Strengths And Weaknesses of Athenian Democracy The impact of Greek civilization on the development of modern Western civilization cannot be overstated, as it was one of the strongest proponents of many important traditions in today’s era. One of these included a sense of patriotism to one’s country, or in this case, one’s city-state. The Greeks from each city-state felt their identity was tied to their city-state and had a strong desire to participate in politics to achieve “the good life.” Designated spaces for public discussion emerged and each city-state developed a strong sense of community. In particular, the city-state of Athens developed a form of government called democracy, which put the citizens in charge of rule. Athens is considered …show more content…
Due to the perception of one’s influence on the city state being part of Athens’ take on “the good life”, there was quite an emphasis on preparing oneself for political participation. The Sophists would regularly teach Athenians skills they needed in order to engage in politics properly (Regent University). The Sophists were not necessarily interested in making any particular city-state better by teaching political language and debate tactics to ambitious individuals, only in increasing the practicality of political debate (Regent University). This drew critics to accuse them of causing many problems present in the already flawed democratic system and the “unnecessary” freedoms granted to certain …show more content…
The only reason “democracy” in its current form survives is due to the massive amount of reforms that have been adopted over the years that civilization has evolved. Athenian democracy was quite remarkable for its time, but it was supported greatly by the geography of the Greek city-states and their long-standing ideals of arete and how to live “the good life.” Especially in countries such as the United States, with its massive size and heavily divided state of politics, the Athenian system would serve the nation very little, if at all. Some of the strengths of democracy that supported the Athenian city-state in becoming arguably the most successful Greek civilization and founding the system that spread worldwide would almost serve detrimental to any modern civilization; this could include the close community aspect of Athens becoming more of a “mob rule” in a modern United States. It can even be argued that some of these aspects are present and do, in fact, weaken certain