The History Book Club discussion
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On Politics
PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS
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WE ARE OPEN - WEEK 1, 2. AND 3 - ON POLITICS - INTRODUCTION: Thinking About Politics and CHAPTER ONE - Why Herodotus - (March 16th, 2015 through March 29th, 2015) - No Spoilers, please
Bentley wrote: "1. Why do you think the Persians were more prosperous than the Greeks?"I think of it like the Chinese and the Indians of today. China is prospering much more than India because it has more centralized power and a stronger leadership that can push through lots of changes. The problem for China (and Persia) is that by consolidating all that power, you are just as likely to get a repressive Chairman Mao as a liberalizing Jiang Zemin.
It's like the investment prospectus, "Past returns is no guarantee of future results." China has been kicking India's tail for the last 25 years, but I'd still rather get exiled to India for the next 25.
Bentley wrote: "How far can we, indeed how far should we be tempted to try to, follow the Athenians in securing the political equality of all citizens in the face of differences in wealth, education, civic-mindedness, competence, or public spirit?"
The President recently came out in support of the general idea of "mandatory voting." I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad one, but it seems as if it would be relatively minor either way. If we cannot get a groundswell of support for even this minor move, I think any thought of Athenian-style Democracy is out the window.
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by Robyn Meredith (no photo)It is funny you say that - but have you been to both countries? You can live quite well and beautifully in Shanghai or even some of the other cities. India's infrastructure is still behind the times and its cities are quite dangerous unlike in China where I actually felt rather safe. There is still quite a bit of squalor in India - more so than in China. Of course China does have a fair amount of pollution too but the masses are kept in check and frankly I cannot see how China would have survived or flourished without the centralized power it has - repressive as it is. India too has had its issues with violence - mostly sectarian violence.
I see the Athenians as concentrating more on the individual versus the infrastructure or core components that our founding fathers found necessary whereas Persia at the very least although not perfect by a long shot had the core going for it.
I agree that China may be better place to live today. I am talking about the gamble of political changes over the next 25 years. India will muddle vaguely forward. China could lurch ahead twice as fast or completely fall apart. China is not a good bet for the risk averse.
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Although I would choose China to live in - if I only had these two choices - that is where I would differ - but thankfully we do not have to make that choice.
By the way Matthew thank you for being brave and jumping right in and posting such interesting commentary - very much appreciated and I am sure that the group appreciates it too. Keep it coming.
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"Much of the time, the question goes unasked in prosperous liberal democracies like Britain or the United States, because most of us see political equality as exhausted by “one person, one vote” and dig no deeper; we know that one person, one vote coexists with the better-off and better-organized buying influence through lobbying, campaign contributions, and use of the mass media, but we find ourselves puzzled to balance a belief that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government - which is certainly one form of political equality - with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy.
We must not sentimentalize the distant past when we wonder whether the better-off have too much political power. Although they often turned on them and dismissed them at a moment’s notice, the Athenians were led by men of “good family.”
Nor should we think that the only source of political inequality in the modern world is the ability of the well-off to convert money into influence by buying politician’s loyalty. If the economically less well-off organize themselves, perhaps by piggybacking on trade union membership, or ethnic or religious identity, they may be equally formidable.
The discrepancy in political effectiveness in modern industrial societies is between the unorganized and the organized; money is the life blood of organization, but not money alone. Can democracies protect the public at large- unorganized individuals- against well-organized special interests? The question plagues all modern democracies. Neither intellectually nor institutionally have we advanced very far beyond Rousseau’s identification of the problem two and a half centuries ago in The Social Contract."
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Jean-Jacques RousseauTopics for Discussion:
1. Why does Ryan feel that in Britain and the US - one person - one vote is what political equality is all about and we look no deeper?
2. Do you believe "that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government - which is certainly one form of political equality - with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy"? Do you feel that as an individual you can influence your government?
3. Is Ryan saying that the 'better off" have always had more power and that even in the case of the Athenians - they were led by people of 'good families"? Does that make sense?
4. Do you believe that this is still true? - "Nor should we think that the only source of political inequality in the modern world is the ability of the well-off to convert money into influence by buying politician’s loyalty. If the economically less well-off organize themselves, perhaps by piggybacking on trade union membership, or ethnic or religious identity, they may be equally formidable."
