracker
in your ass? You know, like your set, you could
be those one love guys walking around, you know. So
we are so incentivized to commoditize, to sign our name
and center ourselves. And I keep thinking about for like
what you guys do and for what I do. We
do public facing work. We can't not use social media,
and a lot of the time we are selling ourselves
(13:35):
and in comedy is so personal. I just shot a
spot for the History Channel. They didn't just pick me
because of my historical expertise, they picked me because of
my look, right, So how do you do that? How
do you center the work?
Speaker 3 (13:47):
You know?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
What am I doing here? Instead of crossing that line?
And to look at me, I'm you know, trying to
turn yourself into a brand. And I don't have a
solution to that. But that whole culture, which we can
all be forgiven for buying into, is what's for dinner?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That is the thing.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
It is the most overrated in the thing I'm most
sick of in this world.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
It's the only thing on the plate. It's the only
thing that's for dinner. Yeah, and a lot of respects.
It's it's tough. What's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Underrated is saying I don't know. Underrated is admitting that
there is a limit to what you are able to
be certain about. And as in a Storian, this is critical.
So you will see, hopefully you saw on the Bronze
Lie that I present sources and then I go and
here's what I think happened based on those sources. And
(14:36):
I think like most the Storians that come out there
and they go, the spartans were this or you know,
this is what happened here, And I'm always sitting here
being like, motherfucker, there is no way you could be
sure about that based on the deity you have. Yeah,
and I think a story is don't want to do it,
because look, dude, if we keep saying I don't know,
what the hell do you need us for? You could
do your own research like Alex Jones, you know, like
(14:58):
what do you need us for? But the truth is,
what is our job? Our job is to be the
Walking Cliff news Man. I went ahead and read through
Kennedy's and Dawafon and Proditus, and went to museums and
read all these boring historical journals so that you don't
have to. Now I can come here and explain it
to me, give you my opinion, but it is opinion.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
That ability to present expertise and be like, yeah, I'm
an expert on this stuff, but man, I don't know everything.
I mean, look, Robert mcnabara was an expert on defensive
Bard policy and Vietnam didn't work out so well did it?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Why What Haven War is an amazing documentary. Yet more
and more, I think that that the way you write,
the way that people who are kind of forward facing
with that caveat of we think, I think people sense
the truth in that more than yeah I can. I
(15:55):
remember reading historians and it being you can tell that
their editor was like, your voice is so authoritative, we
love it, and it's like, well, that's speaking authoritatively on
something that happened three thousand years ago is probably misleading.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Like just to say the least. I had a great
quote from my co author and mentor and dear friend
Michel doctor Michael Livingston. I really hope folks will check
out his work. His last book is as Inc He's
a medievalist. He's amazing and he once told me that
as in a story, and you have got to be
committed to getting it right, not being right, and that
(16:38):
is something I have carried with me into the rest
of my life. Is one of the most powerful things
I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Now, this episode is not about first Contact or UFOs,
but you were on the Contact documentary and I was
going to find a way to shorten this in anyways.
But I do think coverage of UFOs and what what's
out there and what all the data means is a
(17:06):
place where this very thing is somewhat important and missing
a lot of the time is like, you know, well
do we know?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
We don't.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
We actually don't know what all this means. We don't.
I think that's what's interesting about it is that it's
hard to like find a definitive answer given all the
clashing facts and videos and I wouldness testimony that we've seen.
What what is your take on that? As a part
time historian, how do you think about.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
The uf you're talking? Yeah, yeah, so, I mean I
think that of the most convincing stuff, including the mis
Carrier group stuff like it's just not there's no there there,
but really they're oh, absolutely, And in fact, look, look,
I'll probably Discovery is not going to be thrilled with
me for saying this. But one of the things when
(17:59):
you do reality TV, they put one minute on for
every hour that they shoot, you know, they could make
you say anything. And Mike and I went in there,
we were like, this is bullshit, this is not true.
And we went ahead and there were a couple of
things in there that we really were stumped on. If
you look at the episode where there was soil that
was rejecting water, we were we were like, this is
(18:23):
we don't know what this is. But there were a
lot of things in there were were like, this is nonsense.
