To make my first point on democracy, consider the fate of the Godfather of philosophers and Glass Bead Gamers, Socrates.Socrates was tried in Athens in 399 BC- Athens- the epicentre of ancient Greece and home of democracy. Socrates came to the attention of the elders of ancient Greece because he was strange- he looked strange (squat and snub-nosed), and had the irritating habit of walking barefoot through the streets of Athens, stopping complete strangers, and asking them questions: What did they consider beautiful? Could they define art? What was bravery? And so on. This method of Socratic dialectic is still at the root of much modern philosophical thought and logic. Socrates was a hugely virtuous, creative and intelligent thinker. He lived simply- eschewing wealth and position- and sought only knowledge, wisdom and truth, inspiring a whole generation of Greek thinkers, notably Plato, and an entire tradition of Western Philosophy.
Socrates once visited the famous Oracle at Delphi, renowned for her wisdom. He asked her, ‘who is the wisest man in Athens?’, and not recognising him, she replied ‘Socrates’. Now Socrates knew this was not true, as he recognised fully his own failings. He therefore concluded that true intelligence comes from recognising your own ignorance.
The elders of Athens grew suspicious of Socrates and put him on trial. Athens was the greatest city in the world, and had high social conventions- one in 3 members of the populace were slaves, women were prevented from political or public life, social roles were highly structured. Socrates made enemies through questioning some of these conventions, not maliciously, but merely enquiring whether the BELIEFS Athenians had come to accept were routed in TRUTH or CONVENTION? Three powerful citizens petitioned for him to be tried on the basis that he had disrespected the city’s Gods, and was corrupting the young.
Enter Athenian democracy: The court of the Heliasts was a large wooden building with benches for the jury and platforms for defence and prosecution. A jury of between 200 and 2,500 people would decide on verdicts by a show of hands. This was a mirror of Athenian custom as a whole- 2 or 3 times a month, all male citizens were invited to gather to vote on important questions by a show of hands. However, in an echo of our own times, there were flaws- not everyone could be bothered to turn out, so decisions were often made by a skewed subset.
Some 500 citizens were in the jury on the day of Socrates trial, however they were not experts in any sense: They included an unusual number of the old and war wounded, who were motivated by the payment for going, rather than any sense of justice. Socrates answered his charges honestly and eloquently. Why would he try and corrupt the citizens of Athens, he asked? Since a corrupt Athens would only do harm to him- an Athenian citizen. When the initial guilty vote didn’t carry the requisite margin, the court read out an attack on Socrates penned by one of his condemners- equivalent to reading out an article from the News of the World and presenting it as objective evidence. The second vote him guilty and Socrates was sentenced to death. He drank his famous cup of Hemlock, despite having the option at any time to admit his ‘crimes’ and go free. He chose truth over popularity, conviction over the easy road.
Herein lies the first flaw of democracy- allowing ‘the people’ to choose their government, or decide the guilt/innocence of their peers relies on ‘the people’ being open-minded and wise. Otherwise they will make judgments based on ignorance, or no judgements at all. Consider the huge drop in people voting at general elections, despite the fact that we are hugely fortunate to have the freedom to vote at all. ‘Voter apathy’ is often blamed on political parties- they have become so bland and superficial that voters can’t tell the difference/don’t care. But some of the blame has to lie with the electorate themselves- if they were interested enough in political issues, they would care enough to vote, but they don’t. Similarly, the tabloid press may be salacious in their editorial content, but no one forces the populace to go out and buy 3 million copies of The Sun every day. The tabloids are a reflection of their readership- of what people want to believe. As uncomfortable as this may be, we largely get the media we deserve, and we get the democracy we deserve. New Labour’s shift to bland, conviction-less psycho-babble was a calculated move to stay in power for as long as possible- for it reflected the growing state of the electorate. Unforgivable though their shallowness in enhancing this has been, we the people have nevertheless allowed our dumbed-down apathy to accommodate such a government, and thus have to take a major share of the blame.
What are the implications for society if this continues? Do we really wish to allow an increasingly flaccid western society to make key decisions such as who rules, and who is guilty or innocent? Put yourself in Socrates position- would you really want be tried by your p
eers? The table opposite shows the top UK search terms on Google in the first quarter of this year- a sad indictment of what is really important to people’s every day lives. When the News Of the World ran their famous campaign outing paedophiles, several people were wrongly attacked due to mistaken identity, and a paediatrician(!) was beaten up on the South coast. Such incidents of mob justice show the danger of granting un-fettered democracy to a shallow and ignorant populace- a triumph of popularity over truth, echoing Socrates time.Jade Goodey for prime minister? Shilpa Shetty for Chancellor? Pass me the Hemlock
