Why this word is great
LACONOPHILIA — [Noun] A profound admiration for ancient Sparta, its austere culture, militaristic discipline, and oligarchic constitution. From the combining form Lacono- (from Latin Laconia, the region of the Peloponnese dominated by Sparta) and -philia (from Greek -philia, meaning "love" or "fondness"). Unlike laconism, which denotes a terse style of speech, or athenophilia, which celebrates the democratic and artistic exuberance of Athens, laconophilia is a devotion to the mythos of ascetic discipline and martial collectivism. It is the cold gleam of polished bronze shields locked into an unbreakable phalanx, the stark silhouette of a boy enduring the whip without a cry at the altar of Artemis Orthia, and the ghostly whisper of a society where the individual is subsumed by the state—a nostalgia for a clarity that never existed, a longing for an order so severe it purports to transcend the mess of being human.