And when we watched the show, they were like they
cut it, you know, they cut it to sell the
story they wanted to sell. Now does that mean that
I don't believe in aliens in UFOs, No, absolutely not.
That's not a responsible position to take. I certainly would
not be shocked at all if we find things in
(18:44):
the future. There was an incredible article about poison gas
emanations that we just detected and radio signals that cannot
be explained. So there's definitely the possibility out there. But
in terms of the mystique and swagger that that discovery
portrayed in that show, I mean no way. But I'll
say this, it's funny because all look, I try to
(19:05):
be a serious historian, and all of these fans of
my work will coming me and be like, how could
you do this? How could you do that ancient alien show?
And my answer was, motherfucker, I got twelve million people
watching me. One percent of those people go look at
my history. I just reached more people than you will
ever reach in your entire career. I think that trade
(19:27):
off is worth it. Also, TV is a blast. It's
the most funny you could do. Is. I love it,
And that's why I just did this spot for History Channel.
I want to keep doing it. Well gosh, I guess
I should warn networks, like, eventually, if you try to
make me say bullshit, eventually I'm going to tell the truth.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
They were just like cutting it. You're like, I think that,
like it was just carrier is sense? You think it's sense? Okay,
I mean you're not.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
You're not far off jet.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Right. All right, well, we're gonna have to have you
back to explain the Kniamtz carrier stuff because that that's
one of the ones that I'm like, damn.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Let me. Let me give you an example. There's one
scene where a you will see a UFO go from
a completely stationary position and break off to the left.
That is a bead of water of the flour camera lens.
Mike and I grow like, it's that's what it is.
It's not a UFO. And then there's this other scene
where like, by god, it's hovering and it's like, no, dude,
(20:32):
the cameras on gimbals and it's rotating so it looks
like it's hovering.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It's real interesting, interesting. Let's take a quick break and
we will come back and talk about the bronze Lie.
We'll be right back and we're back, and Mike, until
(20:59):
reading your book, I hadn't realized how much the Spartan
myth is just fucking everywhere. Like I of course remember
the movie The three hundred. I recognize that it has
been incredibly like has just stuck around and becomes this
like myth and this meme or this meme that like
(21:22):
Trump riffs on and I definitely at the time was like, man,
there's some weird ideas in this fucking movie at the time,
but yeah, as you point out, like I hadn't really
put it together. Oh yeah, there's so many high school
sports mascots, college sports mascots, and it feels like a
(21:42):
lot of the most famous names in history are kind
of obsessed with this myth. And so you went in
started kind of poking at it and questioning whether Spartans
are the greatest worri to ever lives, as depicted in
(22:03):
three hundred and elsewhere. And when you wrote about that
in The Daily Beast in the New Republic, you started
getting death threats. So I kind of just wanted to
start there because I think that drives home like what
what is important here? Like how this how much energy
below the surface is riding on this shit? Like who
(22:24):
are the types of people who you think are threatening
to kill you over this? What are they so mad about?
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Well, let me let me be clearer, like, I think
the types of people who are threatening to kill me
with this, I can't prove it. They're probably fourteen year
olds like in their basement. I wasn't ten terribly frightened.
But I think that first of all, I think that
the Spartan myth it isn't just the far right, it's
all of us. Our whole conception of what it means
to be a man that you endure hardship, that you
(22:52):
stoically and without complaint, you know, stand in the gap
like that idea comes from the ancient crete concept of erected.
It's conveyed us through the Spartan mess. This whole idea
of being a strong, silent type, being a man of
few words that doesn't exactly use the word Spartan. It's
tied to that. So it's not just like the far right,
although that was what I sought to come after with
(23:14):
that book because it was really bothering, But it really is.
It's in the air man like, it's it's how we
came up. And I think that's important to recognize. But
the best story about this, other than the death threats
this mighty fucking cert image that dude. Wow, he posted
on Twitter to his one million plus followers. Back on
(23:34):
the Twitter, we should be careful, uh, he goes. This
dude is so afraid of the bronze age mindset he's
talking about me that he wrote a whole book about it,
and he tweets a picture of the cover of my
book to his one million followers.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Break thank you, and he's thank you.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Tweeting out the cover of my book to one million people.
