Talk:Blood and soil

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[edit] NeoNazis

NeoNazis typically want to hang this concept on Hitler. I suspect that some neonazis first wrote this article.

Blood and soil is a very old concept, first popularized by the ancient Greeks. At best, the Nazis should only be a footnote to this article, not the main emphasis.

Any good article on blood and soil should begin with the Greeks and Plato's discussion, discuss the Romans and Medieval Europe, and then discuss its modern implications. --HowardJ87 11:38, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] the "origin" section of this article

the "origin" section of this article begins with "Existing in the region long before Hitler..." but what region is this? it is never mentioned. If the region is Germany, it should be stated something like "this phrase existed in Germany long before Hitler". I am assuming that that was not the only area though, I bet Molobo or Halibutt will have something about it being used in Poland as well.

--Jadger 04:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delete the article?

This article is really amateurish, and probably should be considered for deletion. It is really, in my opinion, abusing Plato and his philosophy, a total "high school" attempt to take account of his work. I added the tags in hopes, at least for the people who think this article is valid, they can offer sources, properly sourced, and categories. --Mikerussell 17:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

We need an article on this topic (79,200 Google hits for this phrase), but the current article is pretty weak. I'm going to try to add some content from German Wikipedia -- Writtenonsand 17:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moved text re Plato to Talk: Need cite.

Moved this from main article space because uncited and I can't find a cite online. --

"Blood and Soil is a phrase first popularized by the Greek philosopher Plato that denotes a traditional concept of nationhood.[citation needed]
Plato, as far as we know, invented the phrase "blood and soil" to indicate that the Athenians were the original inhabitants of Athens because they quite literally grew from the soil.[citation needed] "

