/lit/ - Literature

not your blog, asshole

>>18441659
Uhh, /pol/ is that-a-way ->>>>

>>18441659
Funny because I downloaded it like 3 days ago.

>>18441659
Just wait until you read the French version. Some of the best history writing ever.
>>18441676
That book has zero to do with pol, it is about ancient Roman/Greek religion and law.

>>18441676
Have you read it? Or did you type this in utter ignorance regarding the content of this book?

>>18441659
In what way did it tear down, reform, and recast your worldview?

Did the gods reveal themselves? Do you now intend to sacrifice sacred bulls to divinities? Have you started burning holy incense in worked bowls of bronze?

>>18441882
It's apparently a book which shows how religious antiquity was.

>>18441882
The way societies and civilisation's unfold, the revolutions they undergo, though no definite form manifests a common vein runs through all, whether it be the revolts of the ancient world, or the revolts of recent history.

>>18441921
I'm somewhat surprised that you had a drastically different view of the world prior to reading this. It's concerning that you are so dumb.

>>18441921
what the fuck is that supposed to mean? sounds like you haven't read it and want replies

>>18442782
>>18442877
just read the book niggers
>>18441659
based, everyone on /lit/ should read Fustel de Coulanges, his other books are also great but I don't believe they have translated into English

is this the latest flavor of the month incel manifesto?

>>18441723

I think the second option. Most of lit is tranny faggots and pseuds.

>>18441676
>>18444305
Dilate

>>18444319
Sell me on it. I'm all ears.

why those who get hung up on muh tradition dont see that the world, its material part is an unchangable, irreversible force that destroys what is has to to progress towards even weirder directions. How can you be so nostalgic and melancholic about something you cant change?

>>18444321
It's a study of archaic institutions of ancient roman and greek societies. The foundation of these institutions is religion and the cult of ancestors, which is unique to every family. These religions rule everything in people's lives. Antique cities were built by families uniting in tribes and then in cities. So the origin of cities is also religious. Then came revolutions who changed the social orders of antique cities.

>>18444391
>How can you be so nostalgic and melancholic about something you cant change?
how can you not?

>>18444391
once again, you haven't read the book you dumb nigger

>>18444391
Yeah you too literally

>>18444397
idk from this >>18444394 post it seems like content for loser tradcaths who want to cry about the fall of religion
>>18444396
be active, spontaneous and forward looking machaivellian planner who subjugates everything that is to his needs and discards everything concerned with the past because its only an obstacle to something greater

>>18444321
It's an extremely classic history book from 1860's iirc. describing the functioning of ancient cities and societies in detail.

>>18441659
It's weird how many retard posts there are in this thread, I wonder if it's bots that responded to his use of 'redpilled' in the OP. Best to avoid such words now

Anyway it is an interesting and very nicely written book, the thesis about religion being the fundamental bedrock of any given culture/civilization is an important framework to be aware of when thinking about history, though perhaps not quite the alpha and omega he sees it as. The process of social disintegration in the ancient cities he describes is rather ominous even though he frames it in a generally positive, almost progressive manner. It is a good book to drive home how alien these people were to us today in most cultural respects.

>>18441713
maybe not but making a thread with no context in OP to why you thought the book was good makes you sound like a larping /pol/ tard.

>>18444461
>religion being the fundamental bedrock of any given culture/civilization
meanwhile we have flourishing atheist societies in scandinavia, northern europe etc. Doesnt that btfo his thesis?

>>18444504
I wouldn't call societies with sub-replacement birth rates 'flourishing', 'dying' more like.

>>18444513
but is it a problem that they cant fix without appeal to religion?

>>18444521
no

>>18444504
Well the author himself had a somewhat dubious conception of history as progressing into higher stages and was not great at applying these same tools of analysis to his own time, but a more consistent approach would say that our atheist society has precepts basically indistinguishable from religion, so you can examine it the same way. Societies also eventually collapse of course.

>>18441659
I read it once a long time ago. I remember how biased our views of classical paganism are by the focus on standard "mythology" when even down to the imperial era the cult of ancestors was a main drive of ancient religion, and the negligible role of "civism" in the modern sense.
It was one of the first great explorations of Indo-European cultural history too (it had been contained to linguistics then physical anthropology for a long time), which makes some people seethe to this day. I guess that's where the bizarre anti-/pol/ posts ITT are getting their anger from.

>>18444391
>>18444416
The material has no purpose of its own. Perhaps God has but that's obviously not what you mean. You got some nerve talking about "loser tradcaths" while spouting this primitive animist fatalist nonsense. Then enter schizo territory by claiming to be a scheming ubermensch bowing the world to his will, contradicting the above fatalism.
More importantly not related to the book.

>>18444530
figured someone would say this, but then its hard to see why we should talk about religion and not about "morality", "cultural ideals" or something similar

>>18444542
>Then enter schizo territory by claiming to be a scheming ubermensch bowing the world to his will, contradicting the above fatalism
I didn't propose anything fatalistic. I'm just saying its natural that the flux of matter destroys everything stable, so its no use crying over things like the decline of religion. There exist malleable aspects to this flux and new phenomena unfold at every step, this position is in no way contradictory or novel philosophically. But lamenting the loss of certain things is just unproductive moralfaggotry that should be contained, if one wishes to achieve anything great, imho. Of course that is not the content of the book, I'm just articulating the forces that this book might attract.

