Democracy
& The Greek PolisNothing in resemblance to the modern machine they call democracy
UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
I have to tame it down here. But living in a country of fundamentalists with George W. Bush as their demi-god, is a dangerous world. Disturbing to see such lack of insight from a historical vantage point. It is here that sometimes blogging is essential.
It's the entire fabric that is stained, but it's already started to seriously disintegrate with what's currently going on. In censorship of journalism, the media, musicians, in radio disk jockeys, actors, comedians, educators, in the outright fabricated statements about WMD and Iraq, in the Enron and Halliburton wars, in the vote to constitutionally ban gay marriage, in the reduction of overtime pay for millions, in the rise of Christian fundamentalism (now that's ugly), in the loss of due process and human rights outlined in the Patriot Act.
Now if you don't know the seriousness, the significance of loosing due process - (Guatamano Bay), of forfeiting privacy and freedom and what that means regarding the enactment of the Patriot Act, then you truly are a bourgeois and mediocre and I suppose you might as well remain watching CNN and believing it; watching the same stories over and over again, about minute details. All to prevent you from looking past the trees and perceiving a glimpse objectively of the world itself. And if your a fundamentalist, then by all means, you are content to live in a tyranny, a controlled, force fed massive machine: the State, the rule that administers to all.
And the artist dies, the poet, the creative man, the religious man in the true sense of the word. The religionist, the fundamentalist grow enormously, while the very "idea of divine immanence within the rational order of things, an allusiveness that points to the depth of all reality without negating the structures and processes encountered by empirical knowledge," mysticism and the idea of the holy, the philosophical transcendence and the meditative emptiness are all lost into the rational state. God truly has died.
What is democracy? Is it the modern day Western Civilization? The United States with it's three branches of government, the Executive, Legislative and Judicial? Three branches that keep a check on one another, restraining from any leak of information to one another? Is democracy in harmony with the modern day Democratic and Republican parties and government representatives, who act on behalf of the people? Or is democracy the people themselves representing themselves? Does democracy consist as large machine with secretive classified information, bills passed with intricate meanings and spending programs (taken from the people's tax dollars) on things unknown to the general public? Or does democracy consist of small groups of people that all partake in decision making in all matters including governmental, judicial and legislative affairs and are completely aware of all happenings? Anothewards, the difference between objective observers, who neither have the money nor the opportunity to personally participate in the governmental process coupled with limited knowledge verses those who are both involved in active participation and complete access to all matters. There is a major difference between the the 4th century BCE, city of Athens Greek polis and that of the modern day machine, a difference of extreme proportions. What we call democracy today is not the same, the meaning changed to conform to other methodologies.You can write off the polis , dismissing ancient Athens government because of it's practice of slavery, and the fact that women and alien residents could not be part of such, and this isn't a small thing, there's more that can be said on this, but on the subject of the polis, the investigating further in the true nature and the practices, the methods employed, you see this government of the people, was the real meaning of democracy, unlike the modern day machine.
The polis had its share of problems. And the fact that Athenians later formed the league that became a police force of conformity for other city, forced other cities tolerances, such as Sparta. Yet the lifestyle of the Greek, his character, his mathematical way of thinking and life in the polis is so vastly different from modern day government and thinking.
Criticism of the government was constantly directed from tyrants, Spartans and philosophers, such as Socrates. It was only until two temporary tyrannies that overthrew the polis and eventually were defeated, that Socrates was accused as a threat, as two tyrants, Crito and Alcibiades, were his former students. Prior to the two military cues, Socrates had been openly, sarcastically and comically mocked by Aristophanes,in The Clouds, but always with complete freedom to teach from a non-threatening, non-controlling society.
