garver, [reseña] ober, political dissent in democratic athens

7/27/2019 Garver, [Resea] Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens

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Rhetoric Society of America

Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule by Josiah OberReview by: Eugene GarverRhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 92-97Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886187 .

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92 RHETORICSOCIETYQUARTERLYwith the final chapteron Aristotle. Perhaps t is best to let the readerwritetheghost chapters,to fill in the narrative,but an epilogue could have made thenarrative xplicit. It would also have brought o the forefrontcertainquestionsthatare perhapsbettersaved for anothervolume orthatperhapsneedmorecare-ful definition in this one: What,after all, is "theory" n the context of ancientrhetoric?Is thenotion of disciplinarity nachronisticorthe whole of antiquity?Does the method of philological and etymological mining provide sufficienthistoricaldataout of which to reconstructhistory?

Dale SullivanDepartmentof HumanitiesMichiganTechnologicalUniversity

Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in DemocraticAthens: Intellectual CriticsofPopular Rule, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.W,e know aboutAtheniandemocracyfrom the testimonyof contemporarywriterssuch as Ps.-Xenophon,Thucydides,Aristophanes,Plato,Isocrates,andAristotle.These authorsportraydemocracyas unstable,vulnerable odema-

gogues, proneto move froma rule n thename of freedom o expropriation, ndlikely to overreachby dissolvingthedistinctionsbetweenmen and women,citi-zens and slaves, andeven humansand animals.Fromthisperspective,democ-racy was mob rule,rule of theignorantand thepoor,vulnerable o sophistsandtheir parvenuclients.JosiahOberinvites us to reconsider hese criticismsof democracy n light ofthe fact that these chargeswere all false. Those he calls "intellectualcritics ofpopularrule"had to face andrespond o the factthatAtheniandemocracyactu-ally was successful. It was stable and self-moderating.The famous theoreticalclaim in Aristotle's Politics that the many can make political decisions betterthanany individual because, as in the judgmentof a work of art,each rightlyjudges a piece andthey all somehow addup was not a theoreticalclaim afterallbut an observationabout Athenianpracticethat somehow worked. Ourunder-standing of these authorsmust change when seen againstthe backgroundofdemocraticsuccess. Reintepretation f theseauthorsas intellectualcriticsof thesuccess of democracymakes Ober'sbook an accountofAtheniandemocracy orour time.Not until Spinozadid anyonedeclaredemocracyto be the most natural ormof government, and he did so on the basis of naturalrights. Ober notes thatAtheniandemocracy was not grounded n naturalrights."Theordinarypeopleof Athens were free, political equal, and secure (as a body of citizens and asindividuals),because, by their own actions, they had come to realize that theycould be so, andbecause they were willing, in word and deed, to defendthese

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RwVIEWS 93pragmatic onditionsof existenceagainst nternalandexternal hreats"35). De-mocracythenhad no need of theoryandso whatObercalls "democratic nowl-edge"hadnoroomfortheSophists'distinction f natureandcustom,Thucydides'distinctionbetweenwordsand brute acts,or Plato'sdistinctionbetweenopinionandknowledge.Criticismsof democracy,whichbecame hegenresof historyandphilosophy, eliedonsuchdistinctionsoundermineheautonomy ndautochthonyof democracy."Ifoneclaimed o be an ntellectual-a practitionerfphilosophia-one must alsobe criticalof the ruleof thepeople" 252).Correlatively, emocracywas anti-theoretical.t wasnotideologicallygenerated. t wasjustsomething hatthe people did for themselves.Intellectual ctivity was by its natureanti-demo-cratic. Such is Ober'sexcitingthesis.

