IN PLACE OF LOYALTY FRIENDSHIP AND ADVERSARY POLITICS IN CLASSICAL GREECE

The ancient Greeks who invented democracy had no concept that matches our concept of loyalty. No word in their language can be reliably translated by the English word. Nothing like loyalty occurs on any list of virtues that has come down to us from classical Greece; the nearest virtue is reverence (...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLoyalty p. 39
Main Author PAUL WOODRUFF
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published NYU Press 10.05.2013
Subjects
Ancient Greece
Anthropology
Armed conflict
Arts
Behavioral sciences
Citizenship
City states
Civics
Civil wars
Classical antiquity
Criminal justice
Criminal law
Criminal punishment
Democracy
Ethnography
Ethnology
European history
European studies
Exile
Friendship
Government
Human geography
Interpersonal relations
Judicial system
Law
Legal declarations
Legal proceedings
Military science
Music
Music theory
Oaths
Performing arts
Political debate
Political geography
Political processes
Political regimes
Political science
Political systems
Politics
Psychology
Social psychology
Social sciences
Sovereign states
Tonal harmony
Tonal theory
War
War theaters
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Summary:The ancient Greeks who invented democracy had no concept that matches our concept of loyalty. No word in their language can be reliably translated by the English word. Nothing like loyalty occurs on any list of virtues that has come down to us from classical Greece; the nearest virtue is reverence (to hosion), which requires, among many other things, the keeping of oaths but does not bind a political community together. By contrast, loyalty figures so prominently among the virtues in the classical Chinese tradition that one famousAnalectof Confucius (4.15) entwines it in the single thread of ethics.¹
ISBN:9780814785935
081478593X