Week of February 5, 2001
We're going to continue our work in democracy in the classical world throughout this week, and we're going to look at a 20th century view of an American attitude
Read, in Idea of Democracy,
The link below takes you to a quick overview and study sheet on the crisis between Meles and Athens, provided by professor Jeffrey Harris. The numbers in brackets on the work sheet do coordinate with the numbers in brackets in your text. At his page you will find additional links to materials on classical Greece.
We have been looking at Athenian Democracy, which seems on first examination humane, rational, and benign, at least as far as relationships between citizens could be concerned. But one of the age-old questions is the division between the rights of the Individual and the rights of the state (the society as a whole). The Melian Dialogue speaks to some of the issues involved in this question. Is the moral order for a society different from the moral order of individual members of it? Can Athens be criticizes for preaching a set of virtues at home while practicing a quite different set of behaviors upon its neighbors. I'd like to have you complete the worksheet on the Melian Dialogue. Professor Harris calls the Dialogue a "chillingly realistic insight into the clash between ethics and power in international politics". Perseus and Pericles both spoke eloquently about the virtues of the Athenian Democracy. I'd like to have us think if there's a philosophical contradiction between the internal workings of Athenian Democracy and the Foreign Policy it practiced. If there is, should the Athenians be charged with hypocrisy, or can they be excused on the basis of "necessity", in other words, practical need requires the adoption of "the lesser evil"?
Thucydides,