Insuccessivechapters,Ober ooks atPs.-Xenophon,Thucydides,Aristophanes(Ecclesiazusae), Plato (Apology, Crito, Gorgias, and Republic), Isocrates(AntidosisandAreopagiticus), andAristotle(Politics), to show how these elitecritics'workswereone half of a dialoguewithdemocracy. nthisreview I wantto look at a few of Ober's observations,especially those of special interest toreadersof the Rhetoric Society Quarterly,to show what happens to familiartexts whenreadagainst this background.Thucydides' account of democracy in war is crucial for Ober's story.Thucydidesdraws a strongdistinctionbetween the speeches andbeliefs of thecitizens andleadersin theAssembly and the reality of militarydeeds, or,moreprecisely,a strongmethodologicaldistinctionbetween how speeches and deedsare treatedby the historian. Oberpoints to some of the developments of thelogos/ergon distinction n otherauthors s a wayof attacking heself-sufficiencyof democraticknowledge, makingthe words/deeds distinctionsomethingof athemerunning hrough hebook. There s one pointin theRhetoric,which Oberdoes not cite, whereAristotledeploysa similardistinction o distinguishrheto-ric from political science, just the distinction that Ober's "democraticknowl-edge"elides: "Inproportionas anyoneendeavours o make of dialectic or rheto-ric, not what they are, faculties,but sciences, to that extent he will, withoutknowing it, destroytheirrealnature,n thusaltering heircharacter, y crossingover into the domainof sciences,whosesubjectsarecertaindefinitethings (tinonpragmat6n),not merely words (logoi)" (I.4.1359bl3-17). The Rhetoric's dis-tinctionbetween the rhetorical acultyandpolitical science orknowledge is animportant hallengeto Ober'sargument,and it wouldbe interesting o see howhe would treat t. As it is, the logos/ergondistinctiondominatesOber'saccountof Thucydides'criticism of democracy-the chapter s called "publicspeechand brutefact"-and appearsto some extent in the chapterson Aristophanesand Plato-in radicallymodifiedform n Plato,since logoi arenot subordinatedto erga,butergato logoi-and is mostlyabsentfromhis discussions of Isocratesand Aristotle.What Obercalls democraticknowledge,Platocalls flattery.Likemanypeople,Ober reads the sequence,Apology,Crito,Gorgias, Republicas a development,



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94 RHETORICSOCIETYQUARTERLYthis time a development n the criticismof democracy. In theApology Socratesclaims that, concerning he accusationsof Meletus,he cannotreceive a fairhear-ing becauseof theprejudices ownbyhis "oldaccusers."Obershows how Socratestransforms raditional orensic topoi. "Socratesasks thejurorsto learnby indi-vidual investigationthat the general opinionof the mass of citizens (hoi polloi)was false. He seeks, in effect, to establisha conversational,dialecticalrelation-ship amongthejurorsthatprivilegesindividualknowledgeandrejects the gen-eral knowledge of the many as a mass" (169). Such privileging of individualknowledge is in one way a criticismof democracy, ince in democracythemanyconstitutethemselves as a collective agentwho acts and knows. In anotherway,it is a reconstitutionof democracy n terms of individual reedomand individualjudgment.Much of the subsequenthistoryof democracyhas been played out onjust the issue of whether ndividualknowledgeis the basis or the corrosive acidof democraticcitizenship.Something similarhappens n the Crito. Socrates "claims that a citizen mustalways ignoretheopinionof themanybut mustalwaysobey the laws. Logically,therefore, he law mustbe somethingdifferent rom the opinionof the many ...butto assert thecompleteindependenceof the law frompopularopinionin earlyfourth-centuryAthens was chimerical" 186). Thus the topos of the rule of lawvs. the rule of men, which otherwise dentifiesdemocracywith the rule of men,becomes a topos for argumentwithindemocracy.Ober notes that"what seemsnotoriously eft out of the contract hat he Laws of the Critopress upon Socratesis the benefit he hadreceived from the freedom of the democraticpolis and itsunprecedentedolerance evencelebration) f diversityamong ts citizens"(244).The argumentof the laws is so generalthat it would demand obedience to allgovernments,while Socrates'encounterwithAthens shouldinstead concernob-ligations generated by the peculiarinteractionbetween Socratic behavior andAtheniandemocracy.TheGorgiasshows theimpossibility,orclose to it, of Socrates'participatingnpoliticalaffairs n anyrecognizable orm:one hasto choose between twoways oflife-Callicles' flattering he polis or Socrates' silence in public. It also showsthat Callicles is himself defeatedby democraticknowledgeas much as Socratesis. The demos dictates the terms on which the would-be demagogue can per-suade.The ideological hegemonyof the demos"is not threatenedby the educa-tion in the techniquesof publicaddressoffered to aspiringpoliticians by profes-sional rhetoricians.Indeed,demotichegemony is strengthenedby a rhetoricaltrainingthatpreparesambitiousmen for menial service rather han for engage-ment in critical resistance,battle,and therapy" 190). Although Ober does notmakethepoint,thepowerof democraticknowledgeappears n Callicles' attemptto get to the naturalacts outside theconventionalbeliefs of the many.His physis/nomos distinction is itself a conventional distinction, and the idea of naturalepideixis (praiseand blamebeingrootedoutside discourse n nature) s a contra-diction. Socrates shows how democraticknowledge can defeatthe Thucydideandistinction betweenlogoi anderga.



