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Democracy (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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[–] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Yeah, classics is taught in a super fascistic way at most levels of study. Many modern classicists/historians are trying super hard to push back on this narrative but it's not going to be easy to convince people that a many thousand year old narrative is "wrong". That said, I will point out that Athenian Democracy is a pretty interesting innovation in it's own right and it shouldn't be (overly) demonized for it's absurd contradictions (UnderpantsWeevil's comment kinda highlights the biggest ). It's main significance lies in how it involved people directly into "politics" and how that change in conception of "Polis", and what it represented, changes things downstream of Athens in the historical context.

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  • [–] -3 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    a many thousand year old narrative

    Wait, you first called it fascistic and now it's many thousand years old? How old do you think fascism is and do you think that Ancient Athens was already white supremacist?

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Alright fine, proto-fascistic, or you could argue that it's been so fully incorporated into the fascist mythology that it's effectively a part of it. It's not as if fascism arose from the aether. Also while I wouldn't call your average member of the athenian polis "white" supremacist, they were absolutely supremacists.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    fully incorporated into the fascist mythology

    True, fascist mythology is to a big degree about projecting a golden thread through history. The Germanic people for example do not have a coherent history as the Nazis made it look like. By saying that the narrative is thousands of years old, you imply that western history really is as coherent as fascists make it look like; that European or White identity really is an old thing.

    It's not as if fascism arose from the aether.

    I'll give you a few centuries, 5 or 6 if I'm generous, but not a millennium, much less "many thousand years".

    Also while I wouldn't call your average member of the athenian polis "white" supremacist, they were absolutely supremacists.

    Which is a very different narrative.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (3 children)

    I don't really understand what you're trying to say. In this context "fascistic" is a descriptive/indexical term not trying to literally say "the ideological form of facism we understand nowadays arose directly from the legal code of Solon of Athens.".

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    In your first comment, you said:

    but it's not going to be easy to convince people that a many thousand year old narrative is "wrong".

    So which narrative are you referring to? Is there really a narrative that is many thousand years old? Or are you saying that the narrative is about many thousand years? Your comment reads like the idea that democracy is invented in Athens (and therefore by white Europeans) is many thousand years old which doesn't make much sense to me.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Is there really a narrative that is many thousand years old?

    Yeah I'd say the Athenian political narrative had mostly matured no later than Demosthenes. Obviously it's been interpreated and re-interpreted, and twisted and turned into all sorts of purposes, but the broad strokes have largely been taught the same in Europe since then.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    A few points:

    1. Call me pedantic but "many" doesn't start before 3. It's less than 3 millennia so it's certainly not "many thousand years"
    2. Antiquity wasn't very positively viewed in medieval Europe. It's only since the Renaissance that ancient philosophers are rediscovered, in part this was possible because they were translated into Arabic. Otherwise, a lot would be forgotten.
    3. Democracy had a negative connotation throughout the ancient world and medieval times. It's only in modern times that this shifted and in great parts due to contact with indigenous people from North America. But the US for example is rather modeled after the Roman Republic than Athenian Democracy. The Founding Fathers didn't think well of democracy.

    I recommend reading the author who's quoted in the post. There Never Was A West is a good starting point since it's not too long but id that doesn't matter for you, The Dawn Of Everything is great. I think you'll find all on theanarchistlibrary.org

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