And I'm like, if even one percent of them raged
by it, and they did, Jack, it was a very
good day for me.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
So the far rights reaction to it, But what did it?
What does it say? It says that this to them
is a religion, It's an article of faith, right, this
symbol it's so to us, it's what is three hundred movie?
To them, it's the cross Man Like, that's that's serious.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I think. Yeah. We we end up talking about that
more and more that as religion has faded in our
day to day lives in America, like things are replacing
that that that that's not exactly how we view those things,
but it comes up when we're talking about the unprecedented
(24:40):
power of like Taylor Swift, or the myths and the
Star Wars universe and why people view, you know, a
Star Wars movie with a woman protagonist as like an
affront to the very core of their identity. That I
think that's right. I think more and more the stakes
on these kind of non religious like things we view
(25:05):
as pop culture are actually like life and death to people,
and like their entire personas are like shot through with it,
like down to a spiritual level.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Absolutely, And the Spartan myth plays on this really great
human insecurity. Dude, you are not good enough, you are
too weak, you are not tough, you cry too much,
you're not working hard enough to get after your goals.
Look at these people, Look at these people who could
withstand any privation, who would die rather than surrender. Be
(25:38):
like them, And honestly, that idea of a religious avatar
that's in almost every faith. That's Jesus Christ, that's the
prophet Muhammad, that's the Buddha himself. Right. If you don't
know how to act, just watch these people and act
like them. And the Spartans the same thing.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah. So, I mean there's some pretty straightforward ways for
like aspects of the Spartan myth that we see in
three hundred that you kind of go back and debunk,
Like there's the myth of how they treat children who
aren't like who aren't like born with a six pack
and like immediately able to like do twenty twenty pull
(26:18):
ups when you like hang them over a cliff that
they like throw them over into the sea. And I
feel I feel like that's a very potent part of
the myth because it's like, well, they did it, so
what are you going to do. But at the same time,
it's also like a profound endorsement of eugenics.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Right, just right, but like just the important thing they
didn't do.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
It, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
They love their children and they raised them, and there's
all these examples of it. King of guess Allawis the second,
who was one of the most famous warrior kings of Sparta,
was born with a club foot, right, he was limping
like it was. It's just bullshit. It's hot buttered bullshit.
And the thing that's so frustrating is that all it
(27:07):
takes to stick a pin in this balloon is you
read the sources like I'm reading the same ship that's
been available for twenty five hundred years. Where the fuck
is everybody you know? Like you know, all I did
was keep poor, like none of this stuff is the secret,
none of And the thing is people have been talking
about it like I'm certainly not new to this conversation.
(27:30):
I'm just the first person to systematically sit down and
in a pop narrative aimed at regular people, lay it
out in a book. That's all that's not It's not
like I said, it's not rocket scent.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, Trump just started like openly saying in
campaign speeches that illegal immigrants are poisoning the blood of America.
This just feels very kind of everywhere, and like it's
not going away.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Right, And Jack, like, I hear the desperate your voice,
and I feel it too, man, Like I cannot believe
we're back here. And that is part of what I
did with this book, Like this was an act of desperation,
like what can I do? Where can I strike a blow?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You know?
Speaker 4 (28:12):
And this was one of the few places where I
felt I could, I can speak the truth about something
I care.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, and you did learn the languages, which I was
gonna do. But then I saw that you did it,
so I don't I appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Doing that, So I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I'm not going to do that now. So I hadn't
realized that one of the things that is notable about
spartans from a historical perspective is that like they didn't
leave that much or like they were like it's called
la kana, like the it has the same like worship
of Spartan's has the same root where it is laconic, right,
(28:52):
because they weren't like giving a lot of information on
one of the details that I found particularly interesting is
like they they seemed to have a sense of branding.
