“Do you see, my friend, those three shepherds? As long as they can outvote me and Socrates and thus make decisions, I do not believe in democracy!”
Plato
Athenian direct democracy remains an unparalleled form of governance to this day, guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens of Athens. Athenians voted in the assembly – the Agora – by raising their hands. All citizens of Athens participated in decision-making. However, this form of government had its critics. The great philosopher Plato was one of them. The mere fact that the majority has the right to make decisions does not necessarily mean that the decision will be good and just.
However, people are social beings. Speech – the ability to express our interests through words, to listen to others and understand what they are communicating, to agree or disagree with their interests or views – is the essence of being human.
Democracy, invented two thousand years ago, has endured not because it is attractive, but because it is useful. Democratic societies are much more flexible than authoritarian ones and handle social problems more effectively because they are based on democratic principles: dialogue, cooperation, and agreement – characteristics inherent to every individual. For this reason, democracy has persisted for so long. Indeed, making decisions while respecting democratic principles is much more challenging, but a decision made by the majority is far stronger than one made by an individual, no matter how influential that individual might be in society.
Even authoritarian societies, when they were established, were founded on democratic principles. At the moment of the formation of such a society, the majority agreed that one member of the society should become an authoritarian ruler, and that ruler persisted as long as there was consent from the majority of society. The history of 20th-century Europe provides numerous examples: Italy, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Finland, the Soviet Union, Romania, Albania, China, Vietnam, Mongolia…
A flaw in democracy is that the masses can be manipulated. In ancient Greece, the wealthy easily bribed the poor citizens of Athens, who would then vote in the interests of the wealthy. In such cases, there is only an illusion of democracy; the majority makes decisions that benefit only a small number of people or just one individual.
Today, more complex and technologically advanced means of manipulation are used compared to Plato’s time. However, there is another lesson we can learn from the ancient Greeks. To preserve democracy, they developed literacy, established academies, and advanced philosophy and science.
By allowing democracy to turn into autocracy and dictatorship during the last century, the world, especially Europe, made enormous mistakes. The foundation for the development of modern society is the heightened awareness of each individual’s responsibility for the functioning of society and the rules that are established within it.
A higher level of education regarding political and media literacy is necessary to avoid repeating the mistakes of the twentieth century and to preserve democracy, which, despite all its flaws, still best protects the rights of the ordinary person.