Ideas vs. Armies

[MHideki]

For a History assignment, my class was assigned to perform a debate.

Our topic is:
Which force led to greater changes in the Hellenistic world-the power of armies, or the power of ideas?

Our team is assigned the negative stance:
The power of armies led to greater changes in the Hellenistic world than the power of ideas.

We're having some problems trying to uncover any evidence to uphold our rebuttal, so I thought here would be the perfect place to seek assistance :]

Thanks,
Miko Hideki

[Caius Fabius]

Why is the power of Armies negative to the power of ideas? You need negative and unhealthy ideas long before you need to go to war.

The power of armies, and the Arms race between City-States and against outside invaders encouraged metalworking skills, the ship building arts, coinage, trade, and political innovations.

The use of military force caused advances in medicine, and political interaction between various groups that might have remained stagnate in their own little valley city-state.

The outside enemies forced alliances that allowed free spread of ideas.

The concentration of wealth in the hands of the few soldier/warrior kings or certain military related upper classes, allowed the patronage of the arts, and allowed philosophers and thinkers to have time to do their thing.

Charles Foxtrot

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

Consider:
Archimedes was probably killed by a Roman farmboy wearing an expensive suit of armor. Ideas may motivate and initiate some change, but the hard work is done by the rank and file. Their motivation is based more on materialistic day-to-day concerns. I think this is a universal truth that started in the Bronze Age, if not before. Movements, wars, and social change rarely end in the form that the originators intended, simply because the forces at work are set in motion beyond the ideas intended to control them. Adaptation to pragmatic realities decides the end result.

Take this from a combat vet. Philosophy was rarely discussed in the field, but we were very aware of the brute power at our disposal which should scare the living daylights out of anybody, had we chosen to use it for our own agenda, which we did not. That time.

During the 70's an anthropological approach to change and culture was in vogue; Systems Theory. It has lost favor in the post-processualist movement because it does not explain cultutal change. It does still make a structure for the identification and and inherent functions of a cultural system, though.

Final question:
Where does a Spartan Mora encamp for the night?
Answer:
Any place it wants to.

Ralph Izard
just thoughts...

[hoplite14gr]

Ideas that made it to our times travelled in the baggage of victorious armies and navies. (Salamis and Platea preserved the consept of free thought)

Kind regards

[john m roberts]

I find it difficult to imagine one without the other. All the advances in military theory and organization were driven by men of vision, who were not content to do things as they had always been done. Philosophers and artists were free to do their thing because they were protected by victorious armies, without whom they would have been yoked to plows by someone less intellectual. Greek culture was spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean world by the armies of Alexander. The Roman legions finished the job and spread it through the rest of North Africa and Europe.

[Goffredo]

Well these are my two cents worth:

For ideas to florish, take hold and spread you need time and some form of cultural stability. NOTE: I am absolutely not saying that you need political or military stability! Greece was not stable and neither was renaissance italy and yet in both ideas flourished circulated and took hold. People fought for power and the struggle was bloody and chaotic, but in each case one can recognize a world made of greek or italian city states that had in each case much common. Actually I could say that if a society is too totalitarian (too little chaos), too stable, over militarized, then ideas no not grow either.

So the world in which an idea arises has to be culturally "stable" and hence it obvious that it has to be able to defend itself from outside pressures and threats.

But in the long run I feel ideas are most important. Indeed a person today can know little or even nothing(!) of the persian wars, of alexander or the legions of rome and still feel to be part of the western culture and contribute significantly to it. We have direct debts towards greek and roman culture while the debts to those that fought at marathon, salamis, platea, alexander or the ceasars are indirect. Without their courage and sacrifice we would not be here, but we continue to study and think about the ideas that they created and not the battles they fought.

[Tarbicus]

The power of armies led to greater changes in the Hellenistic world than the power of ideas.

Post-Alexander, I'd suggest finding examples of ideas that flourished throughout the Hellenistic world and see if their proliferation went hand in hand with military force. Compare that to ideas that did not need military force to flourish, then you might find that it usually took an army or ten to help spread ideas on the whole anyway and you might have a basis for your rebuttal there? Did conquest spread ideas, and if so you may be able to argue that ideas could not have made change without the force of armies to pave the way for their spread and acceptance? Don't forget that conquest also spread ideas back to the conquerors, and it was not a simple one way street where the victors only enforced their culture on others.

Octavius might be a good subject to use, he being well versed in philosophy and with ideas for change, but he needed military force to enact them which culminated in the end of the Hellenistic period. If he hadn't had that force then ...

You could also argue that it took military force to create Alexander's Empire, which goes hand in hand with the spread of ideas in the Hellenistic world due to an increase in travel anyway.

The debate definitely wants the question of the spread of ideas debated, not the origination of ideas, and it seems to me that if you can make a convincing argument that ideas did not spread without military conquest then you might win.

[MHideki]

Thanks guys. That's exactly what we were looking for.

We're definitely linking the spread of ideas directly with the force of the armies, like many of you mentioned. For our main evidence we are going to use the example of the conquest of Alexander's armies, as John stated.

Thanks for all your help! If you get any more ideas, let me know!

Miko