Shall we be Athens or Sparta? As long as there have been service academies, this comparison has been trotted out in debates over their proper form and function. For just as long, it has been a false dichotomy. Citing a 1979 work by John Lovell, Dr. Joe Thomas suggests the academies truly exist in an unstable state between the pedagogical extremes symbolized in the two cities. In other words, what’s in question is not an either/or decision, but an ever-shifting in-between position. Incidentally, Dr. Thomas also takes the opportunity to register disapproval of the internal catastrophizing that often accompanies changes in said position—a likely instinctive reflection of military discipline. There is nothing unprecedented in the shifting of winds, he seems to suggest.
As a serving naval officer, it is not my place to weigh in on the designs and methods of service academies. I am content to receive the graduates and put them to work. That said, I cannot resist commenting on the metaphor of Athens and Sparta. Specifically, I must point out that, insofar as it might lend insight to some real-world decision, this metaphor does not represent a choice between wisdom and military prowess. Rather, it represents a choice between different paths to wisdom, which must then facilitate military prowess. Consequently, it is not a foregone conclusion that a principled educator, however committed to the effective communication of wisdom, should prefer to live in a metaphorical Athens.
To elaborate, I shall set aside the distinction between a Sparta of popular myth and the truth of an unstable slave-based economy whose military power fell apart in the 4th century BC. I shall also withhold my criticism for trendy cultural appropriations of the mythologized version. Laconophilia is a very old phenomenon indeed, and its staying power is most interesting. Why do we admire the Spartans, as imagined, and what does that reveal about us?
Consider the perspective of an equally mythologized Socrates. As depicted by Plato in the dialogue Protagoras, Socrates views the Spartans not as mindless zombie-soldiers, but as an imminently wise and practical people—one and the same. Furthermore, he suggests they must privately engage in profound, high-minded discourse, yet for reasons of military advantage, they must carefully conceal such activities from outsiders:
“This, however, is a secret which the Lacedaemonians deny; and they pretend to be ignorant, just because they do not wish to have it thought that they rule the world by wisdom, like the Sophists of whom Protagoras was speaking, and not by valor of arms; considering that if the reason of their superiority were disclosed, all men would be practicing their wisdom. And this secret of theirs has never been discovered by the imitators of Lacedaemonian fashions in other cities, who go about with their ears bruised in imitation of them, and have the caestus bound on their arms, and are always in training, and wear short cloaks; for they imagine that these are the practices which have enabled the Lacedaemonians to conquer the other Hellenes. Now when the Lacedaemonians want to unbend and hold free conversation with their wise men, and are no longer satisfied with mere secret intercourse, they drive out all these Laconizers, and any other foreigners who may happen to be in their country, and they hold a philosophical seance unknown to strangers; and they themselves forbid their young men to go out into other cities—in this they are like the Cretans—in order that they may not unlearn the lessons which they have taught them. And in Lacedaemon and Crete not only men but also women have a pride in their high cultivation. And hereby you may know that I am right in attributing to the Lacedaemonians this excellence in philosophy and speculation: If a man converses with the most ordinary Lacedaemonian, he will find him seldom good for much in general conversation, but at any point in the discourse he will be darting out some notable saying, terse and full of meaning, with unerring aim; and the person with whom he is talking seems to be like a child in his hands.” 1
The secret of Spartan military prowess is not brawn but brains, Socrates suggests. Moreover, it is implied that brawn must follow from a properly applied brain—the Spartans, as mythologized, certainly wanted for neither. Consider that, much like a city can be judged by its citizens, so too shall a school be judged by its graduates, and a philosophy by the qualities it inspires. “The proof is in the pudding,” so the bastardized expression goes. Or as once was said, “a tree is recognized by its fruit.” The ancients understood this principle intuitively, pointing to the qualities inspired as a critical test of veracity in a given curriculum.
For example, the Stoic philosopher Seneca lauds the Spartans in an essay about overcoming the fear of death. Though the Spartans were not Stoics, Seneca still employs them to illustrate a distinction between useful philosophy and the trivial theorizing that so often dominates academic spaces.2 Genuine wisdom begets virtue, he implies; and in many contexts, it is virtue. The test of moral wisdom is its expression in action:
“I point out to you the Lacedaemonians in position at the very pass of Thermopylae! They have no hope of victory, no hope of returning. The place where they stand is to be their tomb. In what language do you encourage them to bar the way with their bodies and take upon themselves the ruin of their whole tribe, and to retreat from life rather than from their post? … You see, then, how straightforward and peremptory virtue is; but what man on earth can your deceptive logic make more courageous or more upright? Rather does it break the spirit, which should never be less straitened or forced to deal with petty and thorny problems than when some great work is being planned. It is not [only] the Three Hundred, it is all mankind that should be relieved of the fear of death.” 3
Another Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, similarly enlists the Spartans to his cause. In a tirade against ideas he judges false and demoralizing—one and the same—he points to Spartans as exemplars of what “right” looks like. A sound education, he implies, would produce sound individuals who stand and fight like Spartans. An unsound education, on the other hand, would produce infirm individuals who equivocate, rationalize and surrender when the going gets tough. His unfortunate examples of this are the Athenians, who twice abandoned their city to invaders:
“Well done, philosopher! Continue in this vein, persuade the young men, so that we may have many more people who think and talk like you. Was it through principles like these that our well-governed cities grew great; was it doctrines like these that made Sparta what it was? … Those who died at Thermopylae, did they die by virtue of such doctrines? And did the Athenians abandon their city on the basis of any other principles than these?” 4
Are these comparisons fair to the Athenians, or sufficiently critical of the Spartans? Probably not, yet within these passages is a point far more important than whose city is better, or even how best to design a military curriculum. Bear in mind, these Stoics were not speaking to people seeking to be great warriors, but seeking to be great people. Their references to Spartans powerfully reinforce the point that martial virtues are not distinct from moral virtues—they are simply virtues. The ideal warrior, likewise, is necessarily an ideal human being: one who is wise, courageous, self-controlled, and just.
We admire the mythologized Spartans because they are admirable. The myth, in this specific case, is more important than the history because it describes what we find admirable. One who thinks as one ought and does as one ought, acts like this. It is not about reliance on comfortable falsehoods, as there is nothing useful in untruth—“quicquid honestum, id utile.” 5 Rather, this is about underlying philosophical truths, as validated in the qualities such truths inspire.
From where I stand, we don’t need Athenians or Spartans, but warriors. If we want to produce good warriors, we should aim to produce good humans. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates suggests that virtue can be taught and it is incumbent on the virtuous society to teach it. I can think of no better use for a service academy.
Commander Spears is a submarine warfare officer in the U.S. Navy and author of Stoicism as a Warrior Philosophy: Insights on the Morality of Military Service, forthcoming in November from Casemate Publishers. His service includes duty in nuclear submarines of various classes and mission profiles, including assignments as the Weapons Officer of a fast-attack submarine and the Executive Officer of a Trident missile submarine. He is currently assigned to the Pentagon.
1 Plato, Protagoras 342a-e.
2 The battle at Thermopylae occurred about 180 years before Stoicism’s founding. Stoicism
ultimately came to Sparta in the 3rd century BC, primarily through Sphaerus of Borysthenes, a
Stoic philosopher who advised King Cleomenes III.
3 Seneca, Letters 82.20–3.
4 Epictetus, Discourses 2.20.26.
5 Cicero, De Officiis 3.35