Dispelling myths about 'ancient' Greece

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/feb/17/classics-cambridgeuniversity
<snip>
Fourth (probably a bit guilty), that the Greeks invented democracy in anything like the way that we recognise it now. Radical democracy was government by, for, and crucially of, the people, unlike our modern representative democracies. Ancient Athenians would probably have regarded the British and American political systems as oligarchic.
-------------------

Both C.L.R. James (Every Cook can Govern) and Ellen Meiksens-Wood (Democracy against Capitalism - Renewing Historical Materialism) address this fact.
Indeed Meiksens Wood's Chapter 7, 'The demos versus 'we, the people': from ancient to modern conceptions of citizenship", is a superb read about the fundamental differences between Greek democracy and capitalist democracy today.

"Nor is it self-evident that even the most democratic polity today confers on its propertyless and working class powers equal to those enjoyed by 'banausic' citizens in Athens. Modern democracy has become more inclusive, finally abolishing slavery and granting citizenship to women as well as to working men. It has also gained much from the absorption of 'liberal' principles, respect for civil liberties and 'human rights'. But the progress of modern democracy has been far from unambiguous, for as political rights have become less exclusive, they have also lost much of their power".


She concludes that liberalism - even as an ideal, let alone a deeply flawed actuality - is not equipped to cope with the realities of power in capitalist society, and even less to encompass a more inclusive kind of democracy than now exists.

[Aristus]

1. I knew what "borborigmus" means...

:P

[malaise]

2. You old

fart. :rofl:

[Aristus]

3. HEY!!!!

......


......


...I'm not that old!... B-)

[malaise]

4. LOL

:hi:

[TahitiNut]

27. That's "Eau d'Borborygmus Ancien" to you, dear.

:silly: Un vieux pet, aussi.

[EFerrari]

5. Remember that moment in "Gone With the Wind" where Ashley

is moping about the end of the classical world? The Old South loved ancient Greece for a reason. :)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Ashley was very representative of the feelings of his class at that time.

I've read a flock of diaries from that era and many of them bemoan the loss of the "good old days" and are, literally, dismayed that the slaves were so "ungrateful" to accept freedom.

By far, the best of the diaries, is the one by Mary Chesnut who had the sense to not to view the slaves as "happy", "grateful", or "ignorant". She rather feared their wrath if ever they were to attain freedom. And, I swear, that Scarlett O'Hara, in part, was based on one of Mary Chesnut's acquaintances that Margaret Mitchell must have encountered when researching the novel.

[EFerrari]

9. That's really interesting. Where was Chesnut located?

And, what were you up to, in reading those diaries?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Looking for the hot parts. She was located in South Carolina.

Actually, I've had an interest in slavery in the United States. The diaries are fascinating in their accounts of life from all aspects. The slaves, except for a very, very, few, of course didn't keep diaries, but they did supply narratives of their memories as slaves, due to a WPA project during the depression.

Mary Chesnut was the well-educated wife of a man who became a high official in the Confederate government. She has been described as a proto-feminist because her diaries are full of complaints about the male dominated society of the south. She was anti-slavery mostly because, in her eyes, it was destructive to the whole society, not necessarily just the slaves. However, she was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy.

More about her and the diaries, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Chesnut

BTW the diaries are a fascinating read.

A couple of others, pre-civil war.

"Secret and Sacred - The Diaries of Henry Hammond a Southern Slaveholder" This is interesting because Hammond was once governor of South Carolina and a strong proponent of secession. His wife left him because of her refusal to accept his slave mistress and her daughter (also his mistress). Which he bemoans as female hysterics and ungratefulness on his wife's part.

"Journal of a Resident on a Georgia Plantation" - Fanny Kemble

She was a noted English actress who married a wealthy plantation owner. After her arrival at the plantation, she describes in brutal detail the life of the slaves and her disgust with the system..and her husband. He, later divorced her and she spent much of her life trying to reclaim the child they had.

Try them.

[EFerrari]

15. Didn't Zora Neale Hurston participate in that WPA project

to take oral histories? Or, maybe that was earlier.

