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Two Strands of Liberty in the Western Canon

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Chautauqua Institution

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According to the Ancient Greeks, You're Not Free

04 min 49 sec

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Professor Hunter Rawlings III explains that ancient Greeks had a very different concept of freedom, which they perceived as an obligation, while the American tradition defines freedom as individual rights.
Mobs Rule: Is Pure Democracy Dysfunctional?

01 min 53 sec

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Professor Hunter Rawlings III links the fall of ancient Greece to its embrace of direct democracy, which he calls "mob rule."

He cites California's dependency on ballot measures as a prime example of why pure democracy leads to "dysfunctional" governance.
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01 hr 09 min 17 sec

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There are 10 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

shawn775

Posted: 04.03.11, 12:44 PM

That being said, I do think the speakers personal political philosophy is probably sound.

shawn775

Posted: 04.03.11, 12:40 PM

I disagree with the speaker. Locke, one of histories greatest hypocrites, almost certainly did mean "property" as material property- and not some system of human rights "properly belonging to us". I say above that Locke was a hypocrite because he was a charter investor in the Royal African Company of England, which then held a monopoly on England's slave trade in Africa. This is certainly inconsistent with his own conception of "liberty". Also, in his Second Treaty on Civil Government of 1690,Locke, seemingly relying on the misguided Justinian justifications for slavery, says: “Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may...make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it: for, whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he desires." @Ch. IV, sect. 22. In short, the contractarian view of liberty, which the founders did rely on, was rife with inequitable thinking. This is obvious in the inequitable society that has grown from it in America.

Periergeia

Posted: 07.03.10, 06:53 PM

LynnS... "I think the first law was the self evident truth that all men are created equal endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Having "by their Creator" in there is a dangerous thing... law is based on logic, so if somebody argues, using legally admissible forms of evidence in a courtroom, that there is no creator (at least in a legal sense), your first natural law would go down the drain in a real court room rather quickly. Unless you have what the "political right" likes to call "activist judges" who interpret the law instead of applying it by the book, all your human rights die a sudden death by a successful challenge of this creator clause. The clause therefor makes the law weaker, not stronger. Leave it out and you are much better off, because now "People are equal and have certain inalienable rights." ... end of discussion, no legal challenge possible. Scamper: "If Doctors feel no obligation to treat the poor at an affordable price, don't expect me to feel an obligation to pay taxes to expand health coverage." The problem is not doctors. You will have to look far and hard for a single doctor who will not treat everybody in an emergency, no matter, what their financial circumstances. It's part of their oath that they will. The problem, though is, that doctors need hospitals and hospital beds and operating rooms and expensive drugs and diagnostic machines to do their work. And sadly, those things do not belong to doctors but to hospital operators and drug companies, neither of which have sworn any oath to treat you... If you need an expensive drug, the doctor can, and will, write a prescription for you. If you need surgery, your doctor will put it on your sheet and inform your insurance company... and the hospital administrator... but he or she does not personally own those drugs and he or she can't schedule surgery for you. They can't just hand these resources over to you at a price you are willing or able to pay for them. The only instance which has the ultimate economic resource in this case is, like it or not, the state. If YOU, by democratic means, tell the state not to treat the poor, it is YOUR moral responsibility that the poor go untreated. If you care to hear the doctors out about what the medical consequences of that decision are, they will be glad to tell you... a panel on public health issues stemming from poor health care coverage is part of pretty much every larger medical conference. The doctors are doing their job... it's the voting public that isn't.

larbre

Posted: 11.21.09, 10:50 PM

Excellent speech. One correction. The speaker's description of Enlightenment's conception of liberty solely as "liberty from" is misleading, as John Locke in particular argued for the "liberty toward government" as well. Locke emphasized individual citizens' participation in political life and surveillance of the government's behavior, and ultimately argued that, if the government madly behaves out of control of the citizens and legitimate processes, citizens hold the right to the usurpation and reformulation of the current governance, even by means of violence. This is what Locke wanted to claim in his Second Treatise . It is just wrong to use Locke as a theorist of "liberty from."

Calorus

Posted: 11.02.09, 05:34 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMB Modern democratic government may have roots in ancient Greece, however the nature of the practice of politics is very different today. I was surprised that it was commonly accepted in ancient Greece that if you did not participate in politics, you were considered a "useless idiot". Today it is the politicians who are more likely to be considered useless idiots. I disagree with this. I think it's grossly naive to think that the vast majority of politicians, their advisors and their campaigners could all be sufficiently stupid to make the mistakes which have been laid bare for all to see. It seems to me far less unlikely that the carnage which they leave in their wake is, at best, merely an unfortunate side effect of serving the people who supply the vast majority of their wealth. There is surely no coincedence, that the Oil Wars were championed by the son of an Oil mogul and a woman who'd had a tanker named after her.

