Who can introduce the traditional aspects of democracy in ancient Athens, such as the low status of women? Thank you.

Western civilization began in ancient Greece and consisted of more than 100 independent and non-unified city-states. We study the ancient Athens city-state today because it is the object of special concern of some of the greatest Greek philosophers. Of course, Athens itself is the most famous city-state, and it is a "Greek institution of learning" (in Pericles).

The ancient polis was very small, and its population and area were far from those of modern countries. There are about 300 thousand people in Athens, which can be divided into three main classes according to their political and legal status.

1. Slave.

Slaves account for about 1/3 of all residents in Athens, and they are at the bottom of society and have no political status. Slavery is a popular system in the ancient world and unique to the city-state economy, just like the modern wage system. We in China are no strangers to slaves, such as official slaves and domestic slaves. Everyone watched Stephen Chow's movie "Tong Pak Hu Dian Qiu Xiang". Have you noticed that Tang Bohu went to Washington to be a slave to Chou-heung (not a servant of employment relationship)? According to Greek political theory, the existence of slaves is taken for granted, just as the feudal class in the Middle Ages in the West is taken for granted or the modern labor relations are taken for granted.

At that time, people sometimes pitied the fate of slaves and sometimes defended this system (but not its disadvantages). Yuri Pittiz said, "The only thing that makes a slave feel ashamed is his name/besides, a slave is by no means meaner than a free man/because he has an upright soul". Debater Alsi Dama has a great famous saying: "God made people born free, but nature never made anyone a slave."

2. Medik.

Metic, also known as Gentile, is a non-Greek who is allowed to live in Greek cities by paying taxes. Because Athens is a commercial city, there are a lot of such people. Many people don't live temporarily, even for generations, but because there is no legal form of naturalization, they are still outside the citizens' collective in Medik. This is similar to the situation that the Anglo-Saxons who colonized America first recognized immigrants from various countries, but did not grant citizenship. Medik is a free man. Although he cannot participate in the political life of the city, he will not be discriminated against by any society.

3. citizens

Citizens are members of the city and have the right to participate in the political life of the city. This is an innate privilege. His parents are citizens, so is he. Athenian men get citizenship at the age of 20, and adult women have no citizenship. Therefore, excluding women, minors, Medecians and slaves, the actual number of citizens is very small, perhaps only about 40 thousand.

Because the number of slaves is quite large-and their number is often exaggerated-this leads to a misleading absurd statement: the citizens of the polis constitute a leisure class (considered by Marxists as a slave owner class), so the political philosophy of the polis is the philosophy of a class that does not get paid through labor.

This is almost entirely an illusion. The number of leisure classes in Athens will not be more than that in western cities of the same size now, because the ancient Greeks were not rich. The vast majority of Athenian citizens are businessmen, craftsmen and farmers, who rely on their respective industries to make a living. Like most people in modern western society, they can only engage in political activities in their spare time in their personal career. The Athenians were keen on oral debates on political issues, which modern people could not imagine.

"Any citizen who makes a difference will be recommended for public office; This is not a privilege, but a reward for merit. Poverty is by no means an obstacle. A person can benefit the country no matter how humble his life experience is. " (Pericles, the leader of Athens from 495 to 429 BC, speech at the funeral)

They also seriously considered the social status of women, such as Plato (427-347 BC) and aristophanes (448-385 BC, Athenian poet and writer). The social status of women was a very serious problem then and now. Westerners who inherited and developed ancient Greek thought finally gave women the right to vote. Britain 19 18, America 1920, Switzerland 197 1.

For minors, even modern democratic countries cannot give them the right to participate in politics. You let a baby or an eight-year-old vote?

It is true that according to the proportion of Athens' population, the number of citizens is a minority, but we must know that this happened more than 2,000 years ago and is the beginning of democracy. Just as the word "democracy" (referring to the original Greek, of course) was invented by the ancient Greeks. With the development of western civilization and the political awakening of other classes, democracy naturally extends to all adult men and women in western nation countries. Although modern western democracy is somewhat different from their cultural ancestors' democracy in ancient Greece, their core ideas are what Aristotle (384-322 BC) said: the state should be the relationship between free citizens with moral equality, and the state should act according to law, relying on debate and consent rather than coercion.

It is precisely because the democracy of a few people will lead to the democracy of all, so in the modern world, if the ruling party that practices Leninism engages in inner-party democracy, it will lead to the democracy of the whole society.

On the other hand, the minority democracy in Athens is not only a natural development process, but also a good method. This can be seen from Britain, the first modern democratic country in the world, which enacted the factory law in the 1930s, stipulated working hours and conditions, and allowed workers to organize. The right to vote was extended to the middle class in 1832, to the working class in 1867 and to 18 years old in 1969. Therefore, after China overthrew the autocratic system of emperors for more than 2,000 years in 19 12, it is still meaningful for us to learn from the west and implement the trilogy of military and political discipline and constitutionalism. This is also the legal basis of democracy in Taiwan Province Province, which is generally ignored by mainlanders.

Once a large number of civilians suddenly gain the right to vote, democracy may collapse. Voters who have just been given the right to vote and do not understand the accident are often overwhelmed by the excessive and extreme promises of demagogues. For example, Minosse in Serbia and Chavez in Venezuela. People in some countries may not like democracy, such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Even powerful and important Russian minorities, who prefer strongman rule in political culture, are now turning to authoritarianism rather than democracy.

Second, we in China should pay special attention to the fact that during the more than 2,000 years of autocratic monarchy, no one in China opposed this system before modern contact with western culture. So many saints and gentlemen, people with lofty ideals, literati and intellectuals! It is a country that produces immortal Tang poetry and Song poetry! Dabao made a logical reasoning, either because our ancestors liked autocracy and were dominated by the arbitrary will of the upper class; Either our ancestors didn't have the wisdom of the ancient Greeks.

Fortunately, other civilizations are similar to Chinese civilization, but western civilization is different; Or, interestingly, what is special is not China civilization, but Western civilization. In the ancient world, all human civilizations were autocratic, and only the ancient Greek civilization took a different path. The same idea also gave them a natural science (not technology). Finally, after the year 1500 (the middle of Ming Dynasty in China), Europe began to show its dominance over all ethnic groups and cultures in the world.

When it comes to western civilization, some people in China are unhappy. I don't say that the western science and technology (electricity, electric lights, computers, telephones, automobiles, airplanes) that you are enjoying now is imported from the west, but Marxist theory is not the mainstream of western political thought. Can't this prove that western civilization is deeply affecting our Chinese civilization?