Like you mentioned this idea that they kept mystery about
themselves by not fighting the same opponent more than once
mm hm, which feels wildly and practical like if you're.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Well, But also keep in mind that that is the legend.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
That's the legend, you know.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
They did fight the same opponent more than once. In fact,
they're repeated battles against the city State of Thebes, which
modern day is known as Steva. They wound up being
defeated by tactics because the Fievens, I think, had a
really good idea of what they were going to put
into the battlefield.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So it's always hard to play an opponent the second time,
as anybody who follows sports would know. But it just
the idea that they would only fight an opponent once
like suggests like even the idea that they would like
put that out there about them, suggests that they're like
the Harlem Globetrotters of War, that they just like are
just yeah, we we kind of put on a show.
(29:56):
We're like a road show. But like you can't, can't
let you see it more the once.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
So I look, and I can't prove this, but if
I had to, if I had to give my educated guests,
I would say that they didn't start that. Man the
Athenian started that. And one of the things I did
in the New Republic piece is showed that, like, we
don't have any writing from Spartans, none, It's all fanboy
stuff from outside Xenophon who was this like huge Spartan
(30:23):
like this dude loved the Spartans and and and the Kennedy's.
It was an enemy of them, and you know they
write this legendary stuff. And I think somewhere along the
way the Spartans looked around and were like, holy shit,
we got something going here. We need to lean into this.
This is working out. I think that's probably what happened.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Mhm.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It feels like throughout it is this fantasy of being
able to, like you say, at a certain point, like
people aren't machines, in the book, But it seems to
be the fantasy of the Spartan myth like at the time,
and of like fascism in general, like turn humans into
(31:04):
beautiful war machines, take away the softness, the follibility, the
inconsistency of humanity. But of course that's a fantasy, because
that is the human condition, Like all of those things
are part of the now condition. But it seems like
the ideal of the fake Spartan society that made its
way down to us over the decades was both their
(31:27):
fantasy and our fantasy. So there is like something universal
and powerful about it, which is what makes it so
kind of terrifyingly powerful and so terrifying that it's you know,
being allowed to rise back up because it's it's kind
of always there. We just had a sense of how
(31:48):
dangerous and powerful it was for so long, and now
we're back to a place where it's being allowed to
just kind of run rampant again across the world.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Well and being marshalled to a specific political end, like
here is this what icons can we use? Right you
know where? You know, look, we as the modern Trump movement,
you know, raising the cross is probably not gonna work
for us here, although he's popularly evangelicals too. I just
do not understand that. But okay, sure so, but we
could pick this up, man, I mean that video. I
(32:21):
don't know if you've seen it. It's incredible. There's a
video with it's three hundred. It's the scene where the
Persian messengers are kicked into that pit and you know this,
and it's Trump's head over like glued on too, and
and Soros and Obama getting kicked around. Man. By the
(32:42):
time I found that video, and this was years ago,
it had been watched five million times. It is amazing
how powerful this stuff is.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, and of course that movie came out in two
thousand and sixty six, when like Obama was first becoming
a thing and you know, has gained popularity. And man,
they love to put Trump's head on the body of
just like a ripped soldier, don't they.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
God. I've been very, very lucky not to see him.
But I am pretty sure Jack, you don't look like that.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
All right, let's uh, let's take a quick break and
we'll come back and keep busting this myth. We'll be
right back and we're back. Okay. So this one is
(33:42):
kind of unrelated. But it's a thing that whenever I
read about or hear about, like ancient Greek city states
going to war with one another, I think in my
mind for most of my life that those are like
mad of armies of people. But aren't weren't the communities
(34:04):
like fairly small?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
I think it varied. You know, you see figures of
ten thousand thrown around all the time. Certainly the armies
are bigger in some battles and smaller in others. I know,
failings on failings battles and a few hundred I certainly
compared to modern armies, you know, modern professional armies. Yeah,
it's a totally different game in terms of the number
of personnel that can be marshaled, but it does vary.
