Sunday, November 29, 2009

How would an Athenian of the 5th Century BCE criticize our present-day representative democracy?

Because of different ideas of Athenians and modern day people, the athenians would have much to criticize. An athenian democracy was very individualized and spoke the actual voice of each citizen by using the "Stone method" which included the citizens having one white stone and one black stone. White for Yes or black for no. This took a lot longer than our modern day way, which is electing one person to speak on our behalf, a representative. An athenian would say that having a representative does not voice the whole civilization as opposed to each individual actually giving their own opinion on the matter. Also another Athenian could say that this gives the people some power of their own so no matter what social class an individual is they still have an opportunity to have power and voice their own opinion opposed to modern day society where people cannot decide what they want because the representative choses what ever he/she wants. Another way of putting it, a representative democracy does not include the population. If I were to ask an athenian about how accurate our representative democracy i they would say that one person cannot voice the whole population upon whom they are representing which would lead to verdict that would contradict some peoples beliefs.
In Conclusion, an Athenian would have many things to criticize about our Representative democracy and we discover that there is not a perfect way to run any system of government.

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