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Athens, democracy against the reign of experts

2022-07-22T17:00:34.839Z


READING - In Athens, the other democracy, Christophe Pébarthe offers a new history of Athenian democracy. An in-depth survey that shows how the Athenians, followers of popular deliberation, were wary of those who wish to reduce politics to an exact science.


Was Athenian democracy democratic?

It is to this seemingly tautological question that Christophe Pébarthe sets out to answer in his book

Athens, the other democracy

.

Against the criticisms addressed to Solon's regime, he strives to demonstrate the reality of a city effectively governed by its people, far from caricatures and anachronistic judgments.

If the Athenian ideal has lost its luster and is no longer regarded except with disdain by our contemporaries, it is certainly wrong.

The author postulates a radical alterity of Athenian democracy with our current regimes: it is impossible to balance the freedom of the Moderns and that of the Ancients as they respond to different logics.

When he depicts the functioning of the

polis

, Christophe Pébarthe is careful not to speak of “

citizenship

”: this notion refers to an individual apprehension of the political subject where the Greeks conceived of politics in its collective and horizontal dimension.

Many have doubted the possibility of self-government by the people without the mediation of great men;

Thucydides himself evoked the authority of the first citizen and the pre-eminence of Pericles in the 5th century.

But that is not enough to conclude that there was a disguised aristocracy, demonstrates Christophe Pébarthe: we find in Athenian sources decrees signed by illustrious strangers, and the list of ostracized people – banished from the city – shows that this procedure did not affect only clan chiefs with disputed authority, but many ordinary Athenians who distinguished themselves by their bad behavior.

Everyone therefore deliberates at the Ecclesia, and the number decides.

This number has little to do with the concept of majority which has imposed itself as a cardinal notion of our modern political life, insists the historian.

Indeed, when they meet to exclude one of their own, at least 6,000 Athenians must agree on the same name;

this figure aims less to reach more than half of the citizens than to approach an idea of ​​the totality which would express the interest of the city.

We see in the plays of Aeschylus and Euripides a reflection of the aporias of democracy, this regime whose essence cannot be fixed but which always remains the subject of debate, and remains at the mercy of human decisions.

Martin Bernier

Is it therefore a government of the masses or a

governance by numbers

?

Not at all;

beyond numerical considerations, it is above all the

logos

, the discourse, which occupies a central place in the Athenian political system.

The majority principle speaks little to the Greeks precisely because they do not conceive of democratic deliberation as a confrontation: the minority point of view is not stifled, and discussion makes it possible to reach decisions approaching unanimity.

Herodotus, for example, recounts how the consensus that led to the Battle of Salamis gradually emerged on the Pnyx.

From this importance of the

logos

stems a relationship to the truth far removed from the one we know.

Among the Greeks, no one can claim to hold the truth and impose it on the rest of the social body;

experts are out of the question.

Without indisputable truth, it is the demonstration that prevails.

Consequently, political decisions no longer correspond to any exact science, and are content to be the fruit of deliberations between citizens.

No text expresses this reality as well as the tragedies, those of Aeschylus in the first place.

And it is one of the great contributions of Christophe Pébarthe's book to delve into these works to grasp the problems that the Athenians perceived in their regime.

In the very way in which the tragedies are written, one perceives something of the democratic spirit, he explains: unlike the works of Plato, one sees in the plays of Aeschylus and Euripides a reflection of the aporias of democracy, this regime whose essence cannot be fixed but which always remains the subject of debate, and remains at the mercy of human decisions.

Democracy is therefore best understood in the theater;

and the shows thereby contribute to the education of citizens.

But for it to persevere in its being, the debate must not fade behind the reign of the experts, and the elevation of citizens through culture must continue.

Otherwise, the curtain falls.

Christophe Pébarthe,

Athens, the other democracy

Compound pasts

Source: lefigaro

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