The theme for this assignment is "Democracy and Its Critics."
If one asks a roomful of Americans whether or not they believe in democracy,
the answer is predictable: in a kind of knee­jerk manner, their heads nod up
and down and they raise their hands. I've asked you this very question
in the classroom, and you've seen and heard the answers. I suggest that
you all think that "democracy" must be a "good" thing because you've been
told that it is, but that you've not really thought it through. Here is
an invitation to do so.
The birthplace of democracy, which means "government by the people,"
i.e., by the citizens, was in ancient Athens. It has been alive (at
least in theory) ever since. Even among the Romans at the time of their
empire, the "motto" of their legions (inscribed right below the eagles of
their battle standards) was SPQR, which stands for Senatus Populusque
Romanus and means "[by authority of the] Senate and People of Rome."
In both of these places, whether or not they were "real" democracies is
not relevant: what is important is instead their stated commitment to the
idea that power comes from the people, who in theory are all equal. This
idea has had its celebrants and its critics, both ancient and modern.
Here are some of them. Note that only the first one celebrates the idea
of democracy. The others seem not to think too highly of it. When the
quotes come from your assigned texts, you would be well­advised to reread
them in their entirety before writing.
A. "We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is
true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the
hands of the many and not the few. . . . A man who takes no interest in
public affairs we regard not as a harmless but a useless character.(1) If
few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of policy. The great
impediment to action, in our opinion, is not discussion but lack of
knowledge gained by the exchange of ideas before action. . . . Athens is
the school of Hellas." [From Thucydides, "The Funeral Oration of
Pericles," as quoted in Roots, p. 22. That is just a very short excerpt of
what is arguably one of the most famous addresses in all of history.
Should you want to read it in HTML, with an introduction, just click
right here.]
B. "[Under Pericles], what was nominally a democracy became in his hands
government by the first citizen. With his successors it was different.
More on a level with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they
ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the
multitude. This. . . produced a host of blunders. . . ." [From Thucydides,
The History of the Peloponnesian War.]
C. "Throughout the world the aristocracy are opposed to democracy, for
they are naturally least liable to loss of self control and injustice and
most meticulous in their regard for what is respectable, whereas the
masses display extreme ignorance, indiscipline and wickedness, for
poverty gives them a tendency towards the ignoble, and in some cases lack
of money leads to their being uneducated and ignorant." [From "The Old
Oligarch," "The Constitution of the Athenians" as quoted in Kagan,
Western Heritage, p. 87.]
D. ". . . Plato thought that the 'polis' was in accord with nature. He
accepted Socrates' doctrine of the identity of virtue and knowledge. He
made it plain what that knowledge was: 'episteme,' science, a body of
true and unchanging wisdom open only to a few philosophers, whose
training, character, and intellect allowed them to see reality. Only
such people were qualified to rule; they would prefer the life of pure
contemplation but would accept their responsibility and take their turn
as philosopher kings. . . . This specialization would lead to Plato's
definition of justice: that each man should do only that one thing to
which his nature is best suited." [From Kagan, The Western Heritage,
p. 105.]
E. ". . . . rhetoric, or the art of speaking, is in Plato's language,
the government of the souls of men, and that her chief business is to
address the affections and passions, which are as it were the strings and
keys to the soul, and require a skillful and careful touch to be played
on as they should be. . . . Pericles, at that time, more than any other,
let loose the reins to the people, and made his policy to their pleasure,
contriving continually to have some great show or solemnity, some
banquet, or some procession or other in the town to please them, coaxing
his countrymen like children with such delights and pleasures as were
not, however, unedifying." From Plutarch, "Pericles" in Lives of the
Noble Greeks and Romans.(2)]
F. "The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one,
the few, or the many govern with a view to the common interest.
Governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of
the one, the few, or the many, are perversions. . . . When the citizens
at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is
called by the generic name 'constitution.' Of the above­mentioned forms,
the perversions are as follows: Of royalty, 'tyranny;' of aristocracy,
'oligarchy;' of constitutional government, 'democracy.' For tyranny is a
kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only;
oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the
needy: and none of them, the common good. . . ." [From Aristotle, The
Idea of the Polis as quoted in "Roots," pp. 28­29.]
G. ". . . .our age has discovered that there are such things as
legitimate tyranny and sanctified injustice, provided that they are done
in the name of the people. . . . I know of no country where there is so
little independence of mind and so little freedom of discussion as in
America. . . . [In] a nation where democratic institutions exist, . .
.like those of the United States, there is but one authority, one element
of strength and success, with nothing beyond it. . . . People living in
democratic ages. . . usually aspire to none but easy and immediate
gratifications, they rush towards the object of their desires,
exasperated by the slightest delay." [Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy
in America (1840)].
___________________
So there are some sources for you to think about. Your chore is to
analyze the political and moral assumptions of the ancient criticisms of
democracy, and to determine whether they were valid then, and if they
have any meaning for us now at the end of the twentieth century. On this
last point, I have included the quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville to
illustrate to you that one of the shrewdest thinkers of the nineteenth
century seems to have thought they did.
[Finally, despite the length of this post, some of you may be wondering
if reponses must equat the length of the question. Just keep The Bard
in mind ... Shakespeare (in Hamlet, II, ii, 90) reminds us that "Brevity is the soul of wit."]

Essays are due NOT LATER THAN midnight on 29 September.

1. Interestingly, the Greek word for a "useless person" is idiote, which of course gives us
the English word "idiot." Hence the Greeks believed that people who did not vote or
take part in politics were, in fact, idiots.
2. You can read Plutarch's entire life of Pericles at this classics site for that particular biography and many more at this MIT home page for a whole library of classics (http://webatomics.com/Classics/Plutarch/pericles.html).