【哲学的故事·柏拉图】E07 民主与强权

2019-03-25

CHAPTER ONE: Plato I. The Context of Plato

【卢梭的观点】One, like Rousseau, argued that nature is good, and civilization bad; that by nature all men are equal, becoming unequal only by class-made institutions; and that law is an invention of the strong to chain and rule the weak. 

【尼采的观点】Another school, like Nietzsche, claimed that nature is beyond good and evil; that by nature all men are unequal; that morality is an invention of the weak to limit and deter the strong; that power is the supreme virtue, and the supreme desire of man; and that of all forms of government the wisest and most natural is aristocracy.

No doubt【引起句子的好方式】 this attack on democracy reflected（前面是事实，后面是观点） the rise of a wealthy minority（富裕的少数派） at Athens which called itself the Oligarchical Party（寡头政治）, and denounced（批评，词根noun表示“声音”，denounce表示“说不好的话”） democracy as an incompetent sham（虚伪）. 

In a sense there was not much democracy to denounce; for of the 400,000 inhabitants of Athens 250,000 were slaves, without political rights of any kind（用于强调 ）: and of the 150,000 freemen or citizens only a small number presented themselves at the Ecclesia, or general assembly（公民大会）, where the policies of the state were discussed and determined. Yet what democracy they had was as thorough as never（基本上等于没有） since the general assembly was the supreme power; and the highest official body, the Dikasteria, or supreme court, consisted of over a thousand members (to make bribery expensive), selected by alphabetical rote from the roll of all the citizens. 

No institution could have been more democratic, nor, said its opponents, more absurd.（省略使句子简洁）