I’ve been working on a project proposal this spring, an odd one for someone so bound up in the currency of American politics.
It’s tied to a much older world and tries to sort out the beginnings of this thing we call “democracy.”
Democracy is a leveler. It’s that weird idea that pretty much everyone is as potentially valuable – in terms of running a society – as anyone else. It asserts that the people of something called a “nation” share values, needs and experiences, and that all should have a say in the direction of the country.
John R. Hale, a fine archeologist – and a great story-teller – planted the seed for this project by writing a superb little book on the development of the Athenian navy, titled “Lords of the Sea,” after a saying by Pericles: “The world before you has two realms open to human enterprise, land and sea, and over the whole of the sea you are lords.”
A generation before him, another Athenian leader started the ball rolling – both to the sea and, according to Hale, to a form of democracy.
The Athenian navy had its start in conflict. The city had had a windfall ― the discovery of a silver lode ― and many wanted the surplus simply distributed to the masses. Themistocles worried that the Persians (greedy for further expansion), were eying Greece, and he persuaded the leadership to invest in a navy instead.
As with most of the city states, Athens had been ruled by a cadre of aristocrats, a class of wealthy folks who held all the trump cards. These folks justified their stranglehold on political power as the “defenders of the city.”
Only the wealthy could afford the arms and weapons to become the heavily-armed troops ― “hoplites” ― that protected the city from outside invaders. But with the coming of the navy, that order of things was upended. Hoplites were land forces; a few were needed to protect the walls, but the fact was that it was the navy that had primacy.
The 200 Athenian triremes, the “wooden wall” developed to keep the Persians at bay, required 34,000 rowers. These highly trained and practiced rowers (despite the Hollywood version of the story) were citizens, not slaves, and drawn from the regular citizenry. But with the advent of a real navy, the hoplites also left their swords and breastplates at home and took to the sea.
So, they rowed together, aristos on the same bench with the same oar as ordinary tradespeople. And vice versa. Tradesfolk, farmers, ditch diggers – for the first time were hauling on oars with aristocrats.
Hale’s theory is that shared dangers, shared risks, shared work, shared campfires, led to a new set of notions about the investment of all people of the city and, therefore, who should have political power within it. In Greek terms, the “demos” became “democratic” ― and a democracy was born.
In the current era, the notion that those who rule, and those ruled, have shared risks, shared dangers, shared experiences of work, is ludicrous. The astronomical wealth of the billionaires currently running this show is so high that not only can they hand-wave gas prices (“its peanuts”!) that are crippling people’s budgets, but start foreign adventures at the cost of trillions and whine that we’re unwilling to pay for a gold-lined barn and a triumphal arch to the glory of the current president.
The idea that these folks somehow share our burdens, or even know what they are or how they are impacting real citizens daily, is silly. It is difficult to see how someone who has never visited a grocery store on their own, ever, would know or care much about the price of diapers.
“Out of touch” does not even begin to define it.
We’re not rowing with the same oar, nor sitting on the same bench. Flatly, we may not even be in the same navy.
R. Bruce Anderson is Professor of American and Comparative Politics, the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics, and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and the USA Today Network.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Who is rowing the ship of state? | R. Bruce Anderson
Reporting by R. Bruce Anderson, Ledger columnist / The Ledger
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