5. Ryan believes that the line of demarcation in terms of political effectiveness between the powerful and not so powerful is only the difference between the organized and the unorganized? Do you believe this is true?
6. Can democracies protect the public at large- unorganized individuals- against well-organized special interests?
Mod
Just throwing in my two cents about your latest questions here.First of all, I do not think that Britain and the US, using a 'the-winner-gets-the-whole-district'-system is the best example of one person one vote, since it seems to me that voters of the minority parties in a certain district see their votes getting lost that way. However, I maybe seeing this all too much from my Dutch standpoint; a country where there's no such thing as district voting and only the total amount of votes count (e.g. are directly calculated to the amount of seats a party gets in the houses).
But that is not really what this discussion is about.
As for the other questions: I do not think that resources or organization matters that much during elections, since every individual is autonomous and decides for his/herself whom to vote on. I mean yes, people would be exposed to media, and the corporations owning those could try to influence us, but in the end it is up to us - as self-thinking human beings - to vote for the one we think is best and I think we're perfectly capable of making that choice.
However, the voting process only takes place once every four years and outside those periods, I do think resources and organization matter very much.
I'm not sure how the forces in political arena exactly work, but I think that certainly in America, there are some very big players - in terms of organization and funds - like the tobacco industry that could influence politicians, while their counterparts (e.g. doctors) are not so well-funded and therefore have greater difficulty of appealing to politicians.
That is not to say that politicians corrupt or anything like that - it's just that politicians might decide to let their votes be steered in one direction because of the benefits that come with it.
Also, it's interesting to hear that the Persians had such an effective state. I do not know much about ancient Persia, but when I think of ancient politics only Athens comes to mind immediately really.
Lastly, you mention Rousseau. I can only remember his quote about 'man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'. I do not quite remember what his ideas where, but I see Ryan is going to talk about him as well later on.
1. Why do you think the Persians were more prosperous than the Greeks? ..... the interpretation of the corporation as a legal person in the US by the Supreme Court in a highly contested decision gutting the McCain/Feingold bill on campaign finance I wonder about the role of wealth in democratic politics -- both what it is and what it should be. I was struck by your comment early in the discussion, Bentley, about sound bites influencing elections. Who buys those sound bites?
Was Persia stable and effective because of wealth? Democracy may free people up to build wealth, but can it exist without a certain level of wealth? Can it survive in a world where there aren't enough resources to go around? If so, how?
The notion of a corporation as a legal person makes me uncomfortable. There may be plusses, but does it mean the corporation deserves a vote? The city I live in is currently blessed with someone I believe is a great mayor. However, not long ago he shared that he was quite comfortable with corporations and businesses having significant influence at city hall as, after all, they pay taxes too. That made me squirm and seemed distant from Athenian democracy and the one person one vote system of which (rightly or wrongly) I'm rather fond.
3. What do you think Ryan meant by “unfiltered direct democracy”?"Everybody (well...18 and over...meeting citizenship requirements...and residency requirements...) votes on everything.
It's a good point that doing this in a city of 50,000 is a lot different than in a nation of millions.
I sometimes wonder why if democracy's so awesome we don't have that decision making system at work. I suspect its shortcomings jump out in that context. Yet I suspect many of us (myself included) share an almost religious devotion to the principles in a political context. Because the stakes are higher? And there's usually another job down the road?
The President recently came out in support of the general idea of "mandatory voting."Mandatory voting concerns me. Won't we end up with even less informed decisions?
2. Do you believe "that everyone has the right to use his or her resources to influence government - which is certainly one form of political equality - with our sense that excessive inequality of political resources undermines democracy"? Do you feel that as an individual you can influence your government? I'm partial to a focus on one vote per citizen, with significant limits on the influence of wealth, connections, etc. It seems to me this lends legitimacy to the government and consequently helps stabilize society (i.e., fewer people feel bitter and disenfranchised). I also like to hope it is more likely to lead to the common good.
I feel I can have some influence when I choose to do so. I tell my (young adult) children they lose their right to complain when they don't vote.
