Democracy: Preservation of the Idea
/Introduction
I have outlined the initial birth and development of Democracy in the Greek city-state of Athens in two series of posts: The Appearance of Democracy - Birth and Infancy in Greece (5 posts) followed by The Appearance and Construction of Democracy - Childhood to Maturity in Greece (18 posts).
I will now begin a third series, Democracy: Preservation of the Idea. The Impact of Athenian Democracy on the re-appearance of Democracy and its further development. The focus will be on the history and process that kept the idea of Democracy alive, even as it did not exist anymore as a system of government. Most of this will begin in the 6th century AD. It is important to recall and contemplate that democracy fully disappeared for over 2,000 years after its fall in 322 BC.It is sobering to think of this - the most historically significant indicator of the fragility and rarity of democracy.
Not to conflate literature with history or Democracy with evil, but consider - “And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge”.(Galadriel, Lord of the Rings)
And, consider how much the world has changed. When Athenian democracy died, the global population was about 170 million. In 1776 (Democracy’s reappearance), the world was moving close to a population of 1 billion, a fairly modest increase compared to what happened subsequently. Just over a month ago, the global population reached 8 billion. So, over 2,000 years the population grew by 830 million and then in a mere 250 years, it grew by 7 billion. Arguably, at least in some ways, the world of 1776 may have been closer to ancient Athens than the American revolution is to today.
Stimulating this growth in population were massive changes in trade, agriculture, industry, technology, healthcare, culture, religion, and social/political organization. So, among other things, we can see that the world did not “need” democracy to go through an extraordinary transformation at nearly every level. I will try to answer three questions that easily come to mind when considering this - why did democracy re-appear when it did, why did it not re-emerge earlier, and why did it re-appear at all? Somehow, after so long, and fully lost to living memory, a hardy seed improbably sprouted into multiple and disparate forms.