LynnS

Posted: 10.05.09, 08:19 AM

I think the first law was the self evident truth that all men are created equal endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. This took away the ablility of other humans to determine another man's worth and allowed the right to self determination. Even people who don't believe in a Creator could use that first law to protect them from other humans who would wish to determine their value. This Law even stood over nature's laws. I think that the first law of this country was based on God's nature.

scamper

Posted: 09.30.09, 09:16 PM

Build your country! Be Proud! There is no room in there for 'Pay Your Taxes'. If you can't be bothered to VOLUNTARILY do something, you don't deserve to steal anyone's money in taxes for it. If Doctors feel no obligation to treat the poor at an affordable price, don't expect me to feel an obligation to pay taxes to expand health coverage. That is the difference of course. Taxation is not the public good or being involved in the public business. Taxation is just handing your money over to kings (bureaucrats). We are nations of millions not small communities where we can actually meet in town halls and have an influence. Meet in a townhall, plan, donate, and build. Don't let this excuse of obligation be used as an excuse to fund our overlords in government.

Thrussel

Posted: 09.30.09, 06:37 PM

EricMB, I do not know where to beging debunking your wild fabrications. Firstly Natural Law has nothing to do with the jeudo/christian tradition. It is of entirely greco-roman origin. The earliest reference to natural law is it Sophocles' 'Antigone'; where antigone uses natural law as her legal defence against Creon's tyranny. It appears again in Aristotle, it both the 'Eudomian Ethics' and 'Retoric'. However the clasic works of natural law where all written three centuaries later by the Roman Stoic philosophers. Natural Law is a product of Stoic Roman thought, and was one of the central pillars of Roman culture (among the aristocracy at least). Natural Law has little to do with christianity. Some chirch father's wanted to incoporate natural law, others saw it as wholely alien. Perhaps it would be good if we understand what natural law is. The fundametal principle of natural law is that all people are inhereantly and perfectly rational rational, and can understand the law by using their natural reason, i.e. without any god (the natural law rejected divine will as having any formative part of the legal process, see Seneca's 'Letters from a stoic' where he says "If a god makes a law that is not in accord with natural law, then that god is evil, so stop worshiping him!"). Natural law was always secular law, and was often seen as opposed to god's law. It seems those dastardly 'secular govenment's' you speak of are better able to recognise 'facts' than you are. You are right that they do have problems recognizing your stories as part of documented history; but this is because it is not part of documented history, it is purely a figment of your imagination. In the end Aquinas wone out over critics and argued that natural law could be an approach to god's law; and it became part of (some) christian tradition(s), but note even Aquinas refers to natural law as 'secular' law. Also Islam also has a form of natural law, as have atheists like Hobbes. One other point by "nature's god' Madison meant the deism of Rousseau, the 'cult of the supream being', and not the christian / jewish god. Perhaps is this day and age we should reserve the word 'idiot' for people who post comments of forms with utter conviction about topics they know nothing about.

Edward.S

Posted: 09.27.09, 07:59 AM

excellent video. I would be interested to hear what he thinks about the continuity of the freedoms, what mechanisms exist in freedom that preserve it? unlike fascism which is expansionist and therefore self destructive, what is it about his "greek freedom" that is self preserving? that's my question

EricMB

Posted: 09.09.09, 09:39 AM

Modern democratic government may have roots in ancient Greece, however the nature of the practice of politics is very different today. I was surprised that it was commonly accepted in ancient Greece that if you did not participate in politics, you were considered a "useless idiot". Today it is the politicians who are more likely to be considered useless idiots. The concept of the extension of liberty to incorporate personal freedoms as was expressed by Madison and made part of the US Constitution has it's roots in "nature and nature's God", or natural law, was not practiced in ancient Greece; but the recognition of 'natural law' as a product of Godly creation was the origin of the Hebrew's. Anyone who is Jewish or Christian is aware of this fact, but the speaker here seems to think that this is not part of 'documented history'. Interestly, secular governments seem to have problems recognizing this fact, not only with regard to practice within the populations that they govern, such as is exemplified by the practice of the founding fathers of America who themselves had slaves, but continues today in the practice of nations of national (really international) corporate governments that have no trouble exploiting peoples that are not within the scope of their 'stewardship'. Several years ago I would have taken offense at the speakers' proposition that America is a nation of selfish individuals, and that we have to respond to the call of political reponsibility. Today, I know through my experience in participation in state and local politics, that what I once perceived as simply a problem with self concerned politicians and busniness people, is in fact endemic in American society as a whole.