Floris wrote: ... First of all, I do not think that Britain and the US, using a 'the-winner-gets-the-whole-district'-system is the best example of one person one vote, since it seems to me that voters of the minority parties in a certain district see their votes getting lost that way. However, I maybe seeing this all too much from my Dutch standpointCanada also has a "first past the post" system. The province of Ontario had a referendum question during an election not long ago asking about a system closer to the proportional representation system you describe, Floris. It didn't get much support. The argument for it is exactly what you mention: representation of parties with smaller proportions of the vote. For example, for many years, the New Democratic Party had 25-ish percent of the vote, but rarely over 10% of the seats in the House of Commons. Similar story (with lower numbers) for the Green Party.
As an aside, I think it's great to have another country represented in the discussion!
I agree with Jim, it is great to have other countries represented here in the discussion, as well as everyone's thoughts on Democracy.
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The sound bytes are bought by the politician through money they have raised and now since our illustrious supreme court has basically gutted the campaign finance bill which put a stop to corporate money being used to manipulate the outcome of elections - we have that to contend with now once again and PACs. A great many Americans cannot fathom what they were thinking but there it is.
You are right there are some very big players and that is where it is even more difficult because there are lobbyists who fund individual campaigns in Congress and win favor that way.
I am not sure about Persia and its wealth but the way it viewed its government even in ancient times was vastly different than the Athenians. They at least seemed to be concerned about the core infrastructure.
Ryan will be talking about Rousseau as we move on.
Thanks for your input and keep posting.
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Jim the sound bytes are bought by a variety of entities - more now since the Supreme Court gutted the McCain/Feingold bill (see response to Floris).
Obviously Persia made wars and maybe that is how they were able to finance their efforts and government.
I agree with you Jim and your statement - "The notion of a corporation as a legal person makes me uncomfortable."
It makes me uncomfortable too - I do not think our founding fathers had Exxon Mobil in mind when it was talking about equality and voting rights.
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Everybody (well...18 and over...meeting citizenship requirements...and residency requirements...) votes on everything.
It's a go..."
More than likely Jim - but I wonder how altruistic government would be if it relied on the individual solely.
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Mandatory voting concerns me. Won't we end up with even less informed decisions?"
I wonder if somebody was forced to vote if they would just write in some stupid person's name or worse - Mickey Mouse. I think if folks want to vote and value their vote - then the outcome is going to be much more desirable for all concerned. Why try to drag a recalcitrant to a voting booth.
You are teaching your sons good and important values.
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Professor Smith discusses this question and then branches on to discussing The Apology which I have set up a thread for ancillary discussion as well as a thread on The Republic. These are ancillary discussions that you can take part in over the year and they are all here in this folder.
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Plato
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Plato
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The Questions or Topics for Discussion
1. What is justice?
2. What are the goals of a decent society?
3. How should a citizen be educated?
4. Why should I obey the law?
5. What are the limits, if any, to my obligation?
6. What constitutes the ground of human dignity? Is it freedom, is it virtue, is it love? Is it friendship?
7. Quid sit deus - what is god? Does he exist and what does that imply for our obligations as human beings and citizens?
8. What is a regime? How are they defined? What holds them together? What causes them to fall apart? What are the different regime types?
9. What are regime politics?
10. Is there a single best regime?
11. What constitutes good citizenship?
12. a) Who is a statesman? b) What is a statesman? c) Or woman? Professor Smith got into great queries about the questions above - in fact the ancients all had different ideas - Machiavelli named Romulus, Moses, Cyrus, as the founders that he looks to; we might think of men like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Lincoln, maybe even Teddy Roosevelt and the like--are shapers of peoples and institutions.
d) What are the qualities necessary for sound statesmanship?
e) How does statecraft differ from other kinds of activities?
f) Must a good statesman, as Plato believed for example, be a philosopher versed in poetry, mathematics, and metaphysics?
g) Or is statesmanship, as Aristotle believed, a purely practical skill requiring judgment based on deliberation and experience?
h) Is a streak of cruelty and a willingness to act immorally necessary for statecraft, as Machiavelli infamously argued?
i) Must the statesman be capable of literally transforming human nature, as Rousseau maintains, or - j) is the sovereign a more or less faceless bureaucrat in manner of a modern CEO, as, for example, someone like Hobbes seems to have believed?
Professor Smith states that "all of our texts that we will read--the Republic, the Politics, the Prince, the Social Contract--have different views on the qualities of statecraft and what are those qualities necessary to found and maintain states that we will be considering" So the ancients had different ideas too.
