Used in a sentence: "It's time to bring it back to Democracy Greek Style."
Between the Olympics starting up this weekend and the three part series on PBS about the Greeks that aired this summer, I've been reminded that "modern democracy" started in Greece. So maybe it's time we brought two of their ideas back into vogue.
First ... did you know that the word IDIOT apparently originated in their culture to describe those who didn't participate in the political process? To be fair, there may have been a slight anti-poor slant to that characterization (as the poorest of the poor had more important things to worry about than discussing the politics of the day) ... but to the extent that it's fair to say that those who have the wherewithal to participate in politics and choose not to have to accept that they shall be branded IDIOTS moving forward. And not in a mean-spirited way ... but in a "that's the LITERAL definition of the word" kind of way.
Second ... did you know that ostracism was once a political process in Athens? All the people would get together and brainstorm whether anyone had the potential to threaten democracy with a predilection toward tyranny (i.e. "I alone" type talk), and if they thought so, they'd go home and write the name of that person/politician on a piece of pottery (called an ostracon), and then they'd all reconvene and the person with the most votes was banned from politics for 10 YEARS! Can you imagine if THAT'S what conventions were all about? (And can you also imagine how it might solve a current problem that one of the parties seems to be having?)
FIND IT. WATCH IT. LEARN FROM IT.:
http://www.pbs.org/program/greeks/
ON THE ORIGIN OF IDIOT:
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/01/why-it-is-all-greek-to-you/
ON THE ORIGIN OF OSTRACISM:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/opinion/24iht-edcamp_ed3_.html
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