And I had no idea that Fanny Kemble married a slave holder. I only know her from her brief appearance in an Alcott book, maybe Jo's Boys. That's amazing!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. According to Google, apparently so.

I've read several compilations of the narratives but never paid much attention to the interviewers.

The narratives themselves are a "real" look at slavery and the attitudes of real slaves. Surprisingly, to me, some (a very few) longed for the good old days. But, that can be ascribed to the harsh conditions of being black during the depression and the Jim Crow laws which made slavery look better to some.

[malaise]

16. Thanks for these links

:D

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. You're quite welcome. They're all great reads as well as informative.

As a History major in college, I always thought it a bit too impersonal. Diaries and memoirs give a real feeling for what most historians only describe.

[malaise]

21. Have you ever read

In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86 edited by Douglas Hall. Thistlewood was unbelievably cruel and the role model for perverts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Thistlewood

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Yes. Unforgettable. And, he thought he was a "kind" master.

As did most slave-owners no matter how barbaric. Reading some of the slave-owners diaries I'm always struck by how shocked they really were at the "ingratitude" of the slaves after they were freed.

[malaise]

25. He was a despicable human being

A little reciprocity would have changed their views on gratitude. :D

[EFerrari]

26. The blow your head off irony is that a number of captains of slavers retired

to harbor communities where they were often taken in by free black women and were cared for until their deaths.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. A bit of trivia about a particular slave captain.

John Newton and the lyrics to Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

John Newton, the author of the lyrics to Amazing Grace, was born in 1725 in Wapping, London, United Kingdom.<1> Despite the powerful message of "Amazing Grace," Newton's religious beliefs initially lacked conviction; his youth was marked by religious confusion and a lack of moral self-control and discipline.<1>

After a brief time in the Royal Navy, Newton began his career in slave trading. The turning point in Newton's spiritual life was a violent storm that occurred one night while at sea. Moments after he left the deck, the crewman who had taken his place was swept overboard. Although he manned the vessel for the remainder of the tempest, he later commented that, throughout the tumult, he realized his helplessness and concluded that only the grace of God could save him. Prodded by what he had read in Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ, Newton took the first step toward accepting faith.<1>

These incidents and his 1750 marriage to Mary Catlett changed Newton significantly. On his slave voyages, he encouraged the sailors under his charge to pray. He also began to ensure that every member of his crew treated their human cargo with gentleness and concern. Nevertheless, it would be another 40 years until Newton openly challenged the trafficking of slaves.<1>

[EFerrari]

29. I was thinking exactly of him. There is a book that runs down the slave ship

very concretely -- not as people usually talk about them, as if they were just ferrys. I think it's this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Slave-Ship-Human-History/dp/0670018236/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234997449&sr=1-17

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. Thanks. Another to add to my collection.

I have read Olaudah Equiano's memoirs of his escape from slavery which is mentioned in the review of the book.

There's a rather massive book, The SLAVE TRADE: THE STORY OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE: 1440 - 1870 which is very detailed but rather dry and academic. Worth the long read to give an overall view.

[malaise]

34. I swear that black people are the most forgiving of

human beings.

[EFerrari]

38. Imho, as soon as we went to nuclear families, we messed up.

Because the peoples who live in extended families just seem to be more humane. It's the place between being tribal and being insular. Your group isn't big enough to start a war but big enough to absorb stragglers when necessary. I can't think of a more vulnerable grouping than the nuclear family.

[malaise]

39. That's a good point but I think it's true for

families of all races.

[TuxedoKat]

42. Adding all of these to my reading list

-- thanks for sharing them. Have you read The Classic Slave Narratives edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.? If not, you would probably find those fascinating as well.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

44. I've read a number of slave narratives but I'm not sure about Gates.

I'll have to check my library. Thanks for asking.

[malaise]

7. True but the old South hated democracy

and loved slavery.

[EFerrari]

8. They loved their own rights, just as the Greeks did.

Their slaves sort of didn't figure in, just as the Greeks' slaves didn't.