from H.D.F. Kitto, The Greeks"The polis was a community, and that its affairs were the affairs of all." p. 71
"Individuals are lawless, but the polis will see to it that wrongs are redressed. But not by an elaborate machinery of state-justice, for such a machine could not be operated except by individuals, who may be as unjust as the original wrongdoer. The injured party will be sure of obtaining justice only if he can declare his wrongs to the whole polis. The word therefore now means 'people' in actual distinction from 'state.' p. 72
"It was everyone's duty to help the polis. We cannot say the 'help the state', for that arouses no enthusiasm; it is 'the state' that takes half our incomes from us. Nor 'the community' for with us 'the community' is too big and to various to be grasped except theoretically. . . . How much do bankers, miners and farm workers understand each other; But the 'polis' every Greek knew; there it was, complete, before his eyes. He could see the fields which gave it its sustenance - or did not, if the crops failed; he could see how agriculture, trade and industry dovetailed into one another; he knew the frontiers, where they were strong and where weak; if any malcontents were planning a coup , it was difficult for them to conceal the fact. The entire life of the polis, and the relation between its parts, were much easier to grasp, because of the small scale of things. Therefore to say 'It is everyone's duty to help the polis' was not to express a fine sentiment but to speak the plainest and most urgent common sense. Public affairs had an immediacy and a concreteness which they cannot possibly have for us." - p. 71
"What Aristotle really said is 'Man is a creature who lives in a polis'; and what he goes on to demonstrate, in his Politics, is that the polis is the only framework within which man can fully realize his spiritual, moral and intellectual capacities." p. 78
"The polis was so much more than a form of political organization. It was a living community, based on kinship, real or assumed - a kind of extended family, turning as much as possible of life into family life, and of course having its family quarrels." - p. 78
"The Greek thought of the collective laws, the nomoi, of of his polis as a moral and creative power. They were designed not only to secure justice in the individual case, but also to inculcate justice; this is one reason whey the young Athenian, during his two years with the colours, was instructed in the nomoi - which are the basic laws of the state . . . The Greeks had no doctrinal religion or church; they did not even have what we think is a satisfactory substitute, a Minister of Education; the polis instructed the citizens in their moral and social duties through the Laws." p. 94
"Nowhere is one so certain as in Periclean Athens that one will never meet anything vulgar, bizarre, quaint or superficial. Most characteristic to comedy: it has roaring obscenities that could not possibly be printed today, but never anything to snigger at. The reason that a people of fine quality were living in conditions which habituated them to high spiritual, mental and physical endeavor.
"Everywhere the polis gave a certain fullness and meaning to life, but most notably in Athens, where political democracy was carried to its logical extreme. There are of course those who deny that Athens was a democracy at all, since women, resident aliens and slaves had no voice in the conduct of affairs. If we define democracy as participation in the government by all the adult populations of a country, then Athens was no democracy - nor is any modern state: for because of its size every modern state must delegate government to representatives (not the all the people) and professional administrators, and this is a form of oligarchy.
If we define it as participation in the government by all citizens, then Athens was a democracy - and we must remember that the normal Greek qualification for citizenship was that at least the father, if not both parents, should have been citizens - the Greek 'state' being (in theory and in sentiment) a group of kinsmen, not merely the population in a certain area.
The Assembly was supreme, and everything possible was done to maintain its supremacy in fact as well as on paper. There was no possibility in Athens of the machine taking control - another advantage of the small scale. The Assembly consisted of every adult Athenian male who had been accepted as legitimate by this 'deme', and had not been expressly 'disfranchised for some grave offence. No trace of property qualification remained except - significantly - in the army. So much was the polis the community of citizens, so little a superhuman 'state', that the citizen had to find his own equipment: consequently the man rich enough to own a horse served in the cavalry - on his own horse, though while he was on service the polis paid for its keep. The moderately well-to-do served in the heavy infantry (hoplites), providing his own armour; and the poor, who could provide nothing but themselves, served as auxiliaries, or rowed in the fleet. The resident aliens served alongside citizens but slaves never served in either army or navy, except once in a moment of great danger, when slaves were invited to enlist on the promise (which was honored) of freedom and full civil (not political) rights.
This Assembly, a mass-meeting of all the native male residents of Attica, was the sole legislative body, and had, in various ways, complete control of the administration and judicature. First, the administration. The old Areopagus, composed of ex-archons, did nothing now except deal with case of homicide. The archons, once so powerful, were now chosen by annual ballot form the Assembly. And citizen, any year, might find himself one of the nine archons; this meant, naturally, that the archonship, although it had administrative responsibility, had no real power. Power remained with the Assembly. the Assembly met once a month, unless specially convened to settle something of importance. Andy citizen could speak - if he could get the Assembly to listen; anybody could propose anything, within certain strict constitutional safeguards. But so large a body needed a committee to prepare its business, and to deal with matters of urgency. This committee was the Council ('boule') of five hundred, not elected, but chosen by ballot, fifty from each tribe. Since this Council was chosen haphazard, and was composed of entirely different people each year, it could develop no corporate feeling. That was the whole idea: nothing must overshadow the Assembly. Most of the administrative boards ('Government department were manned by members of the Boule. But since five hundred men could not be in constant session, and were too many to make an efficient executive committee, there was an inner council, the 'prytany', composed in turn, of the fifty men drawn from each of the ten tribes, which remained in session for one-tenth of the year. Of these, one was chosen by ballot to be chairman each day. If there was a meeting of the Assembly, he presided; for twenty-four hours he was titular Head of the State. (It happened, Greece being an essentially dramatic county, that Socrates held this position one day towards the end of the war when the Assembly ran amok - as sometimes happened, but not often - and quite illegally demanded to impeach the whole of the Board of Generals for failing to rescue survivors of the successful naval battle of Arginusae. Socrates defied the mob, and refused to put the irregular proposal to the vote.) As a further check on the administration, all outgoing magistrates had to submit to the Assembly an account of their official acts, and their responsibility did not end until they had passed the 'audit'. Until they had done this they might neither leave Athens nor sell property.
