As I rambled through the streets of Athens earlier this month, it was difficult to stray too far from the fact that I was walking through the birthplace of democracy.
It’s hard to stare at the Parthenon atop the Acropolis or walk through the ancient Agora without reflecting on that pivotal moment in time when ancient Athenian men made their greatest contribution to the Western world.
It didn’t help that we chose to take a “Philosophy and Democracy” tour around the ancient city center where we got a bona fide Athenian man to tell us all about it and even take us to the Pnyx where the ekklesia would assemble to debate and cast their votes.
The Pnyx is a special place for many reasons but particularly because of where it was situated. It was on a tall hill overlooking the entirety of the ancient city. The agora – where Athenians would gather to socialize, sell their goods, and worship their gods – was right below it for the voting assembly to observe.
Whether or not it was by design, the Pnyx forced the assembly to look upon their fellow Athenians as they decided what their future would look like. If the ekklesia voted for war, it was while looking at the people who would pay the cost and the way of life that would suffer. Its position seemed to serve as a measure to remind them of their responsibility, but this didn’t seem to end up helping the Athenians.
Sure, democracy in Athens ushered in a golden age of prosperity for the city-state but it didn’t last very long and it sort of consumed itself. This young version of democracy was prone to error as voters were easily swayed by fleeting passions and fiery orators rather than temperance and reason.
Eventually, their mistakes culminated in their loss to Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, which precipitated the end of Athenian dominance over Greece.
Our Founding Fathers learned much from the mistakes of the Athenians. Even Athenians at the time including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, recognized that the masses were prone to voting according to passions (as they exemplified when they decided to execute Socrates himself), and our Founding Fathers carried that message in the form of the representative democracy that they established.
As different as our system of governance is from that of the ancient Athenians, it is still a democracy and the power to rule still lies with the people. In a few days, will the demos in democracy again vote with their pathos (passion) rather than their arete (virtue) or logos (reason)?
We can point to countless times when Athenians voted against their best interests or voted in blind fury in favor of killing innocent people. In such cases it seems that those voters were directly responsible for those harmful consequences. In a representative democracy such as ours, are voters morally responsible when their representatives cause harm?
Neither our representatives nor voters themselves need a special hill to look down from to be reminded of their duty to each other. And if voters made a mistake in the past, it might be particularly obligatory for them to vote to correct it, if possible.
While Americans will decide on a large suite of policies and individuals, as in every midterm, voters will decide whether they made a mistake during the last election. Has the set of representatives in the legislative and executive branches caused more harm than good?
As responsible voters, it’s important to determine which course of action is best. Although we allow our representatives to ultimately act on our behalf, we have gotten a fair sample of the manner in which they have tended to behave. Now it’s up to us to evaluate them and either reward them or cast them aside to reverse course.
So far, this set of representatives has calmed the stream of foreigners besieging our borderlands, placating the commoner’s fear of an invasion. On the other hand, they also launched an ill-advised offensive against the Persians, raised prices at agoras across America through regressive trade policy, and have been pardoning criminals, not in the name of justice but in exchange for tribute.
Looking down on their fellow Americans from the Pnyx on the hill, will the demos reward them or cast them aside?
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Write to him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com