Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens

Abstract

This book illuminates the distinctive character of our modern understanding of the basis and value of free speech by contrasting it with the very different form of free speech that was practised by the ancient Athenians in their democratic regime. Free speech in the ancient democracy was not a protected right but an expression of the freedom from hierarchy, awe, reverence and shame. It was thus an essential ingredient of the egalitarianism of that regime. That freedom was challenged by the consequences of the rejection of shame (aidos) which had served as a cohesive force within the polity. Through readings of Socrates's trial, Greek tragedy and comedy, Thucydides's History, and Plato's Protagoras this volume explores the paradoxical connections between free speech, democracy, shame, and Socratic philosophy and Thucydidean history as practices of uncovering.

Judicial Epistemology of Free Speech Through Ancient Lenses

“…The bibliography on parrhe¯sia and ise¯goria also includes the important findings of the Italian researchers: [60,61]. See also a particularly illuminating recent analysis in [62]. Further on, I also ground my views on the above-mentioned book of Luigi Spina [61], still not translated in English.…”

Critical Race Humor in a Postracial Moment: Richard Pryor’s Contemporary Parrhesia

“…While parrhesia concerned true discourse, rhetoric only concerned persuasion and, therefore, encompassed the potential for lying and deceit. Valorizing authenticity and transparency, parrhesia fostered suspicion of those who spoke with obvious artistry (Markovits, 2008;Saxonhouse, 2006). Such impoverished understandings of rhetoric limit the possibilities for imagining parrhesia as a contemporary rhetorical practice.…”

Democracy's Dignity

“…In the 20 th and 21 st centuries, those intuitions have been given legal form in national and international law. The universality of human dignity is proclaimed, for example, in Article 1 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the first paragraph of the German Constitution, and 9 Humiliation is a social condition rather than an emotion; it is very different from shame, and has a different relationship to politics; on democracy and shame see Saxonhouse (2006) and Tarnopolsky (2010). It is also very different from humility: There need be no indignity, for example, in an attitude of humility on the part of a devout person in the presence of a manifestation of divinity, or a secular person confronted by the wonder of nature, or a neophyte before a master practitioner.…”

“…Democratic rules and ideology emphasized the conjoined values of liberty (eleutheria) of the citizen and equality among citizens (key terms were isonomia: equality before the law, isopsēphia: equality of vote, isēgoria: equality in respect to public speech). The laws of the democracy (notably the law against hubris, considered in what follows) criminalized the expression of social superiority (humiliation by word and deed), which had been a behavioral foundation of archaic meritocratic and elite peerage systems (Saxonhouse 2006). Wealthy Athenians were now expected to exercise self-restraint in speech and action.…”