The Life and Death of Democracy

Abstract Just like the life struggle of Demosthenes to promote democracy against the Macedonians, democracy is messy and never perfect. In a philosophical way, the democratic idea applies the flawed and human—to make it into a perfect utopia is to destroy it. This chapter discusses primitive democracy as it appeared in ancient Greek culture, in the midst of civilizations at war, including foreign conquerors and fellow city states. Athens, which upheld the early representation of democracy, did not fully implement the ideals of democracy. They promoted the people's citizenship which excluded slaves and women in the government system, valued peace and harmony, but ran the empire in tyranny. Democracy was…