13. Think of your own country when you answer this - What does your society/state/country find most praiseworthy, what does your society/state/country look up to? You can't understand a regime unless you understand what it stands for, what a people stand for, what they look up to as well as its structure of institutions and rights and privileges. So consider your country when considering the above.
14. How are regimes founded, the founding of regimes? What brings them into being and sustains them over time? Think of countries and their regimes and their leadership and philosophy.
15. Professor Smith raises this question about America and it founding and the Federalist Papers -
"He states that in the very first of the Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton - he even begins by posing this question in the starkest terms. "It has been frequently remarked," Hamilton writes, "that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force." There we see Hamilton asking the basic question about the founding of political institutions: are they created, as he puts it, by "reflection and choice," that is to say by a deliberate act of statecraft and conscious human intelligence, or are regimes always the product of accident, circumstance, custom, and history?" These are great questions to contemplate that even our founding fathers here in America asked when formulating the constitution.
16. Do you think it is possible to transform politics, to replace enmity and factional conflict with friendship, to replace conflict with harmony? Do you think that the Republicans can now put partisan politics aside and work with the Democrats and vice versa or are they both as Henry Adams indicated about regimes - organizations of hatreds?
17. Do you think the world can be organized around global norms of justice and international law? Is such a thing possible? Remember politics is regime specific.
18. Who are modern day statesmen and women that we can look up to?
19. Remember in political philosophy we are searching for the best
Bentley wrote: "2. What are the goals of a decent society?"In the tension between different types of governments back in the day (democracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, tyrants), as well as today, there seem to be some fundamentally different assumptions of what the world is about and that the goals of politics are. For example, is it just the way it is that the strong take advantage of the weak, and we need a system that helps that happen without my wealth being threatened too frequently? Is the common good truly valued, or is it window dressing to help keep saps in their place?
I have my opinions about what a better world looks like. Different people seem to have very different ideas: ensuring "our" traditions are upheld; ensuring I can sate my appetites and assert my dominance; ensuring all follow God's will (as I understand it).
Some of these may be cultural differences. Closer to home, there seems to be lots of variety in the extent to which my neighbours and work colleagues are selfish versus have any interest in the common good. Some are focused on tax cuts to be able to buy another car, others want to pave roads and improve schools.
With all of those differences in goals, personality, culture and ideals, is there a one-size-fits-all best system?
I certainly have my preferences, and see the common good as critical, but maybe that's just the way I was brought up, eh? ;-)
Mod
Jim, I was just talking about that with a group of friends - there seems to be a Marie Antoinette attitude among the younger set of let them eat cake. They really don't care about long term goals only short term self serving ones. Scary - scary - ethics should be brought into the schools and the course we once had in civics.
Jim that is the way I was brought up too.
Thanks for jumping in - I hope everybody does jump in and give their views.
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From Machiavelli to the present, thinkers have distinguished between the adept elite and the incompetent many.
We may think that anyone who draws such a distinction and in such terms can be no friend to democracy; that is not true.
If we are persuaded that in all societies only a small number of people will actually pay a role in governing the society, it makes all the difference just how the elite secures and retains the allegiance of the many.
A totalitarian elite employs the secret police; a democratic elite employees pollsters and advertising agencies. Totalitarian elites, military juntas and the like intend to hold power for life; democratic elites allow themselves to be thrown out by the electorate.
They may do their very best to cajole, persuade, or even bamboozle the voter, but they do not corrupt the courts, politicize the army, or send the secret police to the polling booth."
Topics for Discussion:
1. In the above, Ryan discusses different types of regimes. Think of your own country and what tyoe of regime you have. Why type of a regime is Russia for example or Iran? What type of regime are the countries in South America and Africa? Are they totalitarian elite or democratic elite? Or are they elite at all.
2. What do you think of the incompetent many - are we becoming a country of more incompetent many(s) or more adept elites - Your call (smile)
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"So-called elite democracy, or government by competing elites who gain power through the ballot box is also often described as “rule by professional politicians.”
We should not be too quick to disparage professional politicians; there are worse political systems than contemporary liberal democracies."
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As we move on through the introduction:
Ryan wrote as follows:
"Another way of framing the question was provided by the French political thinker Benjamin Constant early in the nineteenth century.