>>18444546
I think we have to define religion as the foundation of culture for this framework make sense. Some foundational values of modern atheist society are maybe equality, progress, belief in empirical science. Vague ideas but so is god. The point I suppose is that you can't question these principles, whereas lesser cultural values can be questioned, that's what makes them religious.

I'm not entirely convinced this is the right way to look at things though. The religion/atheism divide seems informative in some ways, getting rid of God is significant. 'Progress' is perhaps sort of a metaphysical idea but it still refers to things happening in this world while religion generally refers to 'other worlds' in some sense, this is clearly going to be an important distinction for how these things play out.

Both the unquestionable and metaphysical qualities are integral I guess. You can still look an atheist society's basic values though the way he does with the ancients' religious values.

>>18441659
Truly, a masterpiece of work. But I am concerned with how barren this thread is.

>>18444416
Are you retarded? What would ancient roman and greek religious cults have to do with promoting traditional catholicism?

>>18441676
>>18444305
>>18444391
>>18444416
>>18444474
>non-political book about ancient social/religious history
>thread is full of lefties and commies seething and screeching about...something
Wtf is wrong with you retards? Is the /lit/ left really this fragile?

>>18444689
>you criticize the lowest strata of the iq pool, you must be a leftist

This book is great, I read it after reading most of the Greeks, and I regret that. It really allows you to understand the Greeks much better. For instance, Herodotus talks about Spartans not attacking and being slaughtered by the Persians, because they were waiting for their King and their priests to receive good omens from the Gods, so that they can start fighting. When I read that at first I didn't understand and just kept on reading. But after reading Fustel de Coulanges I understood and I realised that I read an entire paragraph without understanding anything that Herodotus was saying.

>>18444728
Fustel de Coulanges was one of the most intelligent, insightful, original historians ever. Retard

If you read French, the History of Institutions of Ancient France is even better.
Pdf on gallica (six tomes, just search the title for the others).
>https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k61701q/f4.item

>>18444786
We arent shitting on the book. We are shitting on you. Figure out the difference and make a new thread with actual discussion points. "based and redpilled" just outs you as low IQ pol shitter

>>18441713
>>18441723
>Redpill thread
>Being about the book and not just retard OP's latest pol troll wank
You people need to be throttled at birth

>>18444786
And OP is still retarded trash

>>18444907
>>18444928
dilate

Doesn't he argue ancients had some form of private property or something in this?

>>18441676
>>18444907
>>18444923
>>18444305
The board is filled to the brim with pictures of books and no other comment than liking/disliking it, or asking whether it is any good. Books of often much lower value than the ancient city. If talking about books at all. The way you gang up on this particular one is bizarre. Especially when it diverts into shitposting about power fantasies and current year politics when there is none in the OP.
>noo, not the hecking meme word
Redpilled is some of the most tame meme you can find. Meanwhile the thread is immediately barraged with "incel", "tradcath", "larper" and references to /pol/.
I guess the only thing left to say is to reply in kind and ask you to perform the dilatation.

>>18444899
>If you read French, the History of Institutions of Ancient France is even better.
La Monarchie franque is great too. Fustel de Coulanges was mostly a specialist of the early Middle Ages.

>>18444966
yes

>>18444998
La Monarchie Franque is the third book of the History of Institutions. Edition in his lifetime was a mess because he wrote everything in disorder over 20 years, but all his writings on the period were supposed to be one continuous work that was properly edited by his students.

>>18444899
Dldd this, looks great ty

>>18445017
Ok thanks, I'm probably missing the second book then.

>>18441921
>>18444394
>>18444417
>>18444461
>>18444542
>>18444760
good posts

>>18445524
bad post

>>18445650
dilate

>>18444907
>>18444923
>>18444928
lmao seethe more

>>18441713
I really like Spitzweg's paintings. His technique was limited but it really feels like he captures the pre-modern zeitgeist in a marvellous way.

>>18444972
>I guess the only thing left to say is to reply in kind and ask you to perform the dilatation.
I love /lit/

>>18445677
have sex and take your meds

>>18445773
once again, dilate and fuck off

>>18445797
>d-d-d-d-d-dilate
have nothing to say, little boy?

I'm about halfway through. It's interesting stuff, but having read Ev*la, I feel like it's all review with some extra trivia.

I received a copy of this book just the other day and I'm looking forward to reading it. The schizotrannies are as lacking in subtlety as ever.
FYI, the time you spend on /lit/ would be better spent learning how to put on makeup or bathe. Everybody knows that real women don't use /lit/.
Regarding religion in the ancient world, many Greek and Roman works are notably "atheist"; I was curious to note that the even the Oxford editions of Thucydides and Polybius make a decided point of commenting on their irreligiosity.