(34:29):
I mean, we do have battles of tens of thousands,
twenty thousand that we that we see it. It's quite
a few.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah. It's just like the idea of like how many
people were in Sparta at the time when they were
at their height, Like just in the society in general.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Here we go, Jack, and I will tell you I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I can find out, but I don't city or for dead,
I have an answer to that question. I have a
military history and focusing on this, but one important aspect
of ancient Greek warfare that I do think is worth
mentioning that people are very confused about, specifically when it
comes to the Spartans, is this idea of professionalism, is
that the average ancient Greek hoplight, which is what we
(35:12):
call the you know, the heavy infantrymen with the bronze
armor and the shield and the spear. That was not
what they did, man. They were farmers, or they were
leather workers or whatever it was they were doing, mostly farmers,
and you would the horn would sound, and you would
run to your ollar shed and you would grab a
rusty old spear and shield your grandfather had hand down,
(35:32):
and you would muster in the square with no training
and almost no command. And the way they thought this
fail anx, this block of dudes with shields overlapping was
designed so that amateurs could pull it off. And that
belief that professional warriors of any kind and certainly not
the Spartan's.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
On Huh So they how did did they just get
the reputation through sheer tyranny of like, of will of
people like wanting that to be a real thing or.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
No, no, I mean they did one thing different. So
in most ancient Greek city states, you have populations of
young people, right they grow up, they start jockeying for power,
and you send them off to found a colony. Here.
You go, go get a boat, go make a town
over there, do your own thing. And that's how most
Greeks dealt with that, but not the Spartans, and largely
because they weren't on a seafaring people, so they were
(36:24):
the first, or maybe not the first, but among the
first to subjugate their neighbors. And when they subjugated them,
they enslaved them in a cast based slave system, which
is to say, your kids will be born and die
as slaves. And that was almost unique. The Sallians did
it too, And because those slaves were doing all the
agricultural work in the housework, well, the knights of Spartan society,
(36:45):
who we call them oil, they were free. They were
free to and people think they were free to train
for war, but we have no evidence that they actually
trained for war. We'd see them playing sports. In fact,
Aristotle tells us that the Spartans were tougher than other
Greeks in the field, not because they trained hard, but
because they trained at all. And the reason they were
(37:06):
able to do that was because there were a whole
society of slates and on all their ship form.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Wow. But just digging back into the film, like it's
so thoroughly coated with eugenics. Like the the person who
dooms them is like this hunchback who is mad at
them because he wants to get to fight, I guess,
and they're like, or just like join their society, and
they're like this ain't no. Everyone gets a trophy as society.
(37:36):
We are Sparta. And then he's like, all right, well
then I'll cheat and like get you all killed and
like So that's on top of the baby's all being
thrown into into the ocean for not being able to
do push ups.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
It's nonsense. It's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
The whole thing that fialtis, which by the way, is
the modern Greek word for nightmare. That's how fucking famous
this dude is, This dude who ever existed, is that
it's a secret path across Cali Dromo. I have been
to KLi Drome. I found every path over that mountain
in a few days. There's no secrets there. And you're
gonna tell me that Xerxes, the king of accumented Persian,
(38:14):
which was the biggest and most sophisticated empire in the world,
do the basic reconnaissance to find the paths over the mountain.
Of course not, they knew, and they hired local malley
and guides the people who lived there to show them
a way. And that what was considered a betrayal by
the Greeks. Right, these fuckers they went over and worked
for the persons. They could blame them in a lot
(38:36):
of cases. You have a much better life working for
Xerxes than be different from Leona Dasser or any other
Greek king that became this figure of fialities, this deformed
punchback who was who is a betrayer? No, No, this
was good intelligence on the part of the Persians.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, there's a part where you talk about a poet
having to emphasize these values because they need these values
to actually be held up like they need them to
be more. I remember writing about this back in at
Cracked that, like a lot of the samurai myth some
of the misconceptions about samurai are based on like the
(39:15):
laws of the Samurai that were written because samurai did
not like. The idea that samurai were super loyal to
their master is based on these laws which are were
put in place because they were not loyal to their master,
like they were free. It was like be the equivalent of,
you know, a modern day professional athlete. Like they're like, no,
(39:39):
I'm going to go to whoever pays me money, because
that's and so they wrote these laws to be like,
you must be the most loyal And it's like reading
the high school student handbook and being like, man, those
high school students in the United States in the seventies
were incredibly obedient. It turns out it's like, wait, what
(40:00):
the fuck.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
It's like the student the student conduct code. You know,
you should not playgiarize. Wow, man, these people never plagiarize.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, but it seems like there's some of that happening
in Sparta as well.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Right, Oh, absolutely, you're exactly right. And to that point
on the Samurai the TV show Showgun is about to
come out, which is a fictionalization of the actual real
life Showgun took a galleys and his conquest of Japan
turns on a betrayal. It turns on switching signs. So
like all of that loyal onto death stuff, I guess
(40:34):
there's some exceptions.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Right, yeah, turns out, but what what are some of
the values that get emphasized with Spartans that weren't actually
there beyond throwing their children over right?
