Thornton Ch. 7 Birth of Freedom

1. Thesis: Political freedom is dependent on consensual government; an ideal to be actively pursued and the subject of analysis. Variants: freedom as community independence; personal freedom to live as you please (warriors); civic freedom to participate in public life; philosophical freedom of the soul to act rationally. Note also: freedom's potentially destructive consequences --also a product of Greek reflection.
2. Argument
   1. Distinction between Greek and barbarian: absolute power of king (obeisance). Free men make better warriors because they are citizen soldiers fighting for their families, themselves, property, rather than to promote the schemes of others. "while the Athenians were oppressed under a despotic govt, they had no better success at war than any of their neighbors, yet, once the yoke was flung off, they proved the finest fighters in the world." [166]
   2. Perspectives on Freedom
      1. Freedom: to live as one wants, "we live exactly as we please" [169] so Pericles / Thucydides...right to privacy. {note that in an earlier chapter he stresses that the state is legitimately involved in familial matters}. Free speech and political equality connect. Without it there would not have been greek tragedy, for the dramatist was free not just to address sensitive political issues but to criticize the city and its policies [170 ]. Note quote on 171 from Dover on treatment of politicians.Yet the city did nothing to rein in the insulting language. Humor as criticism.
      2. [174] True freedom lies not in doing as one likes, or even in enjoying political rights, but in living a temperate, autonomous life that avoids pain and disorder of the irrational -- Epicurean; make rational choices and perform actions ... in accordance with nature -- Stocism. Only by stripping away all the artificial demands and customs and goods of social and political life could one achieve true freedom and self-sufficiency -- Cynicism
   3. Criticism of freedom:
      1. freedom validates egocentric license and indugence of appetites to the detriment of the body politic [176-7], for "democracy "never gives a thought to the pursuites which make a statesman, and which promotes to honor any one who professes to be the people's friend" "Freedom to do what one will produces useless and unnecessary pleasures." so Plato / Socrates, and vulnerable to demogoges.
      2. Consider this:
         1. the people "do not want a good government under which they themselves are slaves; they want to be free and to rule. Bad government is of little concern to them" [178].
         2. or..."...nature herself intimates...that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior"
         3. free speech is useless if those speaking and listening do not have the intelligence or virtue or education to know what to say or when to say it --qualities only few will possess[181]
   4. Reality:
      1. Greeks did not consider free speech an "inalienable right" or appropriate for all [182]. Had slaves, enslaved enemies, admitted to being tyranical
      2. in lit choice usually means the freedom to fail gloriously, to suffer and to die.
   5. Obligations to the state:
      1. Quote on [183]. we all belong to the state...Plato as the first fascist.
      2. mandatory military service
      3. liturgies
      4. legitimate marriage; laws against adultery...that the family was a concern of the state.
      5. ostracism
      6. male citizens could not address assembly if they were prostitutes; or charged for neglect of parents, or who had avoided military service, had squandered their patrimony [185]