>>18444603
>'Progress' is perhaps sort of a metaphysical idea but it still refers to things happening in this world while religion generally refers to 'other worlds' in some sense, this is clearly going to be an important distinction for how these things play out.

"Progress", when used in a manner as a guiding principle of affecting reality, is just a religious placeholder. I'm not sure there's been a "getting rid of God", per se, just that's what figure it upheld has shifted -- ironically, materialist worldview eschewing God still adheres to immaterial concepts, like driving forces, etc.

>Most “spiritually developed” people demand that these changes have a sort of continuity, direction, or progression. For them, no situation can be ultimately satisfying, they must always go a step further, gathering new information, pursuing a career, and so on. These people suffer from an ineradicable yearning to overstep limits, to demand more and more from life, a restless ambition that is never satisfied. When one’s previous goal is reached, it becomes only a step to some higher goal—the goal itself, in fact, is immaterial; it is the yearning itself that is important. The absolute height of one’s goal is less important than how much higher it is from where one momentarily finds oneself; it is the marginal degree of yearning that counts

>>18446197
>Regarding religion in the ancient world, many Greek and Roman works are notably "atheist"; I was curious to note that the even the Oxford editions of Thucydides and Polybius make a decided point of commenting on their irreligiosity.
You shouldn't trust commentators on those things. There have been a 2000 year old conspiracy to Christianize all of history, and in modern times to atheize(yeah you heard me) it.

No one in the ancient world saw these people or their works to be atheistic or proto-Christian(or being in any way distinguished from the polytheist civilization they came from).

The Romans were a deeply religious people, and everyones favorite Greek philosophers were devoutly polytheistic.

>>18445524
>>18445650
>>18445677
>>18445773
>>18445797
>>18445892
4chan discussions in a nutshell.

>>18446275
One highlighted the effortposts in a shit thread, the other made the thread even shittier.

>>18446525

>>18446267
Fringe (and sometimes condemned) people tried to "Christianize" some pre-Christina antiquity but it really wasn't the norm because the revelation is essential and there is a fracture of history as opposed to something that should have always been true.
Unless you mean they talked about a few monotheists of antiquity, of which there certainly were, including some of "everyones favorite Greek philosophers".

>>18444394
the origin of ancient Greek cities was in economic growth and competition:
>The new, more complex systems of organization and social control were a necessary response to population growth, increasing productivity and trade, and more complicated relationships, including warfare with neighboring states. https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195372359/student/chapter03/

bump

>>18446744
>of which there certainly were, including some of "everyones favorite Greek philosophers".
Wrong.

>>18441659
Note to self: never use the word "redpilled" or similar in your OP if you don't want trannies shitting up your thread.

>>18444583
I mean what have leftists and their corporate masters ever done beyond replacing christ on the cross with a pink haired obese faggot on a wheelchair? I mean at least the old christian clergy kept alive classical culture tried to keep the child raping at a respectable level while the politically correct lgbtsjwtfnpc crowd wants to brainwash us into thinking its progressive and normal their only culture is corporate propaganda. I mean the queer wont grant you eternal life or even forgive you for the sins of your bigotted white ancestors so im just saying itd be pretty funny if we could get together two planks of wood and a bucketful of nails and actually crucify that fucker for real.

>>18447905
Fuck trannies, but yes, use stupid language and you get stupid people.

>>18441659
It's outdated and unorthodox scholarship, but a historically important work nonetheless. For those interested in a comprehensive critique of it I can recommended François Hartog's preface to the Champs classiques edition.

>>18444504
>flourishing

it sounds like an interesting idea but what kind of "ancient religious study" is it?

>presenting the past in it's own historical, religious and cultural context without modern interpretation

or

>"of course the ancient greeks agreed totally with my orthodox/catholic worldview" "clearly the fall of rome was caused by [group or idea that the author happened to already dislike]"

I can't seem to find an epub of this book only pdfs.

>>18447412
>muh materialistic history
wrong

>>18449214
>the fall of rome
once again, you haven't read the fucking book, you fucking retard

fuck you tranny jannies

>>18444521
They are going to “fix” this problem by importing “migrants” and “refugees” who are either part of a religion that promotes weaponized procreation to take over via demographic replacement (Muslims) or are so dumb and African that nothing can control or interfere with their base animal (negro) drives to consume and procreate.

>>18444513
>>18444521
>>18444527
Birthrates dwindle everywhere and religion doesn't change anything to it. Economical structure does. There's no point having sky-high birthrate in an industrial society, except if you want to be poor and dysfunctional.

>>18450239
Israel has high birth rates, mostly among its more religious people. Mormons in US also have fairly high birth rates

>>18450291
Incidentally orthodox jews and mormons and amish are little sects more or less isolated from the outer world, and it's not really a good example to take orthodox jews given how they're a pain in the ass in Israel and may ruin the country.
In the wider picture my point stands.

>>18450300
Are orthos really that bad in Israel? Mormons are not a problem anyway, they are pretty much integrated into the larger economy and society, they're not like Ortho Jews and definitely not like Amish. Their birth rates are falling though i think.

