I don’t think it’s due to evolution or material conditions. I think it’s cultural and goes back to the rise of Christianity. Pre-Christian stories, like the Greek myths, glorified the strong. Now we glorify the weak.
As an aside, it’s a bit of miracle that the pro-weak worldview became so strong and in many places won outright. It’s inherently strange and the result wasn’t a given at all. I’ll never stop recommending “The Girl in a Swing” by Richard Adams, which examines this conflict maybe better than any other, despite being a fiction book.
Thinking of the pre-christian body of thought I know the best, Plato definitely depicted Socrates as an underdog, and we were always meant to root for him. So I’m skeptical of this Nietzscheian dichotomy.
Edit: Hell, if the ancient Greeks were proud of one thing it was how an army of just 300 Spartans, despite all odds, defeated the Persian invasion of the peninsula. If that’s not “rooting for the underdog” I don’t know what is.
I’m not sure I agree with cousin_it’s premise but lack any good knowledge to justify a strong disagreement. However, I would note that the 300 Spartans story might be read both ways, and perhaps at the same time. If 300 Spartans can fight off the entire Persian army seems to also suggest they are incredibly strong fighters with strong strategy and tactics.
I think one can make both cases and neither necessarily refutes the other.
The point of an underdog story is that the underdogs do ultimately win (in some sense) at the end. Socrates spreads reason, the Spartans defend Greece, and the poor go to heaven. So the question should be whether the story as presented by Greeks claims that the Spartans winning was surprising. Otherwise, we’ve just completely dissolved what an “underdog story” could possibly mean.
Thermopylae is not a good example here. They started with ~70,000 troops and absolutely expected to win due to the overwhelming advantage of their defended position.
The rearguard, who stayed behind to cover the retreat are where “the 300” comes from, (but there were actually over 1,200 of them) were wiped out except for about 400 who surrendered on the first day.
I was making a claim about how the story was typically presented by greeks to greeks. It could be an underdog story or not in reality, but in fact them making their position seem more dire in their rhetoric I think actually supports my point more.
This conversation uses “underdog” in different ways, giving rise to confusion. Yes, the point of an underdog story is indeed that the underdog wins, but this just makes the heros of the story just more awesome. Ultimately, you emphasize with somebody who is super strong.
The OP, however, describes a phenomenon where the groups see themselves as weaker and in fact unlikely to win. cousin_it attributes this to weakness being desirable due to Christianity. Socrates is a good counterexample, but the 300 are less so.
I don’t think it’s due to evolution or material conditions. I think it’s cultural and goes back to the rise of Christianity...
I think basically every time someone has a story like this it’s wrong. I don’t understand why people seem so eager to blame cultural forces for ubiquitous behavior in this fashion. I guess it makes humans seem more interesting.
I’ll try defending his view: We’re rewarding victimhood and humility more than ever before, and in the west, the main reason behind this change in values has been Christianity.
The leap from “We’re rewarding weakness” to “We see others as stronger than they are” is not trivial, but:
Humility makes us underestimate ourselves, which makes others seem stronger in comparison.
Valuing weakness makes us more wary of signs of power.
Weakness breeds resentment, and we can only be evil towards others by dehumanizing them or by overestimating them (remember how the internet used to treat Justin Beiber? It’s because he seemed so powerful that people didn’t think their words could really hurt him). So we overestimate that which we deem enemy, we must in order to be cruel towards it.
I’m not saying this view is necessarily true, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable either. It’s also my understanding that strength was much more valued in the past, but I don’t know enough ancient history to judge the extent to which this is true. It might fluctuate or vary between continents.
Are trickster myths a type of underdog narrative? They typically show cleverness, courage, and ingenuity winning out over brute strength and established authority. Could they be viewed as a form of cognitive training? My impression is that they are widespread in non-Christian cultures.
Greek mythology also shows underdog preference. Sure, the heroes are demigods, but they’re battling against gods, monsters, and mighty forces of nature. The Greek heroes are strong but usually the forces they contend with are even stronger.
Generally speaking, “the hero starts with bad odds” makes for better stories. Perseus is the underdog more in the sense that he hasn’t yet proven himself—nobody knows what being Perseus means before he’s defeated a legendary monster.
But then again, it’s not like those stories disappeared from Christian culture either. I guess the knights from the epic chansons de gestes are humble in the sense that they submit to God, but they are still strong and brave warriors who put down all sorts of supernatural evil beings.
> I think it’s cultural and goes back to the rise of Christianity.
This seems testable with a cross-cultural analysis. Not just the pre-Christian Greek stories that Garrett mentioned, but Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Middle Eastern cultures should have plenty of non-Christian stories.
