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Chapter 1 Ancient Greece

I. Political Culture

Democracy: Origins of an institution

“Tyrant” is a word derived from the language of the culture of Ancient Greece, where it meant “illegitimate ruler”. The simple existence of this word teaches us much about the culture of the Ancient Greeks. For one, it tells us that they were not a complacent people, and that their sense of justice was highly developed. That is to say, the Ancient Greeks recognized themselves as an independent collective group of people sharing a common culture within relatively defined borders, and did not subscribe to the notion that “might is right” was adequate or desirable as the measure determining relations between individuals, or the structural relations that facilitated continuity in the existence of the collective we call society.

Democracy was originally adopted by a people whose civilization flourished in a relatively young polity in comparison to long established civilizations of the Ancient World, including Sumer, Egypt, and Persia. Democracy was first instituted as a means of preventing one form of illegitimate and autocratic form of rule from being replaced by another. It supplanted the arbitrary decision making power under autocratic rule with a process for enabling decisions of import to the collective as a whole to be checked by means of a process that relied instead on the free use of reason in a collective forum open to all concerned members of the collective deemed competent to address such issues in a meaningful and coherent manner. In doing so, the social structure was transformed from a hypostacized hierarchy in which the process by which decisions that affected the whole of society were reached was opaque, to a dynamic in which ideas that advanced the progress of the collective decision making process and contributed to furthering the interests of the collective were given currency, creating an environment in which all concerned could both understand the background of why such ideas were meaningful, and the evaluation of the context in which they were foreseen to exert a specific effect on the course of social development.

It is safe to assume that during its founding period, democracy was characterized in that it fostered collective coping in a manner that both harnessed the creative energy of the members of the collective and facilitated cohesion among the members in a harmonic accord. In effect, democracy decentralized the political decision making process in Ancient Greek society, and issued an implicit call to all members within ear shot to be diligent in making an effort to be well informed, so that they might participate in important discussions, and meaningfully contribute to the process by which the collective self-determination of society was perpetuated.

The result was that political decision making power was dispersed, diffused into the plural members of the collective, thereby transforming the dynamic by which political power per say was exercised in society. It aspired to open up a new horizon in which all members could contribute more directly to development of society, and provided an impetus to individuals to make an effort to contribute, as it was in each individual’s interest to stay informed and voice their concerns, thereby intending to ensure that misguided decisions which might adversely impact the future course of social development—and thus themselves--were not implemented due to a lack of informed input.

Members of society could only maintain their status vis-à-vis the viability of the collective, and the society could only remain viable based on how effective the collective was in encouraging its individual members to exert their utmost energies with respect to their capacities of reason and creativity to produce ideas that might contribute to informing the best possible decisions for maintaining stability while guiding society along a prosperous course into the future.

The impact of this momentous development would be hard to overstate, as it gave impetus to the rise of an intellectual work ethic in the West that brought about abstract conceptualizations about nature and the nature of reality that gave rise to philosophy and science, and underpin the modern academic disciplines. In a democratic political decision making process, the course of the deliberations might be informed by an individual posing a single adroit question.

It is therefore indisputable that democracy in Ancient Greece was a form of political decision making that encouraged people to use their minds, cultivate their intellects, and acquire broad knowledge so that they might engage in various forms of social discourse and intercourse. The lives of the individuals were thereby enriched, and their efforts would yield the cultural goods and knowledge which would in turn serve to continually revitalize and perpetuate the life of the collective as a whole.

Democracy fosters a social dynamic in which questions are posed and answers sought in a process of sustained collective inquiry conducted within a socio-historical continuum which is by and large intelligible to all concerned.

Theocracy, on the other hand, attempts to create and perpetuate social orders that are generally characterized by having a ruling priest class that contrives answers to issues perceived to be a threat to the social order, issues such answers in the form of edicts, prophecy or the like in the name of other-worldly forces or authority. Moreover, such ‘answers’ are derived by means that is not subject to a public process of reasoned evaluation, and are often intended to preempt public questioning arising in relation to whatever phenomenon is impacting the collective. Such edicts are in fact primarily intended to maintain the privilege the priest class enjoys within the social order, and are often imposed on the populous by force, against the peoples several and collective will. The social order in a theocracy is characterized in that it is hypostacized under the guise of otherworldly force(s) of which the priest class is a self-appointed representative, and there is no social mobility.

It may be the case that democracy found currency as a formal political institution in Ancient Greece precisely because there was a palpable awareness of the events in neighboring behemoths such as Ancient Egypt and Persia, which were for all practical purposes theocratically ordered societies under divine right monarchies (dynasties). If there is merit in such conjecture, it can be assumed that the Ancient Greeks adopted democracy as a progressive means of avoiding the pitfalls associated with social orders perceived to be nonresponsive, nonproductive, and ineffectual for charting a course into trouble free waters.

The social order cultivated by the Ancient Greeks represents a paradigm shift in the development of human history. It punctuates a progression to a stage in which the activity of the mind is recognized as paramount to serving the interests of individuals and society as a whole. It places a high value on learning from each other, and from others in general in order to preserve and enhance the lives of both individuals and the collective.

The institutionalization of democracy as a political decision making process for determining the course of social development through the free and open use of reason in an open forum instilled people with the confidence that together they could make progress and successfully cope with what the future holds, and also compelled everyone to participate and contribute to the process, lest they fail for want of effort. The collective decision to adopt democracy was instrumental in fostering the ethos of Ancient Greek civilization.