>>18450321
Yes mormons are highly successful but they are at the same time seen as fringe, and live a bit in their bubble.

Orthos are basically neets with a taliban-tier mindset, they have special privileges, refuse to serve in the military, they refuse to study secular matters such as mathematics and english, etc Moreover they shit the political system with their snowflakes parties only intended to defend their privilege.

>>18448468
>François Hartog's preface
he barely criticizes Fustel, he mostly says how good his work is

>>18444907

You sound too angry. Fuck off. OP may be young or dumb or whatever but theres no justification for harassing. If anyone is looking bad here is you.

>>18450139

>ask about the book and because I'm not sure if I want to read it
>"have you even read the book retard"

The low IQ brainlet posting of the book's fans is a bad sign as far as it being an actually intelligent book.

>>18441921
Sounds like dialectical materialism anon.

>>18451889
You need to leave

>>18449262
https://www.imperiumpress.org/product-page/the-ancient-city
EPUB download link on this page (free)

>>18446267
>The Romans were a deeply religious people,
True.

>and everyones favorite Greek philosophers were devoutly polytheistic.
lol no

>>18451982
based

>>18444972
the post that saved this thread

>>18450634
>how good his work is
In terms of historical interest.

>>18442782
kek lol

>>18450184
LOL

>>18441659
noice
now read:
>James Russell - Germanisation of Early Mediaeval Christianity
>Eusebius - History of the Church
>Bertrand de Jouvenel - On Power

Surprised no one ITT has pointed out that Yarvin/Moldbug has been shilling this book in his podcast appearances. That's clearly where OP found such an obscure book.

>>18457095
It's been shilled by many people before Yarvin lol. Projecting hard just because you hadn't heard about it until a few weeks ago

>>18444504
>flourishing
Anon, I...

>>18447412
The origin of economic growth was the cult of the ancestors. Did you even read his post?

>>18444504
>flourishing
Sweden has never been weaker historically, even geopolitically speaking. Finland is a step away from being devoured by Russia and Norway...? lol. Denmark is doing OK but have lost a lot of the power they used to have, now they mostly exist as a buffer zone between Europe and Scandinavia.

>>18457717
the economic growth that led to the foundation of poleis coincided with growth all around the Mediterranean, as far as Iberia, and which even reached Iran. this breadth rules out any cultural explanations, and there's evidence of climatic changes between 850 and 750 that very likely largely contributed to it: the lands of Greeks and their nearby trading partners became just cooler enough and wetter while people deeper into Europe got fucked by heavier winters.

but feel absolutely free to believe in magic instead, you're not the first and not the last person who copes with being a loser by engaging in a ridiculous fantasy

>>18458030
>history is just le weather patterns
Lmao

>>18457095
It's pretty popular in France.

>>18458030
Nah, you said that cities were created by economic growth, I don't know why the other anon wants to pretend that economic growth was caused by religion, because it isn't what Fustel says. He says that cities were created by religion (to put it simply), not by economic growth. I can very well say that the appearance of cities caused economic growth, and not the opposite.

>>18451938
Tell me where I'm wrong.

>>18450838
Not the guy that got harassed but thank you. I always appreciate it when someone shows integrity/character.

>>18444972
Masterful

>>18458030
You're just making assertions without any actual proof of their causal precedence. The same old boring intellectual posturing in the field of history.
> this breadth rules out any cultural explanations
No, it doesn't, because cultural exchange was already large before any of that economic growth.
>and there's evidence of climatic changes between 850 and 750
Uh ok? This doesn't prove anything, not to mention it is mere "evidence", and we all know how tenuous that is when referring to ancient times. For example, the well known fact that large cities may have existed much earlier than we suspect, due to the fact that buildings were primarily constructed from wood in the earlier periods rather than stone, meaning that there would be virtually no archaeological traces of them.
>while people deeper into Europe got fucked by heavier winters.
By this logic (and your utterly naive and flawed perspective), the people in Europe who were previously in a good climate should have been near the Greeks in development before this climatic change. Care to explain that?
>inb4 but muh Mediterranean cultural exchange
According to you, that didn't exist prior to economic development. There is also the Black Sea which could've been used as an equivalent Mediterranean for northern settlers.
Materialist history is the most shallow trite. I'm not even arguing for "magic", just a better and more accurate view of human thought and history.

>>18457095
>>18458357
It has been posted for a pretty long time on /lit/ too. It is a popular book among the wider NRx crowd

>>18458030
I forgot almost the most telling fact of all: Ethnic migration, which you of course forgot about. Have you ever heard of the Aryan migration theory, particularly with respect to the Greeks? There are two main groups you should know of: The Pelasgians ("native" Greeks), which are mentioned in passing by many Greek scholars, even Socrates occasionally and Herodotus, and the Dorics, who arrived in Greece from the north quite a few hundred years before your date of climate change. These led to a major change in the Greek cities they had conquered, primarily in terms of social ordering and religious customs, as well as a greater focus on warfare due to their patriarchal background.

>>18459181
>integrity
>character
>4chan
Ok now i know its summer.