His lecture on the difference between classical and modern conceptions of freedom is a liberal sacred text. Freedom for the citizens of ancient republics like Sparta or Athens was a matter of having a share of the sovereign authority; it was essentially public and political. It came at a high price; not only did such societies depend on the existence of slaves in order to free the citizens to do their citizen duties, but they were societies of mutual surveillance, in which everyone was under the scrutiny of everyone else.
Modern freedom in contrast was essentially private; it was the ability to pursue our private economic, literary, or religious concerns without having to answer to anyone else. It was freedom from the political sphere rather than freedom in the political sphere.
The subject of a modern liberal democracy benefits from its liberal aspect by having a full measure of modern freedom; occupational, educational, religious. Indeed, when most people talk of democracy today, they have these liberties much more clearly in their minds than any particular system of voting rights; that is hardly surprising when barely half of them exercise their right to vote in important national elections, and far fewer in local elections. Skeptics about participation will insist that what matters is accountability rather than mass participation; voting for any particular party or candidate matters less than the ability to vote against them.
That is the democratic aspect of “liberal democracy” and it is impossible to achieve in the absence of the liberal freedoms.
In what used to be called “people’s democracies” - otherwise one-party communist states - or "guided democracies” - otherwise dictatorships - there was a very high level of participation, along with frequent opportunities to register enthusiasm for the ruling party and its policies. What there was not was the opportunity to canvass alternatives, to press for different policies or different political leadership without risking imprisonment, torture, or death. Imperfect as liberal democracy is, it yields a measure of accountability to the public that the experience of the past hundred years suggests is indispensable to decent government and the rule of law.
Turning our gaze away from politics momentarily, we should also reflect that when we talk of democracy we very often mean something social rather than political, what Alexis de Tocqueville called equality of condition.
Societies that think of themselves as unusually “democratic” do so because they pride themselves on an absence of snobbery, or because women occupy large numbers of senior positions in business or government, or because they have been successful in integrating large numbers of immigrants, or in diminishing race-base economic and other forms of inequality. They are democratic in the sense that they have removed many, if not all, previously acceptable grounds claiming advantage; race, birth, gender in particular.
To call this “social democracy” invites confusion because the Marxist and the post Marxist socialist parties of Western Europe still call themselves Social Democrats, and democracy in the sense described in this paragraph are very much at home with capitalism and free markets; if the claims of race, birth, and gender are rejected, what is left are the claims based on the contribution we make to the welfare of other individuals or society at large. Those contributions may range very widely, from simple manual labor to whatever it is that celebrities add to our lives, and the obvious way to discover what our contributions are worth is to see how they fare in the marketplace. Of course, all actual societies realize such values only very imperfectly, and markets are notoriously imperfect, too. Nonetheless, the thought that the core of modern liberal democracies are social rather than political is far from foolish.
A presupposition of what follows is that the project of entering into the thoughts of the long dead and rethinking them for our own purposes is both possible and useful. That raises the question whether I am committed to the view that there is nothing new under the sun, or more guardedly to the view of Thucydides and Machiavelli, among many others, that since human nature is the same at all times and in all places, we can draw morals about what is likely to happen to us from what our predecessors have thought and done. The answer is “not exactly.”
The last fifth of this book takes very seriously the thought that over the past two and a half centuries several revolutions dramatically changed the world that politics tries to master. In no particular order, and without assigning priority to one aspect of an interconnected process, the industrial revolution, the demographic revolution, the literacy and communications revolution, and the political revolutions of the late eighteenth century and more recently have created a world that is in innumerable ways quite unlike the ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds. The most important of these ways reflect our greatly enhanced technological capacities. To put it brutally, we can keep vastly more people alive than ever before, and we can kill vastly more people than ever before."
by Thucycides (no photo)
by authorimage:Niccolò Machiavelli|16201]Niccolò Machiavelli
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Benjamin Constant
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Alexis de Tocqueville
Bentley wrote: "In the Introduction - Ryan says the following:From Machiavelli to the present, thinkers have distinguished between the adept elite and the incompetent many.
This seems like one of those fundamental assumptions about humanity that is the cornerstone of a person's view about the ideal political system.
Are there (or do there have to be) elites? Can knowledge and keeness of intellect be balanced by things like education and nutrition?
A friend once mentioned his belief that some people being part of the elite is a given. I'm not sure I buy it, other than due to historic power imbalances (men/women, colonizer/colonized, etc.)
Mod
Give me some examples in democracies where this was not true. I am very interested in testing out all of the theories that are out there.