[malaise]

10. Valid point

:hi:

[EFerrari]

12. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I found out that the Greeks

had SLAVES. I was about 12 or something. It was like my favorite uncle had punched me in the tummy. Oh, well. :hi:

[malaise]

13. When I did my book review of James' Every Cook Can Govern

I was very critical of Greek slavery. At least you were 12 - I was 19. :D

[Ghost in the Machine]

19. How did you feel about the Cherokees owning/trading slaves to

European slave traders? How about the Shawnee or the Iroquois? Conquerors throughout history have enslaved those that they conquered. Africa just happens to be the last continent that was conquered, so it's the one that sticks in peoples' memories the most.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

23. I was just reading the other day about the Navajo trade in Southern Paiutes.

That's what happens if you read one of Adsos Letter's anthropology threads in GD late at night.

The thing is, when I was twelve, I still believed this was a vast empty continent when white people came here and had no idea that there were thriving cities and extensive trade routes and relationships. I thought Laura Ingalls' dad was the only guy working his way out to Dakota territory. lol

So, it's not only that the African slave trade is the latest and most extensive. It's also that our fiction about this continent being a vast empty paradise actively delayed our understanding of the peoples that were here and how they lived. :)

[Ghost in the Machine]

36. I like reading posts from Adsos Letters... usually pretty informative..

SLAVERY
In the 1830s African American slavery was established in the Indian Territory, the region that would become Oklahoma. By the late eighteenth century, when over half a million Africans were enslaved in the South, the five southern Indian societies of that region Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole had come to include both enslaved blacks and small numbers of free African Americans. A few hundred black slaves had run away from their white masters and sought refuge in Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee settlements, where they were received as free people. While some Indian communities incorporated blacks as free people, American Indians in each of the nations, except the Seminole, began to purchase African Americans as slaves.

A number of Indian farmers had large tracts of land under cultivation and used enslaved laborers to produce cotton and surplus crops for sale and profit. Most Indian slave owners, however, practiced subsistence agriculture, and both slaves and masters labored side by side in the fields. By the 1830s well over three thousand African Americans, mostly slaves, lived among the tribes.

American Indians brought their slaves to the west in the 1830s and 1840s when the federal government removed the nations from the southern states. The Cherokee, with more than fifteen hundred, had the largest number. Slave populations removed with the other nations ranged from approximately three hundred in the Creek Nation to more than twelve hundred in the Chickasaw Nation. By the time the Civil War broke out more than eight thousand blacks were enslaved in Indian Territory, where they comprised 14 percent of the population. Slavery continued in the territory through the Civil War, after which the five nations legally abolished the practice.

In Indian Territory both blacks and Indians endured the harsh conditions, disease, and deprivation of removal. Black slaves performed much of the physical labor involved in removal. For example, they loaded wagons, cleared the roads, and led the teams of livestock along the way. When the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole people settled in their new homes, they reestablished their national governments and passed slave codes that protected owners' property rights in enslaved people and restricted slaves' rights.

Most slaves in Indian Territory were owned by wealthy and prominent men, many of whom wielded considerable political power. Their slaves worked primarily as agricultural laborers, cultivating both cotton for their master's profit and food for consumption. Some slaves were skilled laborers, such as seamstresses and blacksmiths. Indian slaveholders bought and sold slaves, often doing business with white slaveholders in the neighboring states of Texas and Arkansas. Similarities existed between slavery in the states and the Indian Territory. Enslaved people were considered property, and their labor was exploited for their masters' profit.

However, slavery in the Indian nations differed in significant ways from American slavery. By most accounts, black families owned by Indians were not sold apart and usually were permitted to live together even if individual family members had different masters. Indian slaveholders generally did not use violence to control their slaves, and slaves were not regarded as dehumanized beasts of burden. Despite the nations' restrictive slave codes, blacks were allowed to gather on their own for religious services and were usually permitted to learn to read and write. Slaves who spoke and wrote English, furthermore, provided important services as translators for those Indians who were not fluent in English. Because many slaves had been born and raised in the Indian nations and had long family histories among the Indians, they shared many of the distinctive features of Indian culture and daily life. Black women in the Creek Nation, for example, prepared food according Indian customs and wore the same style of clothing as Creek women.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SL003.html

There's a Yahoo Group that you can join if you're interested. The owner of the group sends out newsletters which are outstanding accounts of Native American history. Here's a link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TA_DreamCatcher/

You'll have to sign up to read the archives and everything, but it is well worth it...


Peace,

Ghost

[malaise]

37. I love his posts

He's a treasure.

[Blue_Tires]

11. bookmarked for later

[Dover]

18. Yeah, but did the Greeks have Exxon or McDonalds?

:sarcasm:

Actually some have suggested that they might have launched something similar to our industrial revolution had they made the leap to steam engine or other inventions with their Antikythera Mechanism.

Thanks for the thought provoking post.
Yes, we need an Alex Haley or two to assist us in revisiting our true roots in democracy.

[malaise]

22. There were no Nike swooshes at the Greek Olympics either

:D

And yes how do we revive democracy with the enormous power of corporations and the military industrial complex.

[Dover]

40. The Greeks didn't invent the basic truths and values that are the foundation of 'democracy'.

I think it's much more fundamental and timeless than that.

It is a recognition of a greater Law and Truth that transcends Man's laws, that recognizes
the holistic nature of existence and the inherent equality of all beings (in the sense that we are all part of a greater family). I think this is at the root of 'democracy' rather than some superficial ideology or structure.

It's organic and open to many forms and interpretations. And I think the truths and the values born of these greater Laws are the real catalysts of change and will persist until they burst out of whatever dogma or manmade structures attempt to confine them, like the roots of a tree breaking through a concrete foundation. I think the Greeks and others acknowledged the power of this collective force and knew to give it voice.

And so if our values and collective truths don't support the status quo, then the status quo will have to change.
Any government or entity who tries to work against this force will not last long, I don't care how strong they appear.

[readmoreoften]

31. Athenians had direct democracy after 404 BCE until 336 BCE when Philip/Alexander swept the globe.

It was a direct assembly of 6000 male citizens. No naturalized citizens (metics), no women, no slaves. Oh, yeah, 33% of people in Greece were slaves. Even still, the Greeks would consider us a plutocracy because we ARE a plutocracy. For example, in a timocracy (fascist state) the demos would still be cared for. Only in a plutocracy--which is basically a timocracy that stopped caring about 'glory' and 'honor' and elevates wealth as the highest goal--do you get paupers and what Plato called "stinged drones"--a trashy, parasitic owning class that suppresses the people. The Greeks knew about oligarchy because they were controlled by a Spartan dictatorship called The Thirty from 411BCE to 404BCE.

But the idea of direct democracy for a fraction of an already tiny population can't compare to our society. And it isn't without its problems: it was the democratic government who killed Socrates for "corrupting" the youth of Athens and not showing proper respect for the gods.

[Gin]

32. on a lighter note.....the Greek dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding

swears that Windex cures everything.

[malaise]

35. But will it cure the stench of the

borborigmus. :D

[malaise]

33. True

The country with the most direct democracy today is Switzerland and yet there is very little economic democracy. Can there really be capitalist democracy? Will capitalism ever emancipate human beings?
Therein lies the problem.

All systems of government have problems but modern capitalism dehumanizes way too many people.

[Odin2005]

46. A little nitpick about the trial of Socrates...

The things he was charged with were not what he was really charged with, his "crime" was that one of his pupils was Critias, the man who became the leader of the 30 Tyrants. When democratic government was restored The 30 were given amnesty in exchange for them giving up their power and so Critias could not be directly implicated in the charge, hence they charged him with a vague "corrupting the young" charge.

[H2O Man]

41. Onondaga

was the birthplace of democracy.

[malaise]

43. Now I'll have to start reading about

the Onondaga Nation. I haven't done enough reading on early democracies but I suspect that there were many other attempts in the oldest societies. The Greeks had the advantage of documenting much of theirs.

[MrPerson]

45. Next they're going to tell me Troy never existed.