>>18459286
is this an imperium press shill chart or what

>>18444966
The land one “owns” is sacred and originally inalienable until later revolutionary periods

>>18449214
He seemed quite explicit to me that the old world of family gods and sacred property wasn’t coming back, imo.

The book is really not ideological at all. It’s not pushing the authors personal worldview in any way. Just very good.

>>18441713
>ancient Roman/Greek religion and law.
So it has everything to do with /pol/

>>18459286
The book was first shilled with the Greeks. Since Fustel's methodology is studying the classics, his books is really useful to understand the classics.

>>18459610
They're a great publisher, man.

>>18441659
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAY3yj6xXUU

Fresh content. A proper introduction for those curious in the book

>>18460323
Not really. Most of their stuff is just republished public domain shit. These "publishers" are everywhere these days.

>>18460095
What?

saving this thread

americans need to be rangebanned

>>18461928
Have you read their original releases? American Extremist is quite interesting imo

>>18463781
>American Extremist is quite interesting imo
what is it about?

>>18444760
>Spartans not attacking and being slaughtered by the Persians, because they were waiting for their King and their priests to receive good omens from the Gods
The meaning seems quite clear. What did you miss the first time?

>>18460095
Yes, so much has been written about the ancient Roman/Greek tradition of "buck breaking"

>>18465408
They unironically did that though lol

>>18444972
Cringe.
You do the same to other threads faggot

>>18444907
Unironically triggered.

>>18465408
unironically yes

>>18444504
Your view of our countries is what they want you to see. It's not so beautiful when you really live here.

t. Swede

>>18465667
The practical level of analysis is how it compares to other countries, rather than a utopian standard.

>>18444504
>>18444530
>>18444603
atheism is the worship of the individual self

>>18465786
Atheism is a lot of things and many religious people also are tempted to worship themselves, look at the huge warning against pride in christianity. Atheists tend to worship all sorts of random stuff.

>>18448008
based boob

>>18452070
Cope

>>18460071
He does have an ideology and set of biases, primarily against German scholarship and socialist trends in Germany. Historian Arnaldo Momigliano discusses how this effects some of Coulanges' work in his introduction to one edition of The Ancient City: "The reader of The Ancient City must be on guard at every step about what Fustel states as given in his sources. For instance, the notion...that the Greeks and Latins buried their dead in family tombs within their own estates is simply not supported by the evidence he produces (or by any evidence discovered subsequently)."

>>18441921
Oh man you’re gonna love this guy called Hegel

>>18441921
>revolutions
Such as.....??

>>18444966
Well they did. It's not really any debate in thst in archaeology.

>>18444689
Leftists got psyoped in college and most of them realize it so that's why they bitterly thrash around at everyone else who didn't drink their poison.

>>18467159
Historian Arnaldo Momigliano seems to not agree >>18466870

>>18467187
Goosd for him sounds like a personal problem.

>>18444504
>flourishing
Anon...

>>18467197
1

"The Ancient City—La Cite antique—was written at Strasbourg, where Fustel became a professor. It was very much the work of a scholar who lived on the borders of German culture and had a poor opinion of it. Fustel was acquainted with what G. B. Niebuhr and A. Schwegler and young Theodor Mommsen had written about early Roman history. He was probably also well informed about the books of K. O. Muller, A. Boeckh, F. G. Welcker, and G. F. Schoemann on Greek mythology, religion, and institutions. Furthermore, he was necessarily de- pendent on German scholars for his notions about Indo-Europeans (or Aryans) because they had done most of the spadework in this field. But he intentionally disregarded modern authorities in his Ancient City and, though he involved French and English writers in his provocative silence, there is no doubt that they were not his main target. In a posthumous fragment by him one reads: "I would rather be mistaken in the manner of Livy than that of Niebuhr." In 1864 Fustel was still mainly a classical scholar with an extraordinary familiarity with classical texts. His knowledge of other Aryan groups was as yet superficial and in the case of Indian civilization always remained so. The main attraction of the Aryan idea for him was that it freed him from having to include the Semites—and therefore the Jews and the dangerous Bible—in his discourse.

After publishing The Ancient City Fustel became increasingly involved in the question of whether medieval French institutions were mainly German or Celtic or Roman in origin. He embraced the Roman thesis. As his main work on the subject, the Histoire des institutions politiques de l'Ancienne France, began to appear after the great crisis of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 (more precisely in 1875), it became symptomatic of the revulsion against Germany that then pre- vailed in France. After 1871 Fustel did indeed stand up as the leader of the new nationalistic historiography. But he is not responsible for the extravagant notions about the Gauls produced by his pupil C. Jullian and even less for the use Ch. Maurras and other extreme rightists of the Action Franchise made of him. Moreover, the main outlines of his ideas about the origins of French civilization were expressed by Fustel before the war, early in 1870, in lectures he had been invited to deliver in the presence of the Empress Eugenie as soon as he had left the University of Strasbourg to become a teacher at the Ecole Normale. Though it would be wrong to play down the emotional impact of the events of 1870-71 on the later development of Fustel (who died prematurely in 1889), his transition from classical interests to a concern with problems of French history should be dated about 1865."