Mod
It came at a high price; not only did such societies depend on the existence of slaves in order to free the citizens to do their citizen duties, but they were societies of mutual surveillance, in which everyone was under the scrutiny of everyone else.
That form of democracy would not appeal to me if everybody was being watched. How is that freedom? And the only way they could do their civic duty is if they enslaved somebody else probably through wars and conquering other nations.
This reminds me of Matthew's problem where folks did not have the personal time to do the research that was necessary and they were not necessarily being handled the correct information either to make their quest easier. What would it take for us to be more involved?
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Ryan states:
Thinking about Politics:
"There are many people who, like me, have spent a working lifetime teaching and writing about what is commonly called “political thought” or “political theory.” Yet there is surprisingly little agreement on what “political thought” is. It is not exactly history, although it engages with the ideas of long-dead thinkers; it is not exactly philosophy, although it engages with the arguments of thinkers both living and dead. It is not exactly sociology, although it is a valid complaint against anyone writing about politics that he is sociologically naive. A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill’s essay On Liberty or Hobbe’s Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side.
I am a great admirer of Isaiah Berlin, whose essays in the history of ideas provide one model for what I do here; nonetheless, there are moments in his work that make the reader wonder whether it is Montesquieu speaking or Berlin, or whether Machiavelli would have recognized the causes for which Berlin recruited him.
Isaiah Berlin
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Thomas Hobbes
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John Stuart Mill
Montesquieu
Niccolò Machiavelli
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"I am not particularly gloomy; the fact that a book such as Allan Bloom’s lugubrious essay called The Closing of the American Mind could become a best seller suggests that the American mind was much less closed than he thought, and I although I did not greatly admire Francis Fukuyama’s book The End of History and the Last Man, its success demonstrated that there were public intellectuals in the marketplace and a substantial audience for their ideas.
History and biography have always had a wide popular appeal, and we are all richer for the work of Simon Schama or Gordon Wood to name just two. But some accounts of the history of philosophy have secured an enviably wide audience. Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. which I read avidly at the age of fifteen, was one. Together with Mill’s On Liberty, it changed my life, but reading it again years later was a salutary experience; questions of inaccuracy aside, it was spectacularly prejudiced - though very funny. I have taken Russell’s lucidity as a benchmark, though the ability to write so transparently and easily, which rightly earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature, is a gift I can only envy.
As to his prejudices, I share some of them, but have done my best to leave them out. One respect in which he is not a model is that he was too dismissive, even contemptuous of thinkers with whom he disagreed. Here I am sometimes share with thinkers whose greatness is indisputable; Plato and Marx, to take two obvious examples. I am neither contemptuous nor dismissive of them. My sharpness is addressed only to their arguments about how we may best govern ourselves; Plato’s metaphysical speculation is deep, rich, inexhaustibly interesting, but his remedy for political chaos is not. Marx’s thoughts about economic analysis and his historical sociology are endlessly fascinating, but his evasiveness about just how one might manage a socialist economy is unforgivable. Mockery of either is unthinkable; criticism is not."
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Allan Bloom
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Francis Fukuyama
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Bertrand Russell
Plato
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John Stuart Mill
Simon SchamaGordon Wood (no photo)
Karl Marx
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Chapter One begins
Talking Greek (and Latin) about Politics
We have inherited from the Greeks of twenty-five hundred years ago the words they used to talk about their political arrangements: “politics”, “democracy”. “aristocracy”. and “tyranny” are all direct borrowings. We share many of their political ideals: most importantly, a passion for freedom, independence, and self government. They were acutely aware that the Greek polis, the city/state for Greek antiquity, was an unusual political form, whose survival was always at risk from civil war, or from the conquest by powerful foreign states, or neighboring city-states. The origins of the polis are obscure, but it flourished from around 600 BCE until the conquest of the Greek world in the middle of the fourth century by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. Even after the failure of the Athenians’ final attempt to recover their independence after Alexander’s death in 322 BCE, the polis did not disappear. Greek cities practiced limited self-govenment under the Hellenistic monarchies until the middle of the second century BCE, and thereafter under the umbrella of the Roman Republic and Empire. It was a sadly diminished self rule; they had lost what why most valued, the freedom of action in military and interstate affairs that they had successfully defended against the Persian Empire in the first decades of the fifth century BCE.
