Transcript
A threads post saying "There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America's 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that's already been said." It has a reply saying "My local pub is older than your country".
When Greeks invented the term they stipulated only free men were able to vote. So depending on how you want to look at it, any country that allows free men to vote is a democracy. We've (modern people) just updated the terms of service to suit our current version of morality. We might decide our thinking outdated and misguided in the next 250 years and change things again. Hell we might even give trans people, women and people of colour equal rights to white men, you know, like legal protections and such. We might not try to suppress their votes... idk has anything actually changed since 1964 or did Americans just visit the moon?
Yeah words are a cultural construct, we're speaking modern English so I don't really care a ton about the word choices of philosophers 2500 years ago speaking a different language.
We should definitely make sure that our society provides rights for all, and work towards a truly representative democracy.
I think things have definitely changed since 1964.
When do you draw the line then? If 2500 and 250 years ago is too far back for theory and philosophy to apply, when does it?
I'm not saying their philosophy/theory doesn't apply, I'm just saying that what the word "democracy" meant to them is pretty irrelevant in a modern context. I wouldn't call apartheid South Africa a democracy, would you?