One important office could not be left to the hazard of the ballot - the command of the forces, on land or afloat. The ten Strategoi ('generals' or 'admirals' indifferently) were elected - but annually, though to re-election was permissible and indeed normal: but it was no unusual thing for an Athenian to be a general in one campaign and a private soldier in the next. This was an extreme case of the basic conception of democracy, 'to rule and to be ruled in turn'. It was as if the trade-union official of one year automatically returned to his bench the next. Being the only officials expressly elected on the grounds of special competence, and holding offices of such importance, the strategoi naturally wielded great influence in the city's affairs. It was through this office, and through his personal ascendancy in the Assembly, that Pericles led the Athenians for so long.
The Assembly controlled not only legislation and administration, but justice as well: as there were no professional administrators, so there were no professional judges or pleaders. The principle was preserved that the aggrieved man appealed directly to his fellow-citizens for justice - in the local courts for trivial matters, in Athenian courts for important matters, criminal or civil. The jury was virtually a section of the Assembly, varying sized from 101 to 1, 001, according to the importance of the case. There was no judge, only a purely formal chairman, like our 'foreman'. There were no pleaders; the parties conducted their own case, though in fact a plaintiff or defendant might get a professional 'speech-writer' to make up his speech; but then he learnt it and gave it himself. This popular jury was judge both of law and of fact, and there was no appeal. If the offense was one for which the law laid down no precise penalty, then - since a large jury could not conveniently fix the sentence - the prosecutor, if he won his case, proposed one penalty, the accused proposed an alternative, and the jury had to choose one of the two. This explains the procedure in Plato's Apology: when Socrates had been condemned, the prosecution demanded the death penalty, but Socrates, first suggesting the Freedom of the City as the alternative, formally proposed, not exile, which the jury would gladly have accepted, but an almost derisory fine.
This survey, brief though it is, will bring out one essential point, that public affairs in Athens were run, so afar as possible by amateurs. The professional was given as little scope as possible; indeed, the expert was usually a public slave. Every citizen was, in turn, a soldier(or sailor), a legislator, a judge, an administrator - if not as archon, then certainly as member of the Boule. The extraordinary use made of amateurs may strike the reader as ludicrous: it was indeed severely criticized by Socrates and Plato, though not so much because it was inefficient as because it entrusted to men entirely ignorant of it the major function of 'the political art', namely, to make men better. But this is by the way.
Beneath this general aversion to the professional there was a more or less conscious theory of the polis; namely that the duty of taking party, at the appropriate season of life, in all the affairs of the polls was one that the individual owed both to the polis and to himself. It was part of that full life which only the polis could provide: the savage, living for himself alone, could not have ti, nor the civilized 'barbarian living in a vast empire ruled by a King and his personal servants. To the Athenian at least, self-rule by discussion, self-discipline, personal responsibility, direct participation in the life of the polis at all points - these things were the breath of life.
And they were incompatible with a representative government administering a large area. This is the reason why Athens could not grow as Rome did, by incorporating other poleis. To the Athenians, the responsibility of making his own decisions, carrying them out, and accepting the consequences, was a necessary part of the life of a free man. This is one reason why the popular art of Athens was the tragedy of Aeschylus and Sophocles and the comedy of Aristophanes, while ours is the cinema. The Athenian was accustomed to deal with things of importance: an art therefore which did not handle themes of importance would have seemed to him to be childish.
This account of the Athenian constitution, necessarily a very short one, will probably suggest to the reader at least two reflections: how very amateurish it all sounds, and wheat an enormous amount of time the Athenians must have spent in public business, if such a system was to work at all.
to begin with the former point. It was government by amateurs in the strict sense of the word: that is to say, by people who liked government and administration. To put it in this way is perhaps misleading, because the words 'government and 'administration have, among us, acquired capital letters: they are things in themselves, pursuits to which some misguided persons devote their lives. To the Greeks, they were merely two sides of that many-sided thing, the life of the polis. To attend to the business of the polis was not only a duty which a man owed to the polis: it was also a duty which a man owed to himself - and it was an absorbing interest too. It was part of the complete life. This is the reason why the Athenian never employed the professional administrator or judge if he could possibly help it. the polls was a kind of super-family, and family life means taking a direct part in family affairs and family counsels. This attitude to the polis explains, too, whey the Greek never, as we say, "invented" representative government. Whey should he 'invent something which most Greeks struggled to abolish, namely being governed by someone else?
In ordinary parlance, 'demokratia' (literally, 'control by the people') mean political democracy as described above, but the political theorists, notably Plato and Aristotle, used it in the sense 'government by the poor', and consequently condemned it as being only an inverted form of oligarchy or tyranny, government t inspired by self-interest. 'Polity' was the name given to government by general consent, without reference to class.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION