For reference, the author, Mary Beard, is a renowned classicist with many interesting historical shows produced by the BBC: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYjnRAFFy4g
>in Sparta they did it by shouting (loudest won — which the Athenians thought very weird)
I don't know why the Athenians thought this to be weird, I guess they had their reasons. But I can think of one benefit of the Spartanian way.
If you raise hands, you can quickly change when you see what others are doing. When you shout, you have to inhale as much as you can to shout as loud as you can. You first have to make up your mind, before you can hear others.
Election by acclamation isn't a contest among the candidates to see who can shout the loudest. It's a contest to see who gets more support (shouting) from the audience.
Maybe they "thought" it was "weird" retroactively after the Peloponnesian War. Athens was mishandled pretty badly after it's defeat by the pro-Spartan government of the Thirty Tyrants. That on top of being at war with Sparta for more than twenty years would have made them pretty averse to anything Spartan.
Athens was mishandled pretty badly prior to the defeat as well, but that one is on them. Ostracizing the lead architect of an invasion right before the invasion is not a smart move when you've got an adversary willing to hire him to plan the defense.
Constantinople was already doomed to fall before 1453. The 4th crusade hollowed out the city, and even after being retaken it was never the same -- by 1453, it was an island in a sea of Ottoman territory.
I'm surprised that there's no mention of sortition, the electing of people by random lottery. Lots of people (including Aristotle and many Athenians) thought that true democracy was this kind of election by random lot, not by voting. Voting is just begging for corruption. Most Athenian magistrates and juries were picked by sortition.
Aristotle:
> Democracy arose from the idea that those who are equal in any respect are equal absolutely. All are alike free, therefore they claim that all are free absolutely... The next is when the democrats, on the grounds that they are all equal, claim equal participation in everything.
> It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.
>I think we've all now seen what it looks like when someone who is unqualified for the job and doesn't want the job is given it.
We all also seen what it looks when people qualified AND wanting the job were given it -- we have been seeing that for centuries and it's not pleasant either.
>In fact hereditary offices are a form of sortition, and they have proven not to be a particularly good system.
No, they are not. Sortition must be random in background and circumstances among the represented people. Hereditary office is the least random way of distributing power. Even democratic elections bring more randomness to the pool.
Actually in Athens the citizenry as a whole voted the laws. Sortition was used to designate jurys and various types of public servants. Generals were elected. But to be eligible for sortition or election you had to match certain criteria like taking care of your parents. And at the end of your term you had to face a jury that would decide whether you did your job right or not. And you'd get punished if you didn't. What we erroneously call democracy today is definitely inspired by rome. It's an elected oligarchy. And it's not even representative as there is no legal obligation for the elected oligarch to do the biding of those who elected him. It's called democracy just like the USSR called itself a democracy. Athens was the most powerful city-state in greece when it was a democracy. And Switzerland which is partly genuinely democratic is the 4th happiest country in the world. So when people say it doesn't work, they're just full of shit.
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[ 727 ms ] story [ 1085 ms ] threadI don't know why the Athenians thought this to be weird, I guess they had their reasons. But I can think of one benefit of the Spartanian way.
If you raise hands, you can quickly change when you see what others are doing. When you shout, you have to inhale as much as you can to shout as loud as you can. You first have to make up your mind, before you can hear others.
Aristotle:
> Democracy arose from the idea that those who are equal in any respect are equal absolutely. All are alike free, therefore they claim that all are free absolutely... The next is when the democrats, on the grounds that they are all equal, claim equal participation in everything.
> It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
In fact hereditary offices are a form of sortition, and they have proven not to be a particularly good system.
(I've never been a fan of Aristotle anyway)
We all also seen what it looks when people qualified AND wanting the job were given it -- we have been seeing that for centuries and it's not pleasant either.
>In fact hereditary offices are a form of sortition, and they have proven not to be a particularly good system.
No, they are not. Sortition must be random in background and circumstances among the represented people. Hereditary office is the least random way of distributing power. Even democratic elections bring more randomness to the pool.