Salvaging Democracy consent of the governed) then one is not in a democracy, though democratic elements may exist. America, for example, was founded as a republic and not as a democracy (though with time it has shifted towards being more ogliarchical in some aspects and more democratic in others). The more traditional definition of democracy needs to be understood if one is to approach the philosophy of the classical Greek philosophers. Ancient Greece, one must understand, is one of the few places in the world or in history where democracy has actually been practiced in a state setting. The polises of Greece such as Athens were frequently democratic, and all citizens had a right to vote on issues ranging from laws to criminal trials. True Democracy has only thrived in classical Greece, yet the greatest Greek philosophers condemned it in favor of a more Republican or even Aristocratic regime that nonetheless was driven by the purest properties of democratic thought.
Plato was one philosopher who argued against democracy in favor of a more republican form of government. (A republic is defined as rule by selected representatives for the people rather than by the people themselves) This is not to say that Plato did not see certain benefits to democracy. Plato (and Socrates, into whose mouth he put his opinions) himself lived in Athens and enjoyed the liberties which democracy afforded him there. However, he portrayed democracy as dangerous to the future of the state and injurious to the minority in its present.
Plato gave three basic problems with democracy that can be seen as relevant even to our current era. First, he feared that democracy was synonymous with mob rule, and that as such it pandered to the lowest common denominator. Those who were given power by the masses would need to continue to please them even if it meant victimizing the minority or contributing to the dissolution of the majority. He equated democracy with the unbridled pursuit of vanity, pleasure, and licentiousness. The democratic state was likened to the democratic soul in which all urges had a chance at control over the individual, making him easily swayed and easily turned from virtue to vice with no discrimination thereof.
Equality, Plato thought, was impossible in actual terms, though it might be an ideal politically. It is simply not possible that all men are alike in intelligence and wisdom and virtue, as simple experience proves otherwise. Why then should the opinions of the ignorant and wicked count equally with the opinions of wise philosophers and virtuous men? He suggested that democracy put the foolish and the wise on equal footing, and that the opinions of fools would threaten the welfare of all. His second concern was that democracy was inevitably turned to rule by well spoken idiots. Those with good rhetorical and speaking skills could sway the majority, while those who were truly superior in intelligence might be rejected by a jealous and unintelligent majority. True wisdom and knowledge was unlikely to be as much admired by the majority as was a path dictated by magnetism and impulse.
Finally, he recognized that democracy was characterized by conflict among citizens and a threat of tyranny. Inner conflict was a concern because a city might be torn apart over politics and be unable to function as a unified whole. This he considered to be an evil in and of itself. Additionally, however, he suggested that Democracy was just a thin line away from outright tyranny. He suggested that a populace glutted on equality might play into the hands of a populist leader who could easily involve into a tyrant. A tyrant is worse than a mere king, because he lacks a king's sense of moral obligation. The tyrant enslaves the entire state to its own desires and to his own, and will ruthlessly destroy all who oppose him. Tyranny, for Plato, was the worst of regimes.
Of course, in positing tyranny as the worst possible regimes because it enslaves the state, Plato is showing his democratic underpinnings. While he suggested a sort of aristocracy of the virtuous as the ideal government, his fear of tyranny shows that he continues to value a certain degree of autonomy for the individual and a democratic sensibility that cannot stand to be dictated to. This is important to keep in mind when considering his stance on democracy, for it reminds the modern reader that to be opposed in theory to democracy as Plato was...
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