What is the West? Is Greece part of the West?

[grumbler]

Yeah, our word for that.... what is it again... Democracy I think, probably has no relationship with the Greeks.    

No, it doesn't.  Not democracy as we understand it, anyway (let alone "popular sovereignty," which is the phrase Viking carefully used.  The Greek concept of democracy is what we would call oligarchy, not popular sovereignty or democracy.

We all stand on the shoulders of the a handful of ancient Greeks whose theories were largely ignored by the Ancient Greeks themselves..

Fixed your post.

[Valmy]

We all stand on the shoulders of the a handful of ancient Greeks whose theories were largely ignored by the Ancient Greeks themselves..

Fixed your post.

Well that is absolutely true.  So?  We certainly are not sacrificing bulls to Zeus or anything anymore.

[crazy canuck]

@ Grumbler Yeah, I figured you would get all semantic on us and miss the point JR was making.  Its fun when predictions come true.

[Jacob]

I'm pretty sure that, say, Icelandic democracy was as developed as the Greek version, and developed pretty much independently of the Greek philosophers - so I don't think popular sovereignty is a uniquely Greek invention in spite of the fact that we use the word they coined.

[Valmy]

I'm pretty sure that, say, Icelandic democracy was as developed as the Greek version, and developed pretty much independently of the Greek philosophers - so I don't think popular sovereignty is a uniquely Greek invention in spite of the fact that we use the word they coined.

I would be surprised if the Greek Philosophers truly thought of anything nobody had ever thought of in the history of the world previously but they were the people who wrote the stuff we read that led to us formulating our own ideas. 

[grumbler]

Yeah no Ancient Greeks ever thought the people should be sovereign.

True, barring a few people like Aristotle.  Greek citizenship was not like Roman citizenship; it was highly exclusive.  In Athens less than most other cities, but even in Athens.

[Sheilbh]

I'm pretty sure that, say, Icelandic democracy was as developed as the Greek version, and developed pretty much independently of the Greek philosophers - so I don't think popular sovereignty is a uniquely Greek invention in spite of the fact that we use the word they coined.

Most of the Greek philosophers we still have were pretty anti-democratic.  Though I think it's been argued the Sophists were probably more democratic in philosophy.  So I certainly think it's unfair to give the philosophers much credit for it.

[Martinus]

Yeah no Ancient Greeks ever thought the people should be sovereign.

True, barring a few people like Aristotle.  Greek citizenship was not like Roman citizenship; it was highly exclusive.  In Athens less than most other cities, but even in Athens.

Roman citizenship was also quite exclusive, at least until Caracalla.

[grumbler]

We all stand on the shoulders of the a handful of ancient Greeks whose theories were largely ignored by the Ancient Greeks themselves..

Fixed your post.

Well that is absolutely true.  So?  We certainly are not sacrificing bulls to Zeus or anything anymore.

The point is that the argument that "Ancient Greece must be considered part of the West because some important Western ideas originated there" is dependent on Ancient Greece actually employing those ideas as central to its identity.  A nodding acquaintance with Ancient Greek history would disabuse one of the notion that Ancient Greece was a democratic polity, or even that its constituent polities were overwhelmingly democratic (in the sense we use that term in "the West").

I don't think that, if one sacrificed a bull to Zeus, you would be automatically disqualified from being "Western."  Once upon a time, yes.  But not today.

[Martinus]

Well, Greek philosophy, Roman law and Judeo-Christian religion are considered to be the three corner-stones of the European civilization, which eventually got to be considered the West. So excluding Greeks would be a bad idea.

[Valmy]

Yeah no Ancient Greeks ever thought the people should be sovereign.

True, barring a few people like Aristotle.  Greek citizenship was not like Roman citizenship; it was highly exclusive.  In Athens less than most other cities, but even in Athens.

Well so was American citizenship.  Did we have no concept of popular sovereignty or was that only invented in 1919?

I do not get what you are trying to say.  Obviously the Greeks were not modern people with modern sensibilities so I do not see the value of judging them by today's standards of popular sovereignty and the like.

[Martinus]

Lettow, it might surprise you but Slovakia is basically identical to Czech Republic and Poland.

For all its Orban idiocy, I would consider Hungary to be the same civilization as well.

[grumbler]

Roman citizenship was also quite exclusive, at least until Caracalla.

Actually, it wasn't.  Everyone in Italy, bar slaves, was granted the citizenship three hundred years before Caracalla. 

[Valmy]

For all its Orban idiocy, I would consider Hungary to be the same civilization as well.

I think all of Eastern Europe is now.  It has been since the 19th century in my opinion.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well not the universality of human rights, popular sovreignty and the rule of law. Not every thought is a footnote on Plato.

Universality of human rights traces back to Plato and the notion of a universal concept of justice that transcends individual ambition and interest.  Epicurus, on the other hand, saw what we would call utility as paramount, and justice relative, but from a position of equality.  Modern notions of human rights are basically the working out of the dialectical tension between these ideas.

Popular sovereignty traces from the citizen assemblies of the democratic Greek poleis.

Rule of law derives from the example of Sparta, the example of Solon, and the exemplar of Plato's Laws.  Doctrinally, the theory of the rule of law is set forth in Aristotle's Politics.