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two elements in this post:
wonderwench: as for the language i write in---well, it is a shorthand---nothing i can do if you find it alienating. given that this is a board, i dont find myself with any choice about writing in shorthand. most of the references i make and the arguments i try to work out from them or around them, however, are quite precise--i long ago learned about using this gambit without being able to back it up. so why not try taking on an actual argument or two---i levelled a basic critique of your position, and you did not respond. feel free to, however.
art--the way in whihc athenian democracy defined the polis and the way in which the polis worked are seperable--as for the former, the restriction of the polis to male property-holders would obviously have to be done away with if anything beyond a normative claims based on direct democracy could ever be made---the question of thinking about what went on inside the polis is a different matter--most of the general points that i think important about it are laid out in the previous, longer post (there are others as well....). there has been quite a bit of work in recent years on athenian democracy, much of it interesting--vidal-naquet, rene leveque and cornelius castoriadis have all written extensively on it, from different viewpoints--jean-pierre vernant's work is quite cool as well. all are or were (castoriadis died several years ago) interested in both looking at the content of athenian democracy as a political question and in historical terms.
often the split i argue for gets criticized, and the arguments for rejecting that split are varied--i'll hold off on proactively saying anything about it, maybe react later if it comes up.
i have been involved with thinking about these matters for some time, more from the political than historical perspectives--i find that conflict over the meaning of democracy is interesting, and that understood in the way i advocate, it becomes quite the opposite of how it is currently used--it becomes the basis for a quite withering critique of the existing state of affairs. i sometimes think that the right ideologues sense this-- which is why i find them fleeing the idea of democracy--except when it comes to lying about war........
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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