-- http://www.csicop.org/sb/2001-09/atlantis.html says on this:
"Plato writes, prefacing the "Myth of Blood and Soil," [Republic: 414 b-c] 'Now I wonder if we could contrive one of those convenient stories ... '"
- however this article doesn't mention "Blood and/or Soil" specifically, nor do either the Project Gutenberg text (tr Jowett) or Perseus Project text (tr Paul Shorey) of The Republic.
"The Myth of Blood and Soil" is apparently a name given to this passage by Plato scholars, but I don't have a cite for this. If anybody can track this down, please re-add to the article. -- Writtenonsand 17:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This is really taking Plato's Republic out of context. Socrates is fashioning a myth to make a point about justice, and tries to build a "city-in-speech" to show justice within a political context. It seems that the actual phrase is not as important as the idea that people in this city would be told a myth that they were born from the soil and of three classes- bronze, silver and gold. The critical word here is myth, Socrates calls it a "noble lie" to get his companions to accept the obvious flasehood, and in fact the issue of the entire Republic, in some sense, is get the reader to evaluate whether Socarets "just-city-in-speech" is (i) possible, and (ii) desirable even if it was possible to abolish all families in the Guardian class and force out all people over the age of 10 into the fields, or kill them if they would not go willingly, and start with these myths from inhabitants ten years old and younger. Yes- that's philosophy, so you can see it really is a complicated thing to try to really link Plato to this phrase. At most, I think one might want to simply mention that in the Republic the discussion of the city-in-speech includes a myth about all citizens being born from mother earth. But the phrase "blood and soil" is definitely not Platonic in my opinion. --Mikerussell 03:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
As far as we know, Plato first mentions the phrase "blood and soil." But it was a very popular concept among the Greeks. See Plato, Complete Works, by John M. Cooper.
HIstorians regularly call the ancient Greeks "blood and soil people." The early Romans as well thought like this. Just see the Roman concept 'mos maiorum'.
At best, Hitler and the Nazis should be a footnote to this article. Blood and soil has existed in many cultures at many times. It doesn't even really have anything to do with the Nazis. --HowardJ87 13:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I changed the intro to: "Blood and Soil is a phrase first recorded by the Greek philosopher Plato that denotes a traditional concept of nationhood and indicates that the Athenians were the original inhabitants of Athens because they quite literally grew from the soil. This concept was very popular among the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans. The popularity of the concept continued in most European countries up until the beginning of the 20th century." --HowardJ87 13:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I reverted your edits. Your statement is very odd- "As far as we know, Plato first mentions the phrase "blood and soil." Who exactly is we? You have taken waaaay too much liberty with your sources here, if I was in my old job as marker of university papers I would write a more cautionary note in your margin about how you can get into great trouble in upper years with your slack citation style for possible plagerism, even when you do not mean to mislead, laziness in quoting sources can be interpreted as plagerism. The edit you put in the article was not even cited, if you have a source that supports your conetntion then dig it out, simply saying John Cooper uses it in the Complete Works means nothing, especially when it is on the talk page. If you say Plato originated the phrase, then find the quote, or don't cloud the article with your personal opinion. If "HIstorians regularly call the ancient Greeks" then by all means offer us an example or two, that's all it takes to make an article valid. Moreover, if it is so common, why is it so hard to find sources? There should be a bunch available, and readily accessible to include in the article, no? I still kind of think this article should be nominated for deletion, it has an overt propanganda type flavour to it, and wikipedia should not be used to further rather simplistic political agendas, but whatever my personal opinion, it certain is a very weak article now, and needs much morer sourcing to have much use and value.--Mikerussell 17:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Blood and soil is an ancient concept. To focus the article on Hitler is dishonest. I suspect that a neonazi wrote the original article. They often try to take credit for this concept, although it is much older, going all the way at least back to Plato.
Blood and Soil is a concept popularized by the Greek philosopher Plato that denotes a traditional concept of nationhood and indicates that the Athenians were the original inhabitants of Athens because they quite literally grew from the soil. Plato's most popular passage on blood and soil is (Republic, III, 414B):
I'll tell it, then, though I don't know where I'll get the audacity or even what words I'll use. I'll first try to persuade the rulers and the soldiers and then the rest of the city that the upbringing and the education we gave them, and the experiences that went with them, were a sort of dream, that in fact they themselves, their weapons, and other craftsmen's tools were at that time really being fashioned and nurtured inside the earth, and that when the work was completed, the earth, who is their mother, delivered all of them up into the world. Therefore, if anyone attacks the land in which they live, they must plan on its behalf and defend it as their mother and nurse and think of the other citizens as their earthborn brothers."
..."All of you in the city are brothers," we'll say to them in telling our story.
This concept is widespread in the ancient world and modern world, which later tends to mean something more like common ancestry, and is akin to other concepts like "kith and kin," "mos maiorum" (the tradition of one's ancestors; Latin), and rodoljublje (love of kith and kin; Serbian).
--Thomas Fleming, The Morality of Everyday Life, pg. 58
As propaganda, the Atlantis myth is more about Athens than a sunken civilization. The tale places Athens's history deep into the past, making the Athenians a people sprung from the soil, and portrays its citizens in a heroic battle against the menacing power of Atlantean foes. In the Timaeus, Critias answers Socrates request to "accurately describe my city [Athens] fighting a war worthy of her": http://skeptically.org/skepticism/id4.html
According to Popper, [Plato] "was the first to glorify propaganda lies, whose invention he described in forceful verses eulogizing the wise and cunning man who fabricated religion . . ." (1962, p. 142). - http://skeptically.org/skepticism/id4.html --HowardJ87 05:53, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm stuck. Can anybody come up with some cites?

I'm not finding cites for this. Argh. Anybody? -- Writtenonsand 18:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you check scholar.google.com ? It comes up with a plethora of possible references, though some may require a bit of effort to fully read. FrozenPurpleCube 04:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

Ok, I'm going to say this page needs to be rewritten from the top. I can find sources for this term as regarding Blood and Soil as a Nazi doctrine, but I can't find anything to support most of the article as it's written now. Anybody particularly disagree? FrozenPurpleCube 00:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I rewrote an added two sections: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (to deal with the term as it is in Plato and political thought) and another section GERMANY and kept the other description.

To focus solely on the Nazis is purely wrong. I suspect that the original author was a neonazi. In my opinion, Nazism should NOT be mentioned at all in this entry, or at most as a footnote. But I compromised and made two sections. (The Nazis did borrow this concept from Plato and Aristotle, but many feel that they misused it.) --HowardJ87 23:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

But I don't see any sources, so I've removed it again. Please find some reliable sources that actually discuss that as specifically referring to it with regards to Plato. Quoting from the Republic is probably not a good idea, as that's more what a secondary source does than a tertiary one like Wikipedia. FrozenPurpleCube 04:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
BTW, your opinion of the original editor is irrelevant, you shouldn't focus on that, but instead focus on what existing reliable sources have said about this subject. FrozenPurpleCube 04:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for Deletion debate

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 20 May 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splash - tk 22:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)