Articles

“Gladiator” calls for New Roman Legion to save “the West”

posted October 26, 2018

A Dream that was Rome is a site containing “writings on man, masculinity, and the emerging patriarchal renaissance” composed by someone who calls himself “Maximus” in imitation of the fictional character in the film Gladiator. Like other sites Pharos has documented, A Dream that was Rome begins with the assumption that the modern “West” is in decline, and prescribes that women and men should “come together as partners, not equals” in order to “heal the damage done by feminism to heterosexual relations between men and women.” But rather than invoke antiquity itself in support of its misogyinst politics, A Dream that was Rome looks no further back in history than the release of Ridley Scott’s film.

Misogynists want to emulate Ares, not Hephaestus

posted October 19, 2018

Return of Kings is a misogynistic site that Pharos has previously documented. Before it announced it would no longer publish new content due to falling site revenue, it published an article entitled “Alpha Fux Beta Bux Even Held True in the Times of Ancient Greece” arguing that the story from Greek mythology of Aphrodite’s affair with Ares is an “allegory for red pill concepts” that sites like Return of Kings claim reveal the (always misogynist) “truths” about women. Identifying such allegories in ancient material is worthwhile, according to the post, because they provide one of the “best guards” against the modern “assault on manhood perpetuated by feminized elites.”

Blog uses Roman “Virility” to Advocate Sexual Assault. Was it Satire? Does it Matter?

posted October 11, 2018

Mitchell Langbert is a professor of business at Brooklyn College who maintains a personal blog focused primarily on conservative and libertarian politics. A week before Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court amid accusations of attempted rape and sexual assault, Langbert published a post arguing that “if someone did not commit sexual assault in high school, then he is not a member of the male sex” and that “having committed sexual assault in high school ought to be a prerequisite for all appointments, judicial and political.” Langbert went on to invoke classical antiquity as proof that sexual violence against women should be acceptable: Kavanaugh’s critics, he said, lack the “virility, a sense of decency, or the masculine judgment that has characterized the greatest civilizations,” among which Langbert listed “classical Athens” and “republican Rome.” Langbert’s post has been denounced by the Provost of Brooklyn College and by the faculty of the Brooklyn College Department of Classics.

Ancient Greek doctor Galen cited to authorize racist IQ “data”

posted October 5, 2018

The “National Policy Institute” (NPI) is a think tank “dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world.” It is headed by Richard Spencer, a leader of the U.S. white nationalist movement who is allied with other figures that Pharos has documented. An article on the NPI’s site by disgraced psychology professor Richard Lynn argues that IQ tests show that “Europeans” are intellectually superior to “sub-Saharan Africans.” This article attempts to establish its intellectual legitimacy by beginning with an invocation of antiquity, claiming that “the Greek physician Galen wrote that black Africans are less intelligent than Europeans.”

Racist site uses Roman military to question narratives of oppression

posted September 28, 2018

The Alternative Hypothesis is a “race science” site offering “an alternative to the status quo perspective on issues like race and diversity” such as how “racial diversity does a great deal of societal harm.” One of their recent articles claims that “grievance narratives” about the historical and current oppression of people of color are “fake or exaggerated.” The article recounts many examples from 20th century history intended to support this argument, including that dictators Muammar Gaddafi, Mao Zedong, and Francisco Franco employed “foreign armies to oppress natives.” This is supposed to show that ethnic minorities should be regarded as oppressors, not as the oppressed. The only pre-20th century example cited is the “‘Barbarian’ troops from Gaul and Germania” that “the Romans would bring in…to suppress revolts in Rome.”

Anti-Semite laments the “decay” of Greek “traditions”

posted September 21, 2018

Expel the Parasite is a virulently anti-Semitic site that claims that Jewish people are “the dominant force for globalisation and destruction of everything natural and good on this planet” and “are behind pretty much everything” like the “faggot agenda…phoney White Guilt…9-11 attacks, 7-7 London Bombings, Pornography…Wall St scams, extreme taxation…vaccines” and “Global Warming lies.” An article on the site about modern Greece in the wake of its debt crisis also blames Jewish people for “the utter decay” of “the traditions that began with Homer and Hesiod, Socrates and Plato.”

Militia group to provide “Spartan Training” against domestic “insurrections”

posted September 14, 2018

The “Oath Keepers” is an anti-government and anti-immigration militia group in the United States that attempts to convince police officers, members of the U.S. military, and veterans to oppose any government policy they regard as “unconstitutional.” Although they formally disavow racism and white nationalism, their members’ and leadership’s actions indicate otherwise: their anti-government philosophy is similar to that of the racist and anti-Semitic Posse Comitatus movement of the 1960s and their webpage frequently employs the anti-Semitic term “globalist” to describe individuals and groups they oppose. The group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, has praised an article arguing that Islam “parasitically feeds off the healthy non-Islamic societies around it.” In an August 21st, 2018 interview with Infowars, whose founder has been banned from most social media for hate speech, Rhodes announced a series of “Spartan Training Groups” that will defend against the “violent left’s” efforts to obtain “illegitimate power.” Labeling this program “Spartan” is an attempt to promote the political legitimacy and military sophistication of their paranoid, violent program.

Stoic Philosophy masking Hate

posted August 3, 2018

Stoicschool.org is the website of an organization that promotes itself as “a civil society of people from all walks of life who share important values about the earth, social justice, and making a real difference in the world through people and science.” These values, they say, are derived from their adherence to ancient Stoic philosophy and the application of it in the modern world. It’s an appealing message, and one that may appear to put ancient Greco-Roman philosophy to good use, until you look a little deeper into the site and find that this lofty and progressive vision is meant to disguise and give intellectual credibility to a hateful and regressive message that has nothing to do with Stoicism.

Scholars Respond to SPQR and White Nationalism

posted July 27, 2018

Scholars Respond

SPQR is an abbreviation for Senatus Populusque Romanus, “The Senate and People of Rome,” which was used in antiquity to represent the Roman state. In the modern world the phrase and abbreviation is a symbol of the city of Rome, where it emphasizes that city’s status as the “eternal” city (perhaps most famously on their manhole covers). The hashtag #spqr is used joyfully by tourists, history buffs, and anyone who loves Italy and Italian culture. There is, however, a darker side to the way the abbreviation is used: as Pharos has documented, white nationalists in the United States and Europe have adopted it as a symbol. As such SPQR engages both of Pharos’ core goals: to raise awareness of the ways that Greco-Roman antiquity is being used in support of hate, but also to defend, where possible, that past from distortions, omissions, and misunderstandings that, in this case, threaten to poison a symbol that is a beloved source of identity, celebration of history, and pleasure for so many.

Re-purposing Classical Analogies to Support Racism

posted July 20, 2018

In 2013 Charlie LeDuff published Detroit: An American Autopsy, examining the history and causes of Detroit’s transformation from a center of industry and culture to what LeDuff calls “an archaeological ruin.” A review of the book on VDare.com, a racist and xenophobic site that Pharos has documented previously, complains that LeDuff was not willing to name the real cause of Detroit’s problems, which, according to VDare, should be blamed on “black empowerment” and the “black undertow” that “erodes the fabric of civilization wherever it touches.” This racist review came to the attention of Pharos because the reviewer calls special attention to analogies that LeDuff makes in his book between Detroit, Rome, and the ancient city of Pompeii.

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