Bret Devereaux

Is it the part where he says that a Greek xiphos was 'half the length' of a Roman gladius? Or that he can't pronounce ξίφος despite presenting himself as an expert on Greek warrior culture? 5/18

Is it the part where he uncritically accepts all Spartan shields had lambdas on them when Plutarch contradicts *himself* on this point? Or just generally the way he reads Plutarch, writing centuries after the society he described effectively ended, utterly uncritically? 6/18

Is it the part where the leisured Spartiate aristocrats (who do no work, but instead are served by numerous enslaved people) are held up as a model of selflessness(!!) even when a cursory reading of Plutarch's Agesilaus or Agis or Cleomenes show them to be anything but? 7/18

Is it the part where he just flatly presents Carl Jung's work as a valid way to think about the structure of the human mind, despite it having been long abandoned by actual specialists in the field? 8/18

Maybe it's the part where he processes exactly none of the richness of Greek philosophy on how to live a happy, just, productive life and instead swaps all of that out for what is frankly a boy's philosophy of 'Just Do it!'? 9/18

Is it the part where he presents the 'warrior' and later 'soldier' as effectively the highest expression of human existence, the most fully actualized individual (because clearly the capacity for effective violence - real or symbolic - is the most important virtue)? 10/18

Is where, based on that in his last video he lumps together under the 'warrior archetype,' "anybody that is heavily into fitness, anything military, first responders, police" as if that's a categorization that makes any sense outside of dumb macho posturing? 11/18

Seriously, why fitness? His point is 'discipline' but lots of people are very disciplined. Producing art? Getting through graduate school? Holding a s***y minimum wage job to feed your kids? They all require discipline. Why is fitness there and the others aren't? 12/18