"R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" wrote:

>
> As for democracy, I've never seen it. A friend of mine who teaches
> classics is preparing (or at least would like to prepare) a paper on
> Athenian democracy in the raw. His conclusion so far is that our
> historical knowledge of democracy comes from Athenian writers who
> actually despised democracy.

You really should read Ellen Meiksins Wood, *Peasant-Citizen & Slave:
The Foundations of Athenian Democracy* (London & New York:
Verso, 1989). You are of course correct about the sources of our
knowledge of Athenian democracy -- and without the hatred that
democracy inspired in its opponents "western philosophy" as we know
it would not exist. Just once, and once only, did Plato allow an opponent
to speak -- in the reply of Protagoras to the proto-fascist Socrates,
in the dialogue of that name. Plato's usual (deliberate?) distortion or
subversion of his opponents is best illustrated in that (in)famous debate
between Thrasymachus and Socrates in the *Republic*. It would be
hard to recognize from the words Plato gives to Thrasymachus that
the latter is a defender of Athenian democracy -- the key point of which
is that it was won by peasant struggle *against* an aristocracy, not
created by by an Aristocracy (as was u.s. democracy) for the specific
purpose of preventing the development of popular struggles. One might
say without too much exaggeration that the heart and soul of the U.S.
Constitution is to prevent the occurrence of such events as Shay's
Rebellion. Read Madison's Federalist No. 10 and its hatred of
"faction" (i.e., democracy in the Athenian sense).

Carrol