Lecture 2 - The Glory that was Greece
The 2014 CBC Massey Lectures by Adrienne Clarkson
This lecture originally airedon CBC Radio One on November 11, 2014.
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"The termdmokratiameans, literally, people power. As such, Athenian democracy, as articulated by figures such asPericles, seemed to be free, tolerant, liberal, and engaging. The Greek word for virtue was 'arete', and this quality waspopularizedtogether with loyalty, courage, honesty, eagerness to serve the state, poverty, and self-restraint. As Aristotle put it, democracy was 'to live as one wants. For this is, they assert, the work of freedom.'"
AdrienneClarkson
In ancient Greece, the great general Pericles set the stage for a new idea in the world: democracy, and its necessary inhabitant, the citizen. Greek society was far from the democratic ideals of today there were profound class restrictions around who could be a citizen but many of the ideals of that time do hold true today.
Perhaps not coincidentally, as an offshoot of the democratic idea, Pericles female companion Aspasia seems to have been readily accepted as an equal to the men in her social class.
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