We all live in the present and we plan for the future as best we can, but how can we hope to identify where it is that we’re heading? What does the progress and utopian perfection that we’re aiming for look like in practice? The answer is as straightforward as it is difficult to truly achieve: to know exactly where you’re going, you first need to understand where you have come from. For that, you need an appreciation and a deep knowledge of history. It is through history that we absorb the valuable lessons that past societies, structures, ideologies, cultures, governments, and technologies have to teach us; how they were built, how they operated, and why they fell. The world’s rich human past allows us to paint a meticulous portrait of where we are situated now.
One thing that the Ancient Greeks indisputably got right was their concept of democratic government, and it is a lesson that contemporary America is already in the process of painfully relearning because we lost sight of what Greek history has been trying to tell us all along. With the American presidential election fast approaching, and its attendant high stakes, it is vital that we reinvigorate our examination of Ancient Greek democracy and its many facets. Only then can we fully grasp what they meant when they said democracy was a necessity. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This quote, oft attributed to George Santayana, is arguably one of the most paraphrased, recognizable, and academically cited lines ever uttered. Trite as it may be, it also happens to explain perfectly why everyone should study the history of Ancient Greek democracy, and thus bears repeating (and repeating, and repeating…).
We owe to the Ancient Greeks the vast majority of our modern political vocabulary, from “anarchy” and “democracy” to the very word “politics,” itself. But their politics and ours look very different. Though we have studied and restudied it, parsed and obsessed over it, the Ancient Greek conception of democracy is still woefully misconstrued today. “We tend to mistranslate it as majority rule,” says Bill Ober, head curator at the University of Saskatchewan’s Museum of Antiquities; “For the ancient Greeks, the word didn’t mean majority rule, or majority tyranny. Instead it really means people have the capacity to rule themselves.”[1] That, in a nutshell, is the central tenet of democracy—the capacity for self-governance by the people (dēmos).
Juxtaposed with their idea of self-governance, Ancient Greek democracies drew a clearly-defined picture of what a tyrant looked like, and saw tyranny as a common and natural outcome of popular hostility to unjust rule and monopolization of power by the oligarchy.[2] Oppressive and self-serving, the Greek tyrant exploited the common man’s economic and political concerns to seize power irregularly or violently and enact total rule without restraint by law. But because tyrants still relied, to a large degree, on the support of the masses (i.e. the armies they comprised), tyranny was really just a form of majority rule.[3]
Ancient Greek democratic government featured a structure of direct representation, which meant that all eligible voters had a say in the political decisions that were made, resulting in a system that theoretically gave its citizens quite a significant say in the proceedings of the state. In addition, elections were decided and Council of 500 members (a body of the polis that served a maximum of two years and could handle government duties such as budgeting) were appointed by manner of random selection. This lottery system gave every citizen the opportunity to perform in state functions.[4]As Aristotle wrote in The Athenian Constitution, the vast majority of Athenians welcomed this new form of government when it was introduced to their polis—“the whole country had been in the hands of a few persons…and the hardest and bitterest part of the condition of the masses was the fact that they had no share in the offices then existing under the constitution…To speak generally, they had had no part nor share in anything, and were eager to embrace it.”[5]
Voting methods and structure aside, the key to the maintenance of a strong, functioning democratic nation, above all, was the establishment of collective interests, including mutual, virtually universal support for a fundamental degree of national security and welfare. In addition, a robust civic education was necessary, in which citizens and their state exhibited a willingness and enthusiasm for honestly exploring their nation’s core values and understanding and assuming the responsibilities that go hand-in-hand with citizenship. These skills were not inborn, but were something that democratic nations must prioritize, foster, promote, and nurture.
The Greeks who pioneered democracy, one might imagine, would be wholly unimpressed with the modern U.S. government, and with its sitting president, and they would hardly recognize its system of government as a reflection of the democratic ideals that they taught us. Even the authoritarian Spartans, with their government of the Thirty Tyrants, ultimately replaced it with a new democracy, deeming tyranny a terrible and bloody failure, and acknowledging that a moderate form of democracy was preferable.[6] Under a true system of self-governing democracy, ordinary citizens would have a realistic shot at holding public office. The relentless focus on elections as the only means of enacting change and “getting things done” would not exist, nor would the self-centric ethos that motivates people to select officials based on whether they promise to address one’s individual wishes, as opposed to the common good. Elections themselves as a means of filling government seats, the Ancient Greeks believed, were a form of oligarchy, resulting in disparate levels of power and the rule of the privileged few over the many. Furthermore, they would probably be off-put by the average American’s apathy towards one’s fellow citizens, ignorance about the basic functions and role of government, and lack of civic engagement.
In fact, to an Ancient Greek democrat, the modern democratic system of American government would actually be considered, as Ober puts it, a “pseudo-democracy or straight-up oligarchy.” “A Greek tyrant,” he goes on to say, “was a megalomaniac, extremely greedy for material possessions, a sexual aggressor, he sought to block out all of his enemies from any role in politics—I think they would look at the current American president and say, ‘How does this fit the view we have of what a tyrant is?’”[7]
Overall, the 2016 presidential election exposed the danger inherent in vote-based “pseudo-democracies” in that they almost inexorably involve the exclusion of sizeable, alienated minorities from the political process. Donald Trump’s entrance onto the political scene, for example, was characterized by the “birther” movement intended to delegitimize America’s first black president. Six years later, he continues to engage in extra-constitutional maneuvers aimed at maintaining power by disenfranchising black voters, leaving many Americans, as in pre-democratic Ancient Greece, anxious about their role (or lack thereof) in government.
The past is undoubtedly rife with warning signs that alert us to slow down, yield, or turn back. It is vital that contemporary Americans engage in an honest reflection on the events and choices that lead us to these crossroads, learn from others’ mistakes, and resist and question the status quo when we see analogous patterns materializing. At the same time, our Ancient Greek ancestors have as much to show us in the way of what went right as they do by their follies, and knowing the past can spare us the strife and missteps that often accompanied having to learn these lessons the first time around. In the 2020 election, it is imperative not only that we learn from the mistakes of the 2016 election, but that we refocus on how these mistakes can be understood in the context of Ancient Greek democracy. The study of history is thus the best shot we have at departing from the dangerous path that we are on.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aristotle. “The Athenian Constitution” In A Source Book of Greek History, ed. Fred Morrow Fling. 77-79. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1997.
Goldhill, Olivia. “The inventors of democracy would define the US as an oligarchy run by a tyrant.” Qz.com. Quartz, July 22, 2017. https://qz.com/1036088/the-inventors-of- democracy-would-define-the-us-as-an-oligarchy-run-by-a-tyrant/.
Martin, T.R. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Solon. “Book i: Elegies.” In Elegy and Iambus, Volume I, ed. J.M Edmonds. 130-141. New York: W.W. Norton, 1931.
[1] Olivia Goldhill, “The inventors of democracy would define the US as an oligarchy run by a tyrant,” qz.com, Quartz, July 22, 2017. https://qz.com/1036088/the-inventors-of-democracy-would-define-the-us-as-an-oligarchy-run-by-a-tyrant/. [2]Solon. “Book i: Elegies,” in Elegy and Iambus, Volume I, ed. J.M Edmonds (New York: W.W. Norton, 1931), 132. [3] Thomas R. Martin. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 201. [4] Martin, Ancient Greece, 156. [5] Aristotle. “The Athenian Constitution,” in A Source Book of Greek History, ed. Fred Morrow Fling (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1997), 77. [6] Martin, Ancient Greece, 122. [7] Goldhill, Inventors of Democracy.
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