Letters to the Editor

Aristotle had a few thoughts on democracy's potential

Professor [Bradley] Gitz stated Aristotle was dubious about the success of the system, "rule by citizens." However, Aristotle, unlike his teacher Plato, thought democracy could be a successful political system by itself, and also an important component of a republican government.

Aristotle studied histories of dozens of constitutional governments. He concluded there are three good systems of government and one superior type. Democracies, aristocracies and monarchies can all be good systems when the ruling element rules for the general good. Solan's democratic constitution of Athens was a successful type, until it was overthrown by force.

If left unchecked, these three pure systems tended to degenerate into inferior types: Democracies could degenerate into mob rule, aristocracies degenerated into oligarchies, and monarchies into tyrannies. The most successful types combined these three components, each one checking and balancing the others. Judicial functions were performed by juries of citizens. Three branches of government checking and balancing each other should sound familiar to most Americans.

So democracies could be successful by themselves and were a robust part of republican governments best represented by the Roman Republic as described by Polybius. This is because, he believed, "It is possible that the many ... may yet be taken altogether be better than the few, not individually but collectively, in the same way that a feast to which all contribute is better than one given at one man's expense. For where there are many people, each has some share of goodness and intelligence, and when these are brought together, they become as it were one multiple man with many minds."

Indeed the great works of art, architecture, and drama were approved by the votes of the common people of Athens and are still universally admired (outside American academia). Finally, he concluded that the ruled and not the rulers are the best judges of political institutions: "There are tasks of which the actual doer is not either the best or the only judge, cases in which even those who do not possess the operative skill pronounce an opinion on the finished product. An obvious example is house-building; the builder certainly can judge a house, but the user, owner, or tenant, will be a better judge. So to the user of a rudder, the helmsman, is a better judge of it than the carpenters who made it; and it is the diner not the cook that pronounces upon the merits of the dinner."

As for hope, the poet Pindar said it best in an Olympian Ode in 480 B.C. Tiny Greece was being invaded by the Persian army of 180,000 soldiers and 600 warships when he wrote, "A treacherous age hangs over men's heads and makes crooked the way of life. But even this can be healed in man with freedom. We must be of good hope."

Donald Engels

Fayetteville

History offers a few reflections on 'the wall'

During earlier centuries, many walls have been built around cities or to define the borders of countries. Hadrian's Wall and the Great Wall of China are two examples.

Hadrian's Wall construction began in 122 A.D. It marked the northern boarder of Rome's Britain border separating it from the country of Scotland. It's length was 73 miles and its purpose was to limit immigration, control smuggling and keep indigenous people from entering Roman soil. The wall was some 10 feet wide at its base, and 20 feet high. It took about six years to complete.

The Great Wall of China was conceived in 259-210 B.C. as a means of preventing incursions of barbarian nomads into the Chinese Empire. The most significant portion of the wall was completed during the Ming dynasty (1368-1544 A.D.) The wall was 3,000 miles long. Its base was 1 5 to 50 feet wide and its height rose 1 5 to 30 feet and was topped by ramparts 12 feet higher.

Consider the similarities of these efforts: (1) Neither of their purposes were successful, (2) only portions of them exist today and (3) Mexico did not pay for either.

History teaches, if we only listen.

Tom Goldsborough

Bella Vista

Commentary on 01/20/2017

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