>>18441659
I too enjoy the matrix anon.

>>18467584
2

"There are, however, traits that remained constant in his activity. One of these, which we have already noticed, is his distrust of German scholarship. This goes together with a certain uncritical attitude towards his sources, because source criticism had been perfected by the schools of Niebuhr and Pertz (the latter in the context of the Monumenta Germaniae). The reader of The Ancient City must be on guard at every step about what Fustel states as given in his sources. For instance, the notion—essential for the validity of Fustel's theories and presented by him as a fact—that the Greeks and Latins buried their dead in family tombs within their own estates is simply not supported by the evidence he produces (or by any evidence discovered subsequently). Secondly, throughout his career Fustel was involved in a polemic against socialist and generally egalitarian ideas. He defended the institution of private property against French and German socialists by making private property one of the original institutions of mankind (and, as we shall soon see, connecting it with the cult of the dead). He maintained with equal firmness that the revolutionaries of 1789 had deceived their followers by pre- senting the ancient republics of Athens, Sparta, and Rome (more especially Sparta) as models of liberty. In agreement with B. Constant and indeed with a whole line of anti-Jacobin thinkers Fustel believed that there was no respect for individual liberty in ancient Greece and Rome (not even in Athens). Individual liberty was to him the product of Christianity, which in its turn he considered unthinkable without the universality of the Roman Empire. Here is the root of Fustel's ambiguity about ancient values. On the one hand he admires, and feels nostalgia for, the ancestral traditions that ensured private property and family solidarity in the days of old. On the other hand he feels that without Christianity there would be no respect for the individual or even separation between state and religion; therefore, though a confessed unbeliever, he chooses to remain within the Catholic Church and avoids discussing the Bible."

>>18467593
3

"Fustel's ambiguous attitude towards the historical materials and the values inherent in them goes beyond the subjects of private property and individual freedom and seems to pervade his whole historical outlook in The Ancient City. Paradoxically, this gives the volume both its superficial appearance of compact argument and its ultimate reality of self-contradictory historical construction. We are introduced to a simple world where people claiming to have the same ancestors live together on privately owned ground sanctified by the tombs of the ancestors themselves and by the hearth in which the spirits of the ancestors are supposed to live perennially as gods: "the religion of the dead is the oldest in man." Keeping the fire alive means keeping the ancestors alive. Because the dead expect to be kept alive by their descendants, celibacy is a crime. The tomb establishes an indissoluble union between the land and the extended family living on it (let us call it the gens, in Roman terminology). Thus the dead are at the root of both religion and property. The father is the priest of the family cult and also king over his family; land is inalienable; daughters do not inherit because they marry outside the family and join the ancestor cult of their husbands. But the sons are not all on an equal footing. The first-born inherits the priestly and sovereign rights of the father. If the evidence about primitive Rome does not show any trace of the right of primogeniture (unlike that about India and, according to Fustel, Greece), we must postulate its existence. Indians, Greeks, and Romans (and the other Aryans) must have passed through this stage, in which the extended family ruled by the eldest living member was the only political and religious corporation."

>>18467604
4

"But how could this coherent society disintegrate and give place to cities in which different families without common ancestors lived together, in which religion was no longer limited to the household, and in which property rights in land became alienable? Fustel admires such a society just because it appears immutable. The internal contradictions revealed by Marxist analysis did not yet exist for him. For an explanation he relies on what I have called his ambiguity and would now call more precisely his dualistic attitude towards historical developments. He has one or two trump cards up his sleeve. Somewhere, somehow, another religion developed that had nothing to do with ancestors. It was the cult of natural phenomena, the worship of sun, moon, stars, etc. Besides, Fustel unexpectedly adds, it was not quite true that everyone lived happily inside the family structure so far outlined. Somewhere, somehow, the original family had been complicated by the admission of clients who in exchange for help had agreed to worship the ancestors of their patrons and had been admitted into the extended family in a subordinate position. Furthermore, somewhere, somehow, there existed families unable either to create a religion of their own or to accept the religion of others. These unfortunate families remained outside the original civilization of the Aryan gentes in a near-beastly condition. The religion of natural phenomena and the existence of clients inside the gentes and of plebeians outside them were the driving factors in the dissolution of the old order."

>>18467610
>The internal contradictions revealed by Marxist analysis did not yet exist for him
Into the trash it goes

>>18467610
5

"When the original gentes recognized the narrowness of their ancestral groups, the common cult of physical objects like the sun helped them to combine in the greater unit we call the city. In the city each family group preserved its own ancestral cult, but shared these "physical" gods (for instance, Jupiter) with other families. In addition, certain features of family worship were extended to the city; hence, the common hearth for the city personified in Rome by the goddess Vesta. At first the cities preserved the monarchic government each family had had in isolation. But it was soon recognized that a confederation of families, as the city was, would be better governed by a council made of family heads, that is, by an aristocracy. The transition from monarchy to aristocracy in the young cities did not represent a revolution, but rather a revival of a traditional institution, and therefore involved no bloodshed. The real revolutions came from clients and plebeians. As soon as the city had been founded by the association of various families, the combined strength of their clients began to exercise pressure on the ruling class. In their turn the outsiders or plebeians tried to penetrate into the city and obtain recognition in it. Clients and plebeians were natural allies. The changes, or real "revolutions," in the social and economic structure of the ancient cities—the abolition of clientship, the parification of patricians and plebeians, the liberalization of land tenure and of inheritance rules—are all deduced by Fustel from the unstable position of the gentes within the cities, where the clients became ungovernable and the outsiders claimed political rights. Shrewdly enough, Fustel saw the point of real weakness in the patricians, that is, the need they had of the military co-operation of clients and plebeians in war."