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In the Apology, how Socratescould have become good without growingup ina good polis is unexplained,but it isn't a problem either since no attention sdrawnto it. There is simply no narrative eading up to the oracle's declarationthat Socrates is the wisest of men. In the Gorgias individual wisdom is impos-sible and thereforeSocrates s truly gnorant and thereforenot good. If he can-not be effective, he is to that degree not good, and his effectiveness depends npart on the community in which he thinks and acts. In the Gorgias Socrates'knowledge of his own ignorance rom the Apology becomes a freedomfromthe"ideological constraints hat bound Callicles." But being a gadfly is no longergood enough:"As long as he remains he 'only' masterof the political techneas long as his attemptsat therapeutic ersuasionnecessarily remaininfelicitousbecause of the established deological context of the polis-there can be no realpolitical practice" 213).There is one hint in the treatment f the Republic that the sequenceApology,Crito,Gorgias,Republic, s not inevitable."Socrates eems to havemoved awayfrom the ethics of criticism he had defended when arguing with Callicles infavor of the inherent virtuousnessof his own ongoing struggle with the citi-zenry"(218). If so, thenmaybethe movementis in the otherdirection,thattheRepublic, at least in Book I, lies with the Apology and Critoin seeing Socratesas the loyal democraticopposition,making democracy nto its own betterself,while the Gorgias gives up such hopes. Thus, Socrates s looking not to replacedemocraticknowledge with a betterkind of expertise suggested by the "theoryof ideas," he rule of philosophers ndthe ontologicaldistinctionbetween knowl-edge and opinion. Socrates shows what true democraticknowledge looks likeby sayingto Callicles thatif they concur,thenthe resultmust be true(487a).But thatis not Ober's story.For him, the ideal state of the Republicin effectreverses the Socratic problem.Where the earlierdialogues tried to find a placefor Socrates in a democracy, heRepublic shows that there is no place for de-mocracywithin apolis regulatedby realknowledge,not democraticknowledge.Unified souls in aunifiedpolis "eliminate he raisond'e'treof democraticpublicpractices, he distinctionbetweenpoliticaland social equalities" (230). There snoplacefor Socrates hereeither,ashe comes to findhis own sortof autochthonyin an immortal soul and knowledge of the forms, while the state has its ownmythof autochthony.Isocrates,unlikePlato,wantsto save rather handestroy democracy.Isocrateswantsto savedemocracy rom tselfby makingtheruleof theeloquentand wisea partof democracyrather han anoligarchicintrusion.Ober's assumption hatto be an intellectual s to argueagainstdemocracy lluminatesIsocrateandiscur-sive practices.For example:"Truedicanic rhetoric(or even seamless dicanicfiction) offered limited opportunities or engaging in extended 'high culture'polemics,whereasordinary pideicticnecessarily gnoredthe demotic audience.It was only by inventinga new, hybridgenrethat Isocratescould depicthimselfas a brave, beleagueredcitizen of bothAthens andHellas, the hero-martyrwho



