View source for Robert Nisbet on the Military-Civilizational Transition in Ancient Greece


=Discussion=

Paul Mueller:

"The three primary forms of community are the Military, the Political, and the Religious. More recent organizing forms of community are the Revolutionary, the Ecological, and the Plural communities. Each community emerges through conflict with other forms of community. All of them represent departures from what we might call the “original” human community of kinship.

The military community powerfully competes with the community built around kinship. In a war band or an army, position and rank must often be achieved. There are also more forms of contract and competition in a military setting than in a family setting. The hierarchy is not inherently based on blood or age. Furthermore, the camaraderie of brothers at arms fosters friendships beyond the bonds of blood. The organization of the military units along communal lines also shapes that community in profound ways. But perhaps most importantly for Nisbet, the military community competes with and undercuts pure kinship ties.

Prior to the reforms of Cleisthenes (570–508 BC) and the Golden Age of Athens (480–404 BC) that we know through Plato and the Greek poets, Athenian society looked remarkably different. It was composed of large extended families “tribes, phatries, and gentes” in addition to households. Property was not owned by individuals but by families. Nor were men citizens in their own right, but only as representatives of their kinship ties. Law, judgment, and justice were also not matters of individuals and the state, but rather private family matters. The transgression of one stained the whole and extended families were responsible for policing and punishing their own.

Nisbet argues that the pressures of nearly continuous war in the sixth century BC had left Athens in a state of crisis. While Solon (630–560 BC) had instituted some reforms to bring order, it was Cleisthenes who came a little later and replaced the kinship structures and relationships with military ones. He declared the four major tribes in Athens defunct while creating ten new “tribes” not based on kinship. These new tribes were named after military heroes."

Kinship was replaced by contract, filial affection with military camaraderie. Other institutions like citizenship, property, law, and governance followed. Nisbet argues this radical change of social structure drew the individual out of the family and was responsible for the incredible creativity seen in fifth century Athens in philosophy, literature, and art."

(https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/how-do-communities-form-exploring-social-philosophers-5920234)


=More Information=

* [[Robert Nisbet on the Military-Civilizational Transition in Ancient Rome]]

* [[Feudalism as a Militaristic Community]]


[[Category:Civilizational Analysis]]

[[Category:P2P History]]

[[Category:Security]]

[[Category:Greece]]