In 431 B.C., the Greek historian Thucydides recorded a funeral oration given by the great statesman Pericles. Unlike a typical eulogy, the speech memorialized Athenian democracy in what many have called its golden age.
During this speech, Pericles offered a relatively novel idea about just how expansive participation in public life could be. “If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences,” he said.
But if someone didn’t have social standing, Pericles argued, advancing in public life relies on that person’s “reputation for capacity,” with “class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.”
In ancient times, the idea that class and poverty didn’t disqualify a person from enjoying certain civic freedoms was a radical belief. Over a thousand years later, a group of New England revolutionaries would begin marking the path to the same sort of ideal, convincing people to join their cause by disseminating their ideas through pamphlets like Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.”
These open attempts at persuasion are a hallmark of both American and Greek systems. And yet, they sometimes seem at odds with peacemaking approaches centered on listening and understanding.
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