Why is tyranny important

But they loved to see plays depicting tyrants on stage. These rulers typically do not listen to advice or expert opinion. They are afraid of being overthrown, and so they construe unwelcome news as part of a conspiracy to destroy them. These tyrant traits are a kind of cognitive disability. This is as true today as it was years ago. When I ask my students—who range from year-olds to middle aged mid-career executives—to write about bad times they have had with authority figures, at least two-thirds of them write about people who would not listen.

They might write about a boss or a coach or a band director or even a parent, but the pain is the same: If these people would only listen to us, we might improve the product, or start winning games, or whatever. And they make terrible mistakes, of which the most painful is punishing people unjustly. Ancient Greek plays illustrate these themes brilliantly. These rulers had begun as populists, but their rule ended after a scandal involving sexual abuse—the younger of two tyrant brothers tried to use his power to force a boy to have sex with him.

The boy and his lover assassinated the tyrant and were themselves killed. The older tyrant brother lived on and ruled a few more years but was put down with help from Sparta.

There we see that Oedipus has done well by the city of Thebes; he is proud of his intelligence, and he loves to tell people what a genius he is. Now the city faces a new crisis—a plague. In those days, people believed that plagues were the result of violations of religious rules.

They had in mind the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit. Much of the succeeding political debate in the United States has concerned the problem of tyranny within American society: over slaves and women, for example.

It is thus a primary American tradition to consider history when our political order seems imperiled. If we worry today that the American experiment is threatened by tyranny, we can follow the example of the Founding Fathers and contemplate the history of other democracies and republics.

The good news is that we can draw upon more recent and relevant examples than ancient Greece and Rome. The bad news is that the history of modern democracy is also one of decline and fall. Many of the democracies founded at these junctures failed, in circumstances that in some important respects resemble our own.

History can familiarize, and it can warn. In the late 19th century, just as in the late 20th century, the expansion of global trade generated expectations of progress. In the early 20th century, as in the early 21st, these hopes were challenged by new visions of mass politics in which a leader or a party claimed to directly represent the will of the people. The law is reason unaffected by desire.

In addition to law, Aristotle believed a large middle class would protect against the excesses of oligarchy and democracy:. This type of state arises when the middle class is strong. They separated the powers of government into three equal branches of government: the executive the president , the legislative Congress , and the judicial the Supreme Court.

Each branch can check the other to prevent corruption or tyranny. Congress itself is divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House, elected for two-year terms, is more likely to be swayed by the passions of the people than the Senate, elected to six-year terms. The Constitution further limits the powers of the government by listing its powers: The government may not exercise any power beyond those listed. In creating the judicial branch of government, the framers gave federal judges lifetime terms, thus ensuring that judges would base their decisions on the law and not on politics.

Do you agree? Which ideas of Aristotle? At the end of their lives, Socrates and Aristotle faced a similar situation. In your opinion, who made the correct decision?

In this activity, students will examine and discuss political quotations from Plato and Aristotle. Divide the class into small groups. Assign one of the quotations to each group. Each group should:. Be prepared to report your answers and reasons for them to the class. If you have extra time, discuss another quotation.

The best laws, though sanctioned by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution. If the poor. But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers?

And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people—is this just? Alumni Volunteers The Boardroom Alumni. Curriculum Materials.

Add Event. Main Menu Home. Tyranny and the Rule of Law Plato and Aristotle both developed important ideas about government and politics. Plato c. But such a state will fall apart: The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law? An oligarchy, the rule of a few the rich , leads to a city of the rich and a city of the poor, dwelling together, and always plotting against one another.

The poor see the rich plotting, and they seek protection: The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. Plato concluded: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one,.

Aristotle — B. Aristotle made the same argument about oligarchies. The U. Plato, one of the earliest thinkers and writers about democracy, predicted that letting people govern themselves would eventually lead the masses to support the rule of tyrants.

When I tell my college-level philosophy students that in about B. But looking at the modern political world, it seems much less far-fetched to me now. In democratic nations like Turkey, the U.