Socrates was tried by a jury, just a very large jury by our standards, and if I recall correctly, came within a few votes of acquittal. It was not a popular vote.
Beyond that correction, definitions are dynamic, and allowed to evolve. You can try freezing them in time as you do here, but they seem to resist that (as you have observed).
We’re all entitled to set definitions in our essays, though, fair enough about how you use democracy. But when it comes to capitalism protecting individual rights, you’re trying to invent a time that never existed.
Thanks for the comment.You raise an important point, and I’ll address it briefly here and more fully in future essays.
You’re right: Socrates was sentenced by a jury, and he came within a few votes of acquittal. It’s also true— and striking—that he refused opportunities to escape, in what he saw as a principled stand for justice. That’s part of what I’m interrogating here: the idea that justice is whatever the collective decides. My focus is on the deeper premise behind that jury—the notion that the unlimited will of the majority, or its appointed agents (whether free adult men in Athens, propertied white men in early America, or any other ruling caste), has a rightful claim over the life and judgment of the individual. I think it’s worth exploring.
In the piece I also point out the more modern conception that holds democracy to be essentially about universal suffrage. I think that’s wrong historically and philosophically, thus distorting the essential issues involved. Which is: Does the individual have a right to his own life and choices?
As I indicate in the piece this is the defining feature that separates America from anything else is mankind’s history , from the Declaration of independence to Federalist 10 to the passage of 14th amendment (piece on this coming soon) what makes America distinct and thus needing a new concept to capture it is the emphasis on the rights of individuals, yes as I say it was imperfect and incomplete but significant as well as world shifting. America was founded on the idea that individual men have unalienable rights and to secure those rights governments are justly created. In my other work you can take a journey with me and explore the inspiring moral drama that transpired over the 19th century to make progress in completing the founding. A completing also means there was something incomplete, as I tried to suggest in the piece I think America was and is a mixed society with different degrees of elements at certain episodes .That time and the heroes that lived in it are very real.
As put best by the 1851 New York State Convention of Colored People declared:
"The denial of our rights is the overthrow of the rock foundation principles of the country; for the Declaration of Independence... recognizes no despotism, monarchial, aristocratic, or democratic, [but) declares that individual man is possessed of rights of which no government can deprive him."
Note: I think the modern conception of democracy is an intellectual achievement . Although I argue it is flawed , I usually find that people don’t actually think unlimited power is good but they don’t have a clear view of what the limit is or how much of an achievement it is historically that they think in the terms they do. I want to valorize what is right about people’s orientation while constructively building a better conception. I’m joining in the American Experiment!
Good article Ibis, and an important point!
Thanks for the support!
Excellent! Needs to be said, repeatedly.
Thanks, i’ll keep telling them!
Socrates was tried by a jury, just a very large jury by our standards, and if I recall correctly, came within a few votes of acquittal. It was not a popular vote.
Beyond that correction, definitions are dynamic, and allowed to evolve. You can try freezing them in time as you do here, but they seem to resist that (as you have observed).
We’re all entitled to set definitions in our essays, though, fair enough about how you use democracy. But when it comes to capitalism protecting individual rights, you’re trying to invent a time that never existed.
Thanks for the comment.You raise an important point, and I’ll address it briefly here and more fully in future essays.
You’re right: Socrates was sentenced by a jury, and he came within a few votes of acquittal. It’s also true— and striking—that he refused opportunities to escape, in what he saw as a principled stand for justice. That’s part of what I’m interrogating here: the idea that justice is whatever the collective decides. My focus is on the deeper premise behind that jury—the notion that the unlimited will of the majority, or its appointed agents (whether free adult men in Athens, propertied white men in early America, or any other ruling caste), has a rightful claim over the life and judgment of the individual. I think it’s worth exploring.
In the piece I also point out the more modern conception that holds democracy to be essentially about universal suffrage. I think that’s wrong historically and philosophically, thus distorting the essential issues involved. Which is: Does the individual have a right to his own life and choices?
As I indicate in the piece this is the defining feature that separates America from anything else is mankind’s history , from the Declaration of independence to Federalist 10 to the passage of 14th amendment (piece on this coming soon) what makes America distinct and thus needing a new concept to capture it is the emphasis on the rights of individuals, yes as I say it was imperfect and incomplete but significant as well as world shifting. America was founded on the idea that individual men have unalienable rights and to secure those rights governments are justly created. In my other work you can take a journey with me and explore the inspiring moral drama that transpired over the 19th century to make progress in completing the founding. A completing also means there was something incomplete, as I tried to suggest in the piece I think America was and is a mixed society with different degrees of elements at certain episodes .That time and the heroes that lived in it are very real.
As put best by the 1851 New York State Convention of Colored People declared:
"The denial of our rights is the overthrow of the rock foundation principles of the country; for the Declaration of Independence... recognizes no despotism, monarchial, aristocratic, or democratic, [but) declares that individual man is possessed of rights of which no government can deprive him."
Note: I think the modern conception of democracy is an intellectual achievement . Although I argue it is flawed , I usually find that people don’t actually think unlimited power is good but they don’t have a clear view of what the limit is or how much of an achievement it is historically that they think in the terms they do. I want to valorize what is right about people’s orientation while constructively building a better conception. I’m joining in the American Experiment!