Speaker 4 (40:49):
And I want to be I want to be clear here.
You know. One of the things that kind of bugged
me about this book is I absolutely wrote this book
to deflate this icon for the mic Cernoviches of the
world and for the real far writers. But what's happened
because of the erosion of discourse in this country is
that a lot of people took that book and we're like, yeah,
the Spartans sucked, and like trying to use it to
(41:11):
clobber people. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
The Spartans did not suck. They were humans, right, They
were extraordinary sometimes and they were wame sometimes, like we
all are. And that's the thing I'm driving at. So
when we look at the poetry of Turteos, that's the
poet you're talking about, and the things he extolled us,
Certainly some Spartans were not doing those things. He was
(41:33):
not exhorting them to press to one of the things
the values. Don't get hit in the back right, That
means you're running away. If you're young, don't let the
old people fight. Get out there in front of it
and get up in your enemy's face, put your shield
on his shield, your foot next to his foot, close
enough to kiss him, and do the job. There. These
are the kinds of things that the Spartans are legendary for.
(41:55):
Did they all do it? Hell no, some of them
probably did, And that's important to remember too. And the
poetry is so what makes me crazy is that there's
so much that's fascinating about the Spartan It's like, look
three hundred Jack, it's about a disaster they lost, you know,
all these friggin nra guys come and take them, you know, like,
come and take their weapons. The great quote of the
(42:15):
autotos Jack Xerxes came and took them. After day he
cut that dude's head off, He took their weapons away,
and he paraded his head on a skin. So that's
the cry of a loser. Why are you shouting that?
Why not talk about real Spartan successes. Why not talk
about the times they really work? Straud in there and
(42:36):
that poetry of Tourteus. I'm so glad you brought it up.
It's beautiful and it talks about real valor, it talks
about how to be a warrior, and admitting that not
everybody lived up to it doesn't make it any less extraordinary.
And the fact that for most people they will never
even know about Tritastes except listening to you on a
top of their podcast talk about it breaks my heart.
(42:58):
All they know about is just freaking bigoted, shitty movie
which tells us craft story about people who ever existed.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Going back to the movie, you know, three hundred is
not it's by far not the first movie to glorify
soldiers or this kind of training style or fighting in
a way that you know, Ben's history a little bit
or a lot of it, and just portrays this lifestyle
that has you know, been co opted by right wing
(43:28):
people or just in general bad actors as it were.
And what I'm kind of curious about is, I know
you are a real history historian, maybe not a pop
culture historian, but what do you think is the inflection
point for this kind of narrative that allowed three hundred
to exist? Like before this, we had movies like Gladiator.
We had movies like Braveheart. We had movies now, of course,
(43:50):
not the exact same thing, but these movies that portray warfare,
portray this kind of very like, you know, powerful, strong,
prow warrior fighting for their people, et cetera. What is
the inflection point that allows three hundred to exist? And
why isn't that the thing that people held onto Why
is it spartans these days?
Speaker 4 (44:11):
Yeah, that is a really fascinating question, and like, I
don't know that I have an answer for it, but
I do see one positive sign in a pop culture reference,
and it is John Snow fighting. I don't know if
you remember in Game of Thrones that scene with shields
pressing in and all of them being crushed together and
(44:32):
the absolute bloody, futile chaos. The what George rr. Martin
e voked throughout Game of Thrones, both in the books
and in the television shield, the capricious randomness of how
ned Stark was killed, This idea that these great events
and the turnings of them are so chaotic and random,
and that that violence and the unpredictability of it and
(44:53):
what it does to people, that is a change I'm seeing.