Got my books and I am working to catch up. This study will stretch me a bit in what I have typically read but I am excited to see what happens. Between the book and the fact that we are already at 82 (sometimes long and well thought out and worded) posts that may be all I can manage to read (smile). I look forward to learning from everyone.
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These threads are at least two week threads so they will become longer. And things are open ended. So just dive in.
Bentley wrote RE: Mandatory voting: I wonder if somebody was forced to vote if they would just write in some stupid person's name or worse - Mickey Mouse. I think if folks want to vote and value their vote - then the outcome is going to be much more desirable for all concerned. Why try to drag a recalcitrant to a voting booth.I believe I am privileged to have been allowed to live under to different democracies; having grown up in Montana and now living in Canada. My mother worked counting votes during election times in Montana.
Mickey Mouse and other such figures received quite a few votes even for President. This usually stems from the desire to exercise the vote in other areas of the ballot but a way of showing that a person has little faith in either candidate for the Presidency (or whatever position the case may be).
The beauty of the write-in vote, for us, was in hearing who got the write-ins every year. Mickey, Popeye, Donald Duck, some local guy...
Michael wrote: "Bentley wrote RE: Mandatory voting: I wonder if somebody was forced to vote if they would just write in some stupid person's name or worse - Mickey Mouse. I think if folks want to vote and value th..."For a number of years, Canada had a Rhinoceros Party that was a more formalized way to participate but not participate. I know more about it now after having started peeking at the Wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinocer...
When I was in university, one friend was very serious about the "none of the above" statement he was making by voting Rhinoceros.
In the old Soviet, voting was mandatory; and I imagine a number of totalitarian governments today require voting.A little town called Hillsboro, near where I live, essentially has mandatory voting. Volunteers in the town of several hundred hustle the registered voters to the poll and pride themselves in regularly attaining 90%+ turnout.
In addition to phoning, and rides to the polls, there is a little shaming that goes on.
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You take a couple of days off to watch a medieval King being reburied and the comments section goes wild. Lots of catching up to be done I see.Just one brief observation. Not sure if it has already been made but they have mandatory voting in all Australian elections.
And this one. Would we even be having this discussion if the Persian armies had defeated the Athenian forces?
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I am not sure Mark - but what we call democracy today in terms of the American variety is sort of a combo/hybrid of Athenian/Roman/Persian varieties. Hard to say.
I ask that because a lot of what we in the West call democracy seems to come from the Greco-Roman tradition more then the Persian one or the other theocratic regimes from the cradle of civilisation. Without Athens could there have been Rome. Without Rome could Christianity have spread? Without Rome no Corpus Juris Civilis and the concept of jurisprudence that developed in medieval Europe? Without Rome no Holy Roman Empire and the idea of the nation state.
I have some friends who spent a few years living in Australia and it was they who told me about voting being compulsory there. Hopefully the BBC can explain it better then I could.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-...
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Everything does seem to be tied together.
Mark wrote: "You take a couple of days off to watch a medieval King being reburied and the comments section goes wild. Lots of catching up to be done I see."Too cool. RIP Richard.
All of those years of monarchs killing each other for dominance makes me wonder how precarious democracy is. I like to hope we're evolving towards better ways of governing (i.e., won't slide back).
Read an interesting (brief) article recently on another approach to politics that seems on friendly terms with western democracies (notwithstanding the article's title).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/visionar...
Bentley wrote: "....What if Leo Strauss was right?By Damon Linker ... what Melzer calls defensive esotericism, in which a thinker deliberately conceals the most radical aspects of his thought in order to protect himself from persecution."
I found this article very thought-provoking, Bentley. It seems worth keeping in mind that candor and open expression aren't always appreciated by the powers that be, with lives often at risk (chapter 1 closes with the trial of Socrates). Most of our political philosophers likely have had to be guarded in one way or another.
As well as concern about personal safety, I expect it was more persuasive to meet audiences on ground they understood, rather than paint a vision too wildly different from the politics of the day. Politicians to this day seem focused (probably necessarily so, that's their job) on what is possible, rather than what they ideally would like. Political theorists are in the business of painting more of a vision, but presumably they also sought to persuade others to aim for that vision (perhaps that's part of the pedagogical esotericism referred to?).