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96 RHETORICSOCIETYQUARTERLYstood in the metaphoricalmiddle of the battle and at the syntacticcenter of theantithesis-dealing out telling blows to the ignorant ealousies of hoipolloi onthe one hand,whiledispatchinghispettifogging ellow intellectualson the other"(259). Similarly, n the Areopagiticushe makes the Areopagus he "linchpinofthe ancestraldemocracy" 282). Ifhe can be persuasive,hewill radicallychangethe natureof democracy."Thefourth-century emos was concerned with de-ploying politicalequality o guaranteehat he effects of social inequalities mongcitizensremained imited. In Isocrates'vision,thepoliticalorderof ancientAth-ens had restedupon the demos' acceptanceof profoundsocial inequalitiesascompletely legitimate" 283). Ober'sanalysiscaneven explain why "Isocrates'attemptsat criticaldiscourse nevitablyseemthin to modernreaders.... He hadno stimulus to develop truly originalpolitical ideas because he had no stake(indeed, quite the opposite) in challenging the speech-centered ogic of Athe-niandemocracy" 288).Apartfrombooks 7 and8, Obersees Aristotle'sstrategy n the Politics as oneof convertingradical nto immanentcriticism."Aristotle .. developeda capa-cious definition of democracy...inpartbecause doing so mightmake the practi-cal political reformer'sjob that much easier. Defining a broadspectrumofsociopolitical arrangements s 'democracy'allowed whatmightbe regardedasrevolutionary hanges to be subsumedunder herubricof internal onstitutionaladjustments"338). I would make hispointslightly differently. Inotonlywouldbut have in "Politics III and the Incompletenessof the Normative,"AncientPhilosophy,18 (1998): 381-416.) Only withpartialconceptions,suchas corruptdemocracies, s a constitutionone formas opposedto others,andonly then is itone form amongothers. The principleof democracyco-exists, in a good state,with theprinciplesof polity, oligarchyandaristocracy.I wonder, too, whetherAristotle'sdemocracy s not so different rom demo-craticpracticeas Oberdescribesit to raise furtherproblemsthatOberdoes notconsider.Aristotle'sdemocracyis no moregovernmentby discussion thananyotherform of government.In the Rhetoric he says that laws should decide asmuch aspossible, leavingfordecisionin assembliesand courtsonly those thingsthe laws cannot determine.Democracies ruledby law have no more discussionandpublic debatethanoligarchiesruledby law, and democracieswithout lawhave no more discussion thanoligarchies without law. Whogets to speak is ofcourse more inclusive underdemocracy,but the place of discussion and delib-erationin rule is the same. The argument or democracyis in terms of betterjudgments emerging from collective discussion, but democracyas Aristotlede-scribes it is as governed by the political science of the legislatoras is any goodpolis. The key distinction is betweengovernmentsof laws and governmentsofmen, not between democracy and otherforms of rule.Ober sees each of his authorsas engagedin a dialogue with democracy,andalso with other critics in "competitivestrugglesfor primacywithin the criticalcommunity" 250). He acknowledges thatonly Isocratesis explicit about such



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REVIEWS 97competitive ambitions.I do not find it a very productivehypothesis to assumethat all these writers are trying to find a niche withina critical debate. It leads,among other things, to the far too frequentreadingsof Aristotlewhich simplyassumethat his corpus s a responseto Plato.Inthat case, one of the drawbacksof such an assumption s that t occludesthe few times whenAristotle explicitlyformulateshis own theses throughcontrast o or refutationof Plato. The relationof Aristotle to Plato apart, hese various writings may well all enter into dia-logue withdemocracy,but thediversityof ways in which theydo so is lost in theassumption hat they all see themselves "asexistingwithin andcontendingwitha matrix of critical voices" (250). The developmentof the genres of history,philosophyandAristophanicomediesas ways of responding odemocracy eemsto me a richer way of depictingthese voices than as simple competitorsfor anaudience.Ober thinks that Aristotle succeeded in "transcend[ing]he environmentofdemocraticAthens, the establishedconcernsof Athens' criticalcommunity,andthe dichotomy between immanentand rejectionist criticism." He also thinksthat his success in establishingAristotelianpolitical science had as a cost theobscuring of "the rhetoricalandideological underpinnings f Atheniandemoc-racy and the motivations of earlierGreek political writing critical of democ-racy"(350). One of themainpurposesof this book, one on whichObersucceedsbrilliantly,is "to recuperateboth a specifically Athenian democraticpoliticalexperience and a 'pre-Aristotelian'way of thinkingcriticallyabout democraticpolitics in a specifically Atheniancontext"(350-1).Ober'sdiscussion of "democratic nowledge"makesme wonderabout"demo-cratic ignorance."Thereare "facts" hat are invisible to a democracy,unavail-able forpersuasionand udgment.Some of them we todaycall privacy.Buttherejection of esotericismin the name of equalityis an assertionof democraticignorance. The resistanceto professionalrhetoric n the name of equality,thebar on writtenspeeches and on professionalrepresentation,hese areforms ofdemocratic gnorance.OneexamplethatObercites is the democratic gnoranceof social inequalityandancestry hrough hemythof autochthony,anignoranceexposed by the Socraticmyth of autochthony.That is a mode of democraticignorance with obvious parallelstoday.We might think about the things thatcannot be mentioned, let alone deliberatedabout,in our democracy:whetherthere areconnections between race andcrime,or what to make of the differentvalues we put on human ife in asbestosclean-ups,seat-belts on school buses,reductions of infant mortality,or the legality of sports utility vehicles. I citedemocratic gnoranceasmerelyone suggestion orextendingthe rich and stimu-latingreadingsOber hasgiven us of Atheniandemocracyand its critics.

Eugene GarverRegents Professorof PhilosophySaint John's University

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