The article didn’t mention that the “citizens” of Athens and middle class of Aristotle are a tiny minority of land owners who ruled over slaves, and likely share ethnic/familial relationships.
If you accept their framing our democracy is their demogoguery.
consumer451•6mo ago
Well, our democracy (the USA) was designed by slaveholders. I think we have to make adjustments for historic advancements when we look that these things, don't we? What I mean is, we can't just ctrl(cmd)-a, ctrl-c, ctrl-v, and expect a perfect fit, right?
monkeyelite•6mo ago
I don’t what your point is. Yes our founders probably did aim to match Greece more closely.
My point is if we want to follow the articles advice by having a strong Greek citizenship, that actually looks like removing most people’s ability to vote. Plato sees the masses voting as insane.
consumer451•6mo ago
Let me explain my point exactly in that case.
The purpose of TFA is not to give a copy/paste line-for-line example of how we should run our modern civilization, using the ancient systems in totality.
The point is to give some examples of how tyranny has been a problem that humans have been dealing with for centuries, and how the earliest, truly organized societies dealt with that one specific issue.
mouse_•6mo ago
This goes into a few philosophies on the subject but it doesn't really go into how they were applied and to what affect.
How'd these schools of thinking actually work out for them? Not very well, it seems.
monkeyelite•6mo ago
If you accept their framing our democracy is their demogoguery.
consumer451•6mo ago
monkeyelite•6mo ago
My point is if we want to follow the articles advice by having a strong Greek citizenship, that actually looks like removing most people’s ability to vote. Plato sees the masses voting as insane.
consumer451•6mo ago
The purpose of TFA is not to give a copy/paste line-for-line example of how we should run our modern civilization, using the ancient systems in totality.
The point is to give some examples of how tyranny has been a problem that humans have been dealing with for centuries, and how the earliest, truly organized societies dealt with that one specific issue.