Influencing the vote
Our democracies today are representative. We elect politicians, politicians govern us. In Ancient Athens, you were ruling yourself. Participation was seen as a fundamental element of Democracy. Athenians that behaved as ‘private citizens’ were seen through a negative eye and actually the Greek word for private citizen is “idiotes”, which is where the word ‘idiot’ […]
Our democracies today are representative. We elect politicians, politicians govern us. In Ancient Athens, you were ruling yourself.
Participation was seen as a fundamental element of Democracy. Athenians that behaved as ‘private citizens’ were seen through a negative eye and actually the Greek word for private citizen is “idiotes”, which is where the word ‘idiot’ comes from!
Plato wrote that ‘one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.’
It was a direct, in-your-face democracy.
So, what affected the vote of a citizen, really mattered…