I mean, there have been books before, also white on
the Western front. There's that famous poem Delgat to Korum.
As people have been talking before about how truly horrible
war is, and I speak as someone who's been rocketed
and shot at it, and I certainly look, you know,
(45:15):
I went to Iraq a true believer, right Like, I
went there to do something and had a first hand
experience of how futile that was, and how when you
introduce violence as a means of policy and try to
change people with it, how that is completely not going
to do what you want it to do and not useful.
And I do see something in the pop culture that's changing.
(45:36):
And as we live through Gossip, as we live through Ukraine,
as we live through Africa on fire, you know, and
like it looks like the straight of Taiwan might be next.
Right with what China's doing with the Philippines, there is
I feel a shift in the public's tolerance for that myth.
(45:56):
And I see that in the push for a ceasefire
right now and the sickness with Hillary Clinton coming out
there and go look kind of have a suspire ale
mostery group and people being like, all right, well, that's
nice for you. In an air conditioned office. There's people
dying here, how about that? And that is something I
didn't hear wrong, I never heard it, or if I
heard it, I heard it from peacenicks and hippies, and
(46:18):
now I hear it from everybody. So maybe the inflection
point is now, Dan And if so, Man, God, look,
I have spent my entire life either at war or
studying war, and you will not find someone more committed
to endgames like it is just an absolute evil.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us on
the Daily zeit Geist, for writ in the book, and yeah,
where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me. I'm easy.
My name is spelled m y k E c O
l E. So if you go to Mike Coole dot
com spelled that way, you'll pull up my website. I
am using social media. Look, social media, you got to
use it when you're in public facing work. But it's poison.
I don't care. Oh, Fred's is gonna be better than X.
Threads are gonna be better than X. And here's all
the people I'm gonna block. Threads is not gonna be
(47:06):
better than X because the problem is us and we're
on threads. So you will find me in all of
these places and variations of that name x, Facebook, Threads,
Instagram as Mike Cole, but don't expect me to post much,
and certainly don't expect me to weigh in on political
and social issues about which I know knowledge.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying, Yes,
So I.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Would like to direct people to the Instagram account of
an author named Christian Cameron, and you can find him
at at Christian c h r I s t I
A and Underscore Cameron c A m e r O
and Underscore author.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
A U t h O R.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
The reason I want you to check him out is
not just for his writing. And he paints toy soldiers
and he's a total nerd, but he is a real reenactor.
He is a guy who gets every stitch of thread,
every scrap of metal and rivet in the armor that
he wears exactly right. And he goes out there and
he fights. And if you want to understand how ancient
medieval people fought, you can read every book in the world,
(48:10):
you can go to every museum in the world, but
until you put on that gear and you get toe
to toe to someone, you will not be able to
ask and answer the critical questions. And he does it,
and he does it right. And if you see those pictures,
you will be looking into the past and it is amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Don you give an example of like one of the
things that you feel like you figure out from the reenactment,
because you kind of mentioned that in the book and
that was kind of new to me. I wasn't really
familiar with yet the idea of using historical reenactments to
actually do research.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Sure, so one of the big questions among ancient warfare
nerds I don't thin anybody else cares about this is
this idea of that when the phalanx clashes clash, did
they push shield the shield and push against each other
or did they stand off and fence with their spears?
And that actually makes a big difference on how those
battles were fought. And then you can check that again
it's the written sources and tell if these guys are
(49:01):
full of shit or not. Well, when you get behind
a shield, I have discovered some people disagree with me,
but this has been my experience. Man, I do not
want to be three feet away from me. I want
to be right up there where I can use my
ass and where my face isn't exposed because I'm up close.
