Denarian Short Story

[Mira]

@Kindler: Just because something makes sense doesn't ameliorate its being evil. For example, slavery usually makes sense from the perspective of the slave owner. That's true for most acts of evil.

@Mira: But not moral (Spartan treatment of the Helots, haven't looked into how other Greeks viewed Spartan sexual practices, many of which we would find abhorrent) by the standards of most Greeks at the time.

  I meant within the Spartan State, it was accepted.

[Kindler]

My point was that Mab is cruel for a reason, not evil for evil's sake. Taking fae creatures' children to fight against the Outsiders isn't nice, but it is necessary. Within their context, what both Mab does and the Spartans did served purposes; Mab is preserving Reality itself. Sparta was preserving itself. Both employed brutal efficiency.

The context of the point wasn't to say that Spartans were nice or excuse what they did, merely to point out that the horrible stuff they did throughout their (brief) history made sense in the Iron Age, and comparison to modern morality is like comparing developing nations run by dictators to Norway.

And the rest of the Grecian city-states sure were glad to have Sparta around when the Persians came a-knockin'. Just like Reality is glad that Mab's there.

[Bad Alias]

@Mira: I was just clarifying that "their" had to be limited to the Spartans as the other Greeks of the time condemned their behavior, as political rivals so often do.

@Kindler: My point is just that the ends don't justify the means and (in my reply to Mira) that I was judging not only from my own anachronistic perspective, but also from the perspective of contemporaries.

[Kindler]

I think in Mab's case the ends do justify the means.

[Bad Alias]

Probably most of the time.

[KurtinStGeorge]

My point was that Mab is cruel for a reason, not evil for evil's sake. Taking fae creatures' children to fight against the Outsiders isn't nice, but it is necessary. Within their context, what both Mab does and the Spartans did served purposes; Mab is preserving Reality itself. Sparta was preserving itself. Both employed brutal efficiency.

The context of the point wasn't to say that Spartans were nice or excuse what they did, merely to point out that the horrible stuff they did throughout their (brief) history made sense in the Iron Age, and comparison to modern morality is like comparing developing nations run by dictators to Norway.

And the rest of the Grecian city-states sure were glad to have Sparta around when the Persians came a-knockin'. Just like Reality is glad that Mab's there.

I would disagree with you here, or maybe we don't disagree but I would describe it differently  The Spartans thought their actions made sense, but some of their practises; like exposing infants who weren't deemed to be physically up to snuff, eventually led to their extinction.  Their brutal training methods and system in general; starting at age seven, made those who went all the way through it some of the toughest soldiers on the face of the Earth, but I bet it raised the childhood mortality rate by a few percentage points.  Just a tiny raise over time would have limited Sparta's potential population growth rate.  Even the way the Spartans treated the Helots was unproductive in the long run.  It eventually led to their rebellion, and when the Helots were freed by the military campaign of the Theban leader Epaminondas, the Spartans lost their slave workforce; or as close to being slaves that the difference doesn't really matter, forever.  Sparta wasn't conquered and obliterated like Carthage was by the Romans, there were just less and less of them until there were none left at all.  The Romans wrote letters to one another about visiting Sparta and watching the few Spartans who were left continuing to practise their self-destructive rituals like the aforementioned infant exposure.

So I don't see the equivalence between Mab and the Spartans.  Mab is protecting all of reality from the Outsiders.  The Spartans were protecting their (eventually self-destructive) way of life.  It's not quite the same thing is it?