POL200Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Meritocracy, Athenian Democracy, Best Interests
Document Summary
Thu(cid:272)id(cid:455)des(cid:859) othe(cid:396) i(cid:373)age of a (cid:272)i(cid:448)i(cid:272) plague: last tiem we looked at it in athens, an actual plague, discussed the infectious disease and human devastation it brought. Corinth: saw the opportunity to gain political advantage for themselves, thucydides war is a violent teacher. This implies, in this case and others, that citizens internalized the national violence and transported it within their own domestic politics. In the case of corcyra, a less powerful city, warfare operated like a natural disaster bc it represented an external, uncontrollable force of great intensity that led to civil disunity. Disunity is the key to the breakdown of politics. Corcyra shows how this became radicalized, polarized between people who wanted to use the city for their own purposes: the lesson: Individuals identified more strongly with their political factions, as democrats or oligarchs, than with the city as a whole. No speech was so powerful, no oath so terrible, as to overcome this mutual hostility.