>>18467620
6

"It is superfluous to go into the details of the various revolutions. Even in explaining the last revolution of the ancient world—the substitution of a universal empire for the city states—Fustel produces a historical factor he had not mentioned before. He had previously presented Rome as an ordinary city beset by all the problems characteristic of the other ancient cities. Now, suddenly. Rome becomes an exceptional city. We are told that from its very beginnings Rome collected different nationalities, even different cities, within its own territory. Consequently, Rome was prepared to transcend the limitations of the ordinary city state and to pave the way for a universal state and a universal church. Fustel explains all the transformations of ancient society, before and after the creation of the city, by introducing new elements whose presence he cannot properly account for. We must conclude that the earthly paradise of the gentes worshiping their ancestors on the land they had inherited from them cannot have existed, because the very notion of this paradise is incompatible with the existence of the hostile forces that allegedly destroyed it.

University of Chicago, Arnaldo Momigliano"

>>18467625
What a fucking brainlet, his argument is that because other factors arose the basic situation Fustel describes couldn't have existed

>>18467625
Thanks for this, anon. This has knocked Fustel down a notch for me.

>>18468287
what's your opinion on the scholarship of arnaldo momigliano? any recs of his stuff?

>>18444504
>meanwhile we have flourishing atheist societies in scandinavia, northern europe etc. Doesnt that btfo his thesis?
Scandinavia and Northern Europe are still being led or controlled to a large extent by the religious military orders linked to those formed during or before the Crusades.

>>18457095
Its ok to like Yarvin. His posts are enjoyable and his energy refreshing.

>>18450321
>Are orthos really that bad in Israel? Mormons are not a problem anyway, they are pretty much integrated into the larger economy and society, they're not like Ortho Jews and definitely not like Amish. Their birth rates are falling though i think.
Mormons are one of the religious groups that are currently pulling the strings of society at the moment.
Mitt Romney was possibly the most visible example, but if you check pop culture, you can see other indicators.

>>18444504
is your definition of religion really just 'belief in, and reverence of, anthropomorphic paranormal entities'?

>and everyones favorite Greek philosophers were devoutly polytheistic.
*blocks your path*

>>18467610
>revealed by Marxist analysis
Dropped right there. I knew something was bizarre with what you're spamming. A jew Marxist with no grasp of history using "critical theory". Not a historian at all. Into the trash it goes.

>>18468287
His book is quite old and far from perfect, but most of his claims have not been disproved, since his sources are very solid. And his book is very unique since it is easily readable for the layman, contains information that is nowadays forgotten by most and is very useful to read the classics.

>>18441659
What is good about historiography in this? Looks like a standard history book.

>>18468287
>nonsensical Marxist ranting knocks it down for you

>>18444305
Other than Evola and Nietzsche, what are the other incel manifestos?

>>18467618
>>18467632
>>18469684
>>18469704
The arguments are 1) Coulanges pulls observations and conclusions from his sources that his dources don't support, 2) his disdain for anything German means he rejects an awful lot of good philological, archaeological, and historical work, 3) he uses his more innovative (and poorly grounded) theses as part of a culture war polemic, 4) he likes the seeming immutability of his conception of ancient life, *and as a result, unlike Marxism which posits reasons why a system may change due to internal structures, Coulanges is unable to explain why a way of life he thinks is sufficient and desirable should change, so his account of said change is "suddenly it all changed".*

Tl;dr lol calm down faggot

>>18469746
>unlike Marxism which posits reasons why a system may change
Is that all it takes for you to accept something? The "reasons" Marxism "posits" are always half-baked, grossly outdated, or entirely forced. I still laugh when I hear Marxists talk about epochs of humanity in terms of "Revolutions" - as if gradual change over a several thousand year period can even be remotely considered a "Revolution".

>>18469746
>Coulanges is unable to explain why a way of life he thinks is sufficient and desirable should change, so his account of said change is "suddenly it all changed".*
According to some jew Critical theory Marxist...? I'm going to read the book for myself then. I know all about these "Marxist critics" and they're usually so far off the mark that the only people who buy into it are people in the ISM cult themselves - which is actually what "Marxist interpretation" is.

>>18469746
>published in 1864
>thinks there was "good archaeological and historical work" being done
lol. Archaeology didn't even become an organized science until very recently. Most sources before the 21st century are met with incredible skepticism - especially Germans who often went on completely insane and wrong tangents to force concepts that today do not hold water, like Heinrich Schliemann.

