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Disclaimer: No sources have been credited in order to avoid facilitating traffic to alt-right sites.
White supremacist groups love Sparta. There is a word for this mania in online bigoted circlejerks: laconophilia, from Laconia, the region that the Spartans hailed from. Sparta’s eugenics, elite military machine, nationalism, chiselled warrior bodies, and ‘whiteness’ – whether historically accurate, culturally ingrained through films such as 300, or totally imagined – have created an online craze. Visit any popular online forum and search “Sparta” (or don’t!), and you’ll certainly encounter some questionable opinions.
The alt-right, as this group of far-right internet users is often described frequently discusses women. To these men, members of the opposite sex are exclusively defined by their bodies and sex lives. Their discussions take many forms; it is sometimes the expression of deep hate towards the female species, materialised by misogynistic and antifeminist sentiments stemming from their own undesirability and ‘involuntary celibacy’. Other times, it can be the recognition of their necessity as a means to protect the white race and reaffirm white identity – therefore showing an interest in recruiting them to the movement. Interestingly, 13% of those arrested during the January 6th 2021 attack on the Capitol were women. Furthermore, while some zealots praise the ‘trad wife’ archetype of a natural, Aryan-esque, modestly dressed, child-rearing matriarch, others prefer to spend their energies criticising the ‘liberated feminist’ for alleged promiscuity, “crappy tattoos”, gender studies degrees, and excessive make-up. Evidently, and quite disgustingly, these bigoted men seem to enjoy spending their time inventing vile misconceptions of women to promote discussion and debate in online chatrooms.
Women have become deeply entwined into the alt-right’s utopian ideal of a nationalistic, masculine, anti-foreigner Sparta. But it would be wrong to approach this as being conceptually complete, rather than as a solid and singular imagination of the ancient world. Indeed, to the alt-right, ‘Sparta’ can mean many things.
For example, in one particular ideation of ‘ancient Sparta’, women take on supporting roles. Submissive and kept at home, their purpose is to reproduce and form the next generation of ‘mighty male warriors’, with whom the alt-rightists regularly liken themselves. This is especially evident on the problematic sites The Occidental Observer and Return of Kings, in which articles titled “Educating Citizen Soldiers” and “Women’s Rights are a Function of the Economy” argue that Sparta’s females were good breeders who performed the duty of gifting their husbands’ control of their bodies and reproductive organs, for the sake of creating social unity. According to this narrative, that is why modern feminism poses a considerable threat; it destabilises the balance created through the regulation of women’s bodies. Moreover, this historical retelling asserts that if our civilisation were to return to the glorious Spartan past, womankind must realise they can only find true freedom in motherhood. Forced marriage, physical fitness, and the abolition of make-up are thus deemed essential qualities for any modern-day woman.
Additionally, and quite paradoxically, alt-right sites have also conceptualised Spartan women as negative exemplars. Namely, female Spartans have been criticized for seemingly creating social chaos by encouraging man-on-man violence and perpetuating male-ran and male-fought wars. All the while they remain at home enjoying luxurious lifestyles and feasting on the spoils. One Return of Kings post blames women for Sparta’s ultimate fall, which apparently exposed its only weak spot: a “faulty nature of property laws” – women being the property in question. On the site A Voice for Men, one user even laments how he used to think of Spartan society as powerful and manly before discovering womankind’s role within it.
Although this has all been quite shocking, it is important to recognise how these alt-right ideas are neither accurate nor consistent. We should not concern ourselves with the distinction between distortion and reality, rather, we should reflect on what is (ab)used and what is implicated. The alt-right cares little for genuine conversations about ‘Sparta’ but instead uses the ancient Greek city-state as a device and method to spread hate in its multifarious and sometimes clashing guises. This piece is not a cry that ancient Sparta is being abused – rather, it is to highlight how it is the responsibility of classicists to consider how laconophilia is being used and what this can tell us about broader, more popular, imaginations of ‘Sparta’ today.
Image: Screenshot from the YouTube video “300: Making America Great Again [Donald Trump Parody]” from the channel Aryan Wisdom. Found on Myke Cole’s article The Sparta Fetish Is a Cultural Cancer for TNR.
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