Citizenship Static Page

Overview:

Over the course of the term, I have reviewed a variety of primary and secondary sources from different authors and time periods. With this review, I have progressively narrowed my focus, first from comparing the US and several ancient cultures, to a focus on Athenian democracy, because of it's influential nature on politics, philosophy, and western culture in general.

I also refined my focus area to exploring the differences and similarities between our democratic cultures and the relationship between the political structure and the values expected of citizens. The main discovery made apparent in my readings is that the Athenian democracy, with its smaller and more uniform geography and citizen body, was set up as a direct democracy. This direct democracy favored mass participation, especially in the Assembly, where the first 6000 men to show up composed the governing body. Several of my posts allude to the stigma associated with male citizens not being active politically, as this was considered a duty. In fact, if there were not enough people in the Assembly, the magistrates would sweep the public areas with a scarlet rope to force men to do their duty as citizens. This format has some interesting consequences. For example, as pointed out by Saxonhouse, they did not have the separation between the public and private life that we now have. It is also necessary to point out that this is a system that could not have functioned without slaves and hired foreigners, because the Athenian men would not have had so much time to invest in the public life since they would have had to be working. In fact, we can see that the magistrates have to start sweeping the red rope the other way once citizens start getting paid for jury duty, etc.

Throughout my posts I have tried to compare Athenian democracy and our own to give the modern American reader a sense of how different they are and possible ways that we might improve the structure or concepts of ours. Our democracy is more inclusive and less demanding of its citizens, which has both pros and cons. It is important to understand that the US couldn't possibly function nationally with a democracy like the Athenian direct democracy, but that by studying their thoughts, we may reach a deeper understanding of our own system and  fulfill our duties as citizens by adapting it to produce the best results in our own time, place, and culture.

The following is an image of the Athenian structure, to help conceptualize their system. It is a bit hard to read in this size so I have also included a link to the larger picture here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Constitution-of-the-Athenians-in-the-4th-century-BC.png



Authors:


Victor Ehrenberg (1891-1976): Ehrenberg is a German historian who wrote several books on ancient Greece including: Solon to Socrates, The People of Aristophanes, Alexander and the Greeks, and The Greek State.


John Gunnell: Gunnell is a visiting research assistant at the University of California, Davis and a Political Science Professor at the State University of New York, Albany. He specializes in political theory, with a focus on the history of political scince and political theory. More information about Gunnell can be found at: http://ps.ucdavis.edu/people/Faculty/jggunnell/


Carl Richard: Richard is a history professor at The University of Louisiana, Lafayette. His teaching and research focuses on early U.S. History. For more information on Richard's works, please see http://www.history.louisiana.edu/Carl%20Richard%20page.htm


Arlene Saxonhouse (1944- ): Saxonhouse is the Caroline Robbins Collegiate Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on ancient and early modern political thought and the insight classical texts offer us about contemporary democracies. More information on Saxonhouse and her works can be found here : http://www.lsa.umich.edu/polisci/people/faculty/ci.saxonhousearlene_ci.detail


Paul Woodruff (1943-): Woodruff is a philosophy professor at the University of Texas, Austin. His specialty is in ancient Greek philosopy, and is best known for his work on Socrates, Plato, and the philosophy of theater.  For more information on Paul Woodruff, please see the following link : http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/pbw55


Plato (428-348 BC)



Plato was a Greek philospher and writer, and a student of Socrates. He was born to an aristocratic family, and several members of it appear in his various dialogues. The dialogues involving Socrates are his most famous and numerous works and are our foremost sources of information about Socrates. Later in his life, Plato founded the Academy in Athens, which educated many intellectuals, including Aristotle.


Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)



Aristotle was a student of Plato at the Academy in Athens. He remained there for approximately 20 years before leaving and becoming the tutor to Alexander the Great along with Ptolemy and Cassander. Even without considering that many of Aristotle's writings may have been lost, the writings we now have indicate that he studied a tremendous breadth of topics including: ethics, politics, metaphysics, physics, biology, rhetoric, and many others. His works have had strong influence in many of these topics over the course of history and are still relevent today.


Thucydides (460-395 BC)



Thucydides was a Greek historian whose major contribution to history is the lengthy work "The History of the Peloponnesian War". This work chronicles the 27 year war between Sparta and Athens. Unlike many historians of his time, Thucydides does not reference the gods to explain events and outcomes. Due to this and his detailed and often first hand account of things, he is viewed as a fairly accurate and objective source for historical fact.

Issues:
  • The responsibilities of citizens
    • Follow the laws
    • Vote/participate in politics
    • Pay taxes
  • The rights of ctizens
    • Freedom from tyranny
    • Freedom of speech
    • Freedom of religion
    • Freedom of assembly
    • Freedom of press
    • Freedom to petition the government
    • Right to privacy
  • The relationship between the state and individual
Timeline:

593: Solon’s Reforms
560-510:  Tyranny
507: Clisthenes Reforms
490: Battle of Marathon
480-479: Great Invasion
478: Delian League formed under Athenian leadership
469-399: Socrates
461: Ephialtes’ democratic reforms
454: Delian League treasury moved to Athens (Empire starts)
431-421: First phase of Peloponnesian War
429: Death of Pericles
429: Plague in Athens
430-399: Thucydides
429-347: Plato
413-404: Second Phase of the Peloponnesian War
411: Oligarchy of the 400
404-403: Rule of the Thirty Tyrants
384-322: Aristotle

Vocabulary:

Kerameikos - a public grave where Athenian soldiers of the late 5th century were buried in public funerals (like that Pericles speaks in) after being killed in battle

Aidos - Shame, reverence/respect for those in authority

Parrhesia - Free speech, to speak freely