>>18469746
>"suddenly it all changed".*
One look at a brief Wikipedia synopsis indicates he does provide reasons. Why are Marxists always so completely void of honesty?

>>18469723
de Maistre, Spengler, Mishima, de Poncins, Goethe, Max Stirner, Huxley...

Why do retards try to discuss books they obviously haven't read? What a wast of time.

>>18444305
>>18469723
>>18469797
>t. books we want banned we will label under the media invented and approved term of "incel"
We're living in the gayest dystopia.

>>18469746
>Coulanges is unable to explain why a way of life he thinks is sufficient and desirable should change, so his account of said change is "suddenly it all changed".*
Do you have any idea what Aryan migration is? Of course there are internal causes of change after migration; it is the natural tension between Aryan (upward/hierarchy oriented) and chthonic (downward/equality oriented) spiritual attitudes. There is no single "desirable" life when there are different beings with different spiritual vocations.

>>18444504
>flourishing
Top kek.

More importantly, they are not atheist. They are 100 percent full-bore fundamentalist Gnostic.

>>18469746
once again, you didn't read the book faggot

>>18469746
This post and the related above are a prime example of what happens when you don't even consider, let alone read, the material but instead immediately go in for the deboonking (and from a Marxist perspective at that).

>>18446267
>polytheistic
No such thing.
Pagan genii and demons aren't "gods" in any sense of the word a modern man might know.
More importantly, so-called monotheists certainly believe in genii and demons too, the point of contention is how one should interact with them.

>>18467584
> it freed him from having to include the Semites—and therefore the Jews and the dangerous Bible—in his discourse
I hate when people do that.

The Phoenicians (and ancient Hebrews were a Phoenician tribe) are part of the foundational bedrock of human history, at least as much as the Romans are. Why ignore and misrepresent history?

>>18448008
>8008
checked and based.

>>18470036
>are part of the foundational bedrock of human history
lolno. Phoenicians were ASSYRIANOWNED (or other Near Eastern empire). They existed mostly as middlemen. The only heroic thing they ever did was establish themselves in Carthage, but they managed to turn that into a bureaucratic nightmare and got rightfully defeated by Rome.

>>18470136
There were a few notable people in various fields with Phoenician origins in the Greco-Roman imperial period but at that point the local upper classes had been completely Hellenized.
Ancient Phoenician proper also did a circumnavigation of Africa although it was a lucky fluke unlike the later Portuguese, and they did it in only one sense (the easier one starting from the red sea).
There is no reason no consider them in the formation of classical cities. They were a faraway people, largely an object of distrust.

>>18470136
The Old Testament is a literary monument of Phoenician culture, you dumb dolt.

(Not to mention inveting the alphabet and money.)

("Aleph Bet" - the two first letters of the Phoenician alphabet.)

I've spent my weekend in a minority white classics seminar having insightful and original conversation with niggers and Jews. Not ones was either Race or politics mentioned or discussed.
And here, you faggots are actually unable to discuss a classic text without turning it into mah left, muh right pol nonsense.

i was going make an insightful comment, since my PHD focused heavily on the book, but instead im just going to call you a;l niggers and be done with it.

> Fucking Niggers .

>>18469723
BAP

>>18470583
>i was going make an insightful comment, since my PHD focused heavily on the book
fuck you nigger, now make the comment

>>18465345
I simply read it without understanding, I never imagined that religion would be so important to them as to let others killed them without reacting.

b

>>18469996
>the ancient romans didnt aCKSHYUYUally believe in jupiter and bacchus and mars!
>they were ACHKYYHAYUUALLY good sunni muslims who did salat towards mecca five times each day!
low iq post

>>18474670
No his point was that the pagan gods aren't gods but demons because only the jewish god is a god, forgetting that 1) the word god is literally what was used to refer to those deities (albeit the Germanic ones, but they were no different from the Roman ones in that regard), and 2) the jewish god was once part of a pantheon as well before banishing all other gods and claiming superiority.

>>18449127
>>18457692
>>18457729
>>18467375
>>18469959
As a Dane I will say that Denmark is kino. Paid to get educated, can study whatever I want in uni (cause good grades), can make a living in literally any job I want working 37 hours a week? money for each kid? free time off of work for pregnant mothers/mothers who've just had kids? low crime rates pretty much everywhere, slightly higher in the capital? this is kino. I would unironically never choose to be born anywhere else, assuming I can't choose a social class. Maybe Norway, but man, in the most un-nationalistic way I love my country and I love paying the taxes that were paid for me to get an education, coming from a lower income household. Even if you don't go to uni like I, you're good. I don't even know how you can grow up here and dislike it in a greater perspective.

>>18474801
All that and yet danes seem more domesticated than flourishing. Maybe you just cant see things outside of your own experience? Depression and anxiety is after all notoriously high in scandi countries especially among the youth even though education is much more slack and easy there than in America, and that crime rate is much higher than it was in the past and it isn't going down, but the birthrate is... Besides, you're all oligarchies which is an automatic nono in my humble opinion.