"It seems worth keeping in mind that candor and open expression aren't always appreciated by the powers that be, with lives often at risk (chapter 1 closes with the trial of Socrates)."To a large degree, in politics (as in all things in life, but even more so in politics and teaching) how one says their say more often than not is more important that what they say, or so it seems.
"I expect it was more persuasive to meet audiences on ground they understood, rather than paint a vision too wildly different from the politics of the day."
Perhaps this statement would be even more truthful if it is expressed in the present tense.
"Politicians to this day seem focused (probably necessarily so, that's their job) on what is possible, rather than what they ideally would like."
Exactly. To a large degree a politician's job is to lead. And, on meaningful issues of any given day that means leading the body politic toward an achievement that the body politic might not otherwise embrace.
This can require a politician not only to forge alliances seemingly opposed to one another at different times (think Tallyrand who served effectively four administrations, some murderously opposed to one another). Unfortunately, the mind of the general public is not flexible (wise) enough to accommodate the need to change one's thinking (think healthcare reform in the US, something FDR and every president since has thought needed).
"Political theorists are in the business of painting more of a vision, but presumably they also sought to persuade others to aim for that vision (perhaps that's part of the pedagogical esotericism referred to?)."
This is where the wheel hits the road.
One of the things I found interesting was the mention of juries as the last place for randomly selected citizens to participate. But it doesn't seem very random. Most jury lists are created from lists of registered voters and licensed drivers. (The younger generation is not as gun ho about driving as we were. I think I read about 1/3 of them are unlicensed.) Add to that the jury selection process, jury consultants to decide who to keep and who who to decline, etc. I'm not suggesting we truly select completely at random for life and death decision making, but I do find it interesting that even Ryan's best example of using a randomly selected group has many hurdles through which participants must pass.
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Empires at War: A Chronological Encyclopedia from Sumer to the Persian Empire, Volume I (other topics)Gates of Fire (other topics)
The Histories (other topics)
The Persian Empire A History /anglais (other topics)
Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Richard A. Gabriel (other topics)Steven Pressfield (other topics)
Herodotus (other topics)
Lindsay H. Allen (other topics)
Tom Holland (other topics)
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Introduction: (continued)
Ryan goes on:
"A familiar contrast is between Athenian and Roman notions of freedom and citizenship.
The Athenians practiced a form of "unfiltered direct democracy" that the Romans thought a recipe for chaos; the Romans gave ordinary free and male persons a role in politics, but a carefully structured and controlled one. Roman freedom was most basically a matter of not being a slave; secondarily, it was the possession of a legal status, being able to secure one’s rights in court; thirdly, it carried political rights and duties, carefully graded accorded to one’s financial status. It was also a status that exposed any free individual to taxation and military service, again according to financial capacity.
As Rome grew, citizenship was extended to conquered cities, initially without extending the voting rights that the Romans had; the civis sine suffragio - a citizen without a vote - was nonetheless a free man. He could say, civis Romanus sum - “I am a Roman citizen” and it meant something real, particularly if he was facing a court, or afraid that an official might be about to have him scourged, or detained without the prospect of a fair trial. The Athenian obsession with the right to speak and vote in the Assembly ruled out the thought that a civis sine suffragio was fully a free man; it ruled out also the thought that a citizen who was entitled to vote but not to hold any sort of judicial position was a free man.
The Athenians associated freedom with unvarnished political equality, isegoria, or equal rights in the Assembly, and they would have regarded the Roman restrictions on access to judicial and political office as oligarchical. Variations on the argument between Athens and Rome have dominated European and American political thought since the English Civil War of the 1640s.
How far we can, indeed how far we should be tempted to try to, follow the Athenians in securing the political equality of all citizens in the face of differences in wealth, education, civic-mindedness, competence, or public spirit is an unanswered question?
Topics for Discussion:
1. Major Question:
How far can we, indeed how far should we be tempted to try to, follow the Athenians in securing the political equality of all citizens in the face of differences in wealth, education, civic-mindedness, competence, or public spirit?
2. What did you make of the differences between the Roman and Athenian notion of citizenship and freedom? How do these notions differ from how your country views freedom and citizenship? Are you closer to the Roman or to the Athenian view?
3. What do you think Ryan meant by “unfiltered direct democracy”?
4. How does the US, Britain, Canada, etc. differ from the Roman and Athenian notion of citizenship and freedom based upon what you have learned from Ryan so far?