Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Justice to the Dead: Prototypes of the Citizen and Self in Early Greece
- 2 Performing Justice in Early Greece: Dispute Settlement in the Iliad
- 3 Self-Transformation and the Therapy of Justice in the Odyssey
- 4 Performing the Law: The Lawgiver, Statute Law, and the Jury Trial
- 5 Citizenship by Degrees: Ephebes and Demagogues in Democratic Athens, 465–460
- 6 The Naturalization of Citizen and Self in Democratic Athens, 450–411
- 7 Democracy's Narcissistic Citizens: Alcibiades and Socrates
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
6 - The Naturalization of Citizen and Self in Democratic Athens, 450–411
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Justice to the Dead: Prototypes of the Citizen and Self in Early Greece
- 2 Performing Justice in Early Greece: Dispute Settlement in the Iliad
- 3 Self-Transformation and the Therapy of Justice in the Odyssey
- 4 Performing the Law: The Lawgiver, Statute Law, and the Jury Trial
- 5 Citizenship by Degrees: Ephebes and Demagogues in Democratic Athens, 465–460
- 6 The Naturalization of Citizen and Self in Democratic Athens, 450–411
- 7 Democracy's Narcissistic Citizens: Alcibiades and Socrates
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
in our discussion of aeschylus' suppliants we've seen that tragedy invites its spectators to deliberate as both citizens and as noncivic members of a wider, more hypothetical community, the human race. We've seen too that the trilogy prompts spectators to reason differently as members of each community. Citizen deliberation favors a reason giving that uses shared teleological and normative criteria to determine collective self-interest, often by separating the citizen self from others. Reasoning as a human being, however, relies more on an individual's ability to evaluate subjective (or “dramaturgical”) criteria by withdrawing into the self, making cognitive use of such powerful emotions as compassion, shame/respect, and fear, and temporarily identifying with others. And in an age when popular sovereignty was beginning to flex its ideological muscle (470s–60s), the Danaid trilogy seems to suggest that a community's well-being may depend on how wisely citizens, guided by their leaders, oscillate between these two deliberative experiences. Apparently, in the age of popular sovereignty some Athenians like Aeschylus sensed that, when citizens experience emotions individually and use them to reason about public affairs, they may be blinded to what lies in the city-state's interest.
In Chapter 4 I noted a similar anxiety about how citizens make decisions during the script of the jury trial.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Citizen and Self in Ancient GreeceIndividuals Performing Justice and the Law, pp. 424 - 470Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006