Aristotle s Influence On Democracy - 1561 Words

After democracy was introduced in Athens around the 5th century B.C.E., the majority of the Greek intellectual community condemned it as a form of communal tyranny. Socrates was put to trial and executed after a vote by the Athenian citizens because, despite strong evidence negating their arguments, the common people blamed him for corrupting the city’s youth. Aristotle would later argue in his writings that the most effective democracy should include equal power between the rich minority and the poor majority, so the poor could not take advantage of the rich. In other words, Aristotle felt that the poor should have a disproportionately small voice in democracy, perhaps believing that they were fundamentally less capable than the educated bourgeois of making the right decision. After two and a half thousand millennia have past, we’d all like to believe we’ve perfected this tried and failed egalitarian system. After all, the entirety of the first world operates un der political structures that can largely be described as democratic, and there is something intuitively, morally correct about every person having an equal say, right? On November 8th, 2016, when Hilary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, the academic elite screamed their approval. This was progress. This will go down as the iconic victory of tolerance over bigotry, of rational thought over dogmatism, of love over hate. After a historically gruesome campaign, characterized by violence,Show MoreRelatedGreece s Impact On The World1360 Words   |  6 PagesUnited States and the world? Many would say that the Romans had the most impact on United States and the world and some may contradict and say Greece had the most influence. However, Greece influenced the world and United States the most in tremendous ways. 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