> However I will say this, generally, that it is
> probably a mistake to go around looking for heroes
> and villians in ancient Greece that correspond to
> modern values, at least if you want understanding.
> Greek democracy was nothing like modern democracy;
it
> had no problem with slavery or disenfranchisement of
> women, for example; and it was often cruel,
> capricious, and stupid, while ancient aristocracies
> and monarchies often brought stability and peace
that
> democracies upset. If Thucydides is right, Athenian
> demagogues were largely resposible for the
disastrous
> prolongation of the Peloponesian War, the infamous
> massacre of the Melians, etc.
Do you know Josiah Ober's _Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens_? I've only started to read it, but he sets out to establish a very ambitious thesis: that the Athenian masses (admittedly, only adult males who held the franchise) had developed a political vocabulary and communicative practices that allowed the masses to hold the Athenian elites in check. The bit about "communicative practices" smells Habermasian to me, but he claims to rebut the thesis that slavery and exclusion of the franchise from women, etc., were responsible for the stability of the democracy, and says his findings have implications for present day political thought. Anybody else know this book?
Curtiss
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