I don’t think it’s due to evolution or material conditions. I think it’s cultural and goes back to the rise of Christianity. Pre-Christian stories, like the Greek myths, glorified the strong. Now we glorify the weak.
As an aside, it’s a bit of miracle that the pro-weak worldview became so strong and in many places won outright. It’s inherently strange and the result wasn’t a given at all. I’ll never stop recommending “The Girl in a Swing” by Richard Adams, which examines this conflict maybe better than any other, despite being a fiction book.
Thinking of the pre-christian body of thought I know the best, Plato definitely depicted Socrates as an underdog, and we were always meant to root for him. So I’m skeptical of this Nietzscheian dichotomy.
Edit: Hell, if the ancient Greeks were proud of one thing it was how an army of just 300 Spartans, despite all odds, defeated the Persian invasion of the peninsula. If that’s not “rooting for the underdog” I don’t know what is.
I’m not sure I agree with cousin_it’s premise but lack any good knowledge to justify a strong disagreement. However, I would note that the 300 Spartans story might be read both ways, and perhaps at the same time. If 300 Spartans can fight off the entire Persian army seems to also suggest they are incredibly strong fighters with strong strategy and tactics.
I think one can make both cases and neither necessarily refutes the other.
The point of an underdog story is that the underdogs do ultimately win (in some sense) at the end. Socrates spreads reason, the Spartans defend Greece, and the poor go to heaven. So the question should be whether the story as presented by Greeks claims that the Spartans winning was surprising. Otherwise, we’ve just completely dissolved what an “underdog story” could possibly mean.
Thermopylae is not a good example here. They started with ~70,000 troops and absolutely expected to win due to the overwhelming advantage of their defended position.
The rearguard, who stayed behind to cover the retreat are where “the 300” comes from, (but there were actually over 1,200 of them) were wiped out except for about 400 who surrendered on the first day.
So not underdogs and didn’t win.
I was making a claim about how the story was typically presented by greeks to greeks. It could be an underdog story or not in reality, but in fact them making their position seem more dire in their rhetoric I think actually supports my point more.
This conversation uses “underdog” in different ways, giving rise to confusion. Yes, the point of an underdog story is indeed that the underdog wins, but this just makes the heros of the story just more awesome. Ultimately, you emphasize with somebody who is super strong.
The OP, however, describes a phenomenon where the groups see themselves as weaker and in fact unlikely to win. cousin_it attributes this to weakness being desirable due to Christianity. Socrates is a good counterexample, but the 300 are less so.
The ancient Greeks had many tragic stories too then, for example, Prometheus Bound.
I think basically every time someone has a story like this it’s wrong. I don’t understand why people seem so eager to blame cultural forces for ubiquitous behavior in this fashion. I guess it makes humans seem more interesting.
I’ll try defending his view: We’re rewarding victimhood and humility more than ever before, and in the west, the main reason behind this change in values has been Christianity.
The leap from “We’re rewarding weakness” to “We see others as stronger than they are” is not trivial, but:
Humility makes us underestimate ourselves, which makes others seem stronger in comparison.
Valuing weakness makes us more wary of signs of power.
Weakness breeds resentment, and we can only be evil towards others by dehumanizing them or by overestimating them (remember how the internet used to treat Justin Beiber? It’s because he seemed so powerful that people didn’t think their words could really hurt him). So we overestimate that which we deem enemy, we must in order to be cruel towards it.
I’m not saying this view is necessarily true, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable either. It’s also my understanding that strength was much more valued in the past, but I don’t know enough ancient history to judge the extent to which this is true. It might fluctuate or vary between continents.
Are trickster myths a type of underdog narrative? They typically show cleverness, courage, and ingenuity winning out over brute strength and established authority. Could they be viewed as a form of cognitive training? My impression is that they are widespread in non-Christian cultures.
Greek mythology also shows underdog preference. Sure, the heroes are demigods, but they’re battling against gods, monsters, and mighty forces of nature. The Greek heroes are strong but usually the forces they contend with are even stronger.
Generally speaking, “the hero starts with bad odds” makes for better stories. Perseus is the underdog more in the sense that he hasn’t yet proven himself—nobody knows what being Perseus means before he’s defeated a legendary monster.
But then again, it’s not like those stories disappeared from Christian culture either. I guess the knights from the epic chansons de gestes are humble in the sense that they submit to God, but they are still strong and brave warriors who put down all sorts of supernatural evil beings.
> I think it’s cultural and goes back to the rise of Christianity.
This seems testable with a cross-cultural analysis. Not just the pre-Christian Greek stories that Garrett mentioned, but Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Middle Eastern cultures should have plenty of non-Christian stories.