Like when you're what happens when you're boxing with someone
and you feel outmatched, you grapple man. You don't stand
(49:24):
back and get punch in the face. And the point
is these kinds of little questions you can only answer
them by doing them. And for years, professional historian scholars
PhDs they really and they don't do it anymore, but
they used to really look down their nose at nerds
making the armor. Well what do you guys do? And
this is costplay? No, no, no, it is not costplay.
It is history and that account I just give him
(49:47):
Christian Cameron, author, that is the best example of it
I know.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
All right, amazing Daniel, Yes, sir, thank you so much
for joining. Where can people find you? Follow you? And
what's the work a media you've been enjoying? Honestly you can.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
I deactivated Twitter, I'm barely using Instagram anymore, and I
am divorcing myself from social media entirely. So I'd prefer
it if you didn't find me to answer my question.
It's not really a question from earlier. But when you're
talking about being in a public facing kind of area
or a public facing business like we all are, I have,
and I'm very lucky to be in the position that
(50:23):
I am right here. I love working with Jack, I
love working at iHeart, I love making podcasts, and I
found that using my position now to platform people who
would like to use their voices and be out there
is the best use of my work in forward facing media.
So instead of being like, here's what I think about something,
(50:43):
I'm in the business of here's what this person thinks
about something, and trying to do that as opposed to saying,
whatever the hell I think, because truly it doesn't matter
because what I care about is smash Burgers and who
is currently winning Dancing with the Stars even though the
season just ended, so honestly, my opinions are so it
was Soshi Gomez. Did you see the Do you see
(51:03):
the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness she plays?
I can't I literally can't remember the Marvel superhero's name
because there's so many at this point, I can't remember.
But she was in that and she was great, and
she was really good on Dancing with the Stars, anyway,
that's not the point. A piece of social media or
a piece of media that I have been liking that
is not. That is the new Miyazaki film The Boy
(51:24):
and the Heron. Go see it. Go see a movie,
Go see an animated picture. Go to the movies and
participate in the culture of Japanese animation of Hyo Miyazaki,
an incredible director. Go see the movie. And if you
haven't had yourself a nice meal, go to someone who's
cooking food on the street and go get it. If
you're happened to me in Los Angeles, go to Brothers
(51:45):
Cousins Tacos, my favorite taco stand in Los Angeles, because
I will be deeply missing it when I leave for
the East Coast. But yeah, other than that, go support
your local business. Go see a movie, and then go
follow Mike there you go, Thank you my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore Obrian
liking things like this tweet from Jesse McLaren, who tweeted
shout out to the Beach Boys for landing on the
festive lyric Christmas comes this time each year, and then
Andy Ryan tweeted two elderly English ladies greeting each other
(52:19):
and it's alo Vera and evening Primrose Oil. Alo Vera
Evening Primrose Oil. I just enjoyed the good, wholesome Twitter fun.
You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist. We're
at d Daily Zeikeeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook
fanpage and a website Daily zeitgeist dot com where we
post our episodes and our footnote food doors where we
(52:42):
link off to the information that we talked about in
today's episode, as well as a song that we think
you might enjoy. DJ Daniel Goodman is there a song
that you would recommended people?
Speaker 3 (52:51):
There? There always is, and it might be a little
much for some people, But since I rarely get to
come here, I'm going to I'm going to sing a
song of drum and bass that I love so much.
A British group, Chasing Status, just released a new album
called two Rough, Volume one, and one of the songs
on that album, called on the Block, is such a
(53:12):
massive tune. I am just in my car, gritting my teeth,
driving the speed limit, but with my hands tightly gripped
on the steering wheel, just banging my head. So if
you are into something that is going to keep you
up at night, or power you through a long drive,
or get your workout going, whatever it is that you
need something driving to get you going. So listen to
Chas and Status' new album Too Rough, Volume one. The
song on the Block is a real like ooh, it'll
(53:34):
get you moving songs. So anyway, that's my recommendation on
the block with Chasing Status.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
We will listen to that in the footnotes. The daily
es Eite Guys is the production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio ap Apple
Podcasts or wherever you go to listen to podcasts. That's
going to do it for us this morning. We are
back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and
we will talk to you all then Bye bye
The Daily Zeitgeist News
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Miles Gray
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