As I write this article in the dark, early morning, I hear the rain outside my window. It is, as they say, “music to my ears” during our current drought. A rain song. Recently, I was walking in our woods on a breezy day with my six-year-old grandnephew. I asked him to listen to the tree leaves in the wind. He was surprised to hear the noise as a song. A tree song. Water moving through our rocky streams and rivers can be lyrical. Musical. The shore waves of Lake Superior can be a gentle lapping or an operatic roar. I listen to nature.
I watch nature too. I see its beauty and its harshness. I learn from both aspects. Keen observation of beavers demonstrates effective family life as well as the necessity of preparing for the frozen landscape of winter. Deer teach wolves to be stealthy, while wolves teach deer to stay alert and quick. The deer and wolf teach me those lessons as well as to take only what is necessary to live. The fall migration of birds and elk from summer opportunity to winter protection is a lesson for anyone watching. Humans have always sought shelter, whether rock, cave, or skin tent, against the natural fact that all living beings are time-limited. It might be a year for the rabbit or thousands of years for the giant sequoia. Nature teaches us how to live within natural patterns in the time we exist with the earth.
Time-limited mortality. Perhaps it’s an archetypal fear of harsh winter that makes some people act as if there is “never enough”. Is that, in part, what moved humans into larger developed societies, basing survival on accumulated wealth and power instead of shared cave space and tent villages? Human evolution has survived because of belief and acting for the common good. Basic needs were shared so the community would be strong. The well-being of each member is what made for a healthy society. Food, shelter, medicine, and knowledge were freely shared in our past. In our modern world, these necessities are seen as profit centers. Exploitation of other humans is a way to accumulate massive wealth and power over those in need. This is a departure from natural ordered systems of taking only what is necessary. “Never enough” human-ordered systems are based on fear, greed, and ego.
At some point in human time, exploitation of great numbers of people was promoted as necessary to build the monuments and wealth of the powerful few. It was, and is, a literal pyramid scheme of the pinnacle being created and maintained by many disempowered, lower-class and/or enslaved humans. Notice the wording here—“upper” and “lower” as linguistic cues of access to wealth and power. Power “over”. Big people and little people. There are lots of words to describe the very few exploiting the very many. Rebellion against this imbalance was what sparked the first democracy in the Western world.
In the city-state of Athens, democracy began to form twenty-five hundred years ago. It is a fascinating history told in “Athens: Birth of Democracy,” first aired on April 29, 2026, on the PBS program NOVA Season 53, Episode 8, and well worth watching. At that time, nine “archons” were the principal magistrates of ancient Athens. They made all decisions for ruling Athens’ citizens, military, and economy. Their wealthy, all-powerful families maintained their privilege by any means necessary. Pushback by common people who had had enough tyranny formed a system they called “democracy,” a word combining “demos” (people) with “kratos” (power).
“Power of the people” had some very interesting and powerful elements designed into this new system. There were no career politicians. Rulers were randomly chosen by a machine called a “kleroterion” from all adult males with Athenian parents. These were mostly farmers. They were intentionally drawn equally from all regions of the state to create an extraordinary mixing of perspectives and ideas. They served just one year, when a new random selection was made. The only elected officials were the heads of the military, treasury, and water supply control.
This system gave no advantage to the wealthy or well-born citizens of Athens. In fact, Athenian democracy was designed to prevent elites from seizing real power. The randomly selected rulers were to work together to make things better for everyone. This was a return to the human ethic of the common good. A method was put in place to identify any person or persons who were seen as a threat to this new democracy. Once a year, citizens could write the name of a person they viewed as a threat on a pottery shard. These shards were tabulated, and if enough identified specific individuals, they were “ostracized” from Athens for five years. Our modern word is derived from the Greek “ostrakizein,” which means “to banish by voting with potsherds.” “Ostrakon” is Greek for potsherd.
There are a few key points in our American democracy that don’t fit the “power of the people” ethics of Athenian democracy. First and foremost, America has lost the ability to prevent true economic elites from seizing power. Money has become a greater political influence than the vote. Policies impacting all Americans are influenced and sometimes actually written by a select few wealthy individuals for their own advantage. In 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that corporations could spend unlimited money to influence election outcomes. This ruling created the equivalent of the Greek archons that ruled Athens before democracy. Billionaires are the American archons. They have seized power from American citizens.
We certainly have career politicians unlike ancient Athens. Elites like it that way, and so do the politicians. It is advantageous to both groups but a disadvantage to American society. Old ideas in changing times are one disadvantage. Long careers in politics leave no place for emerging young politicians to participate with their perspectives. The absolute stratification of ideals and backgrounds of privilege is a tremendous deficit to an effective democracy empowering all citizens. The common good that Athens sought to effect has been replaced in American politics with personal and corporate privileges of wealth and power. American archons and American oligarchs are supported by career politicians. Term limits in US politics would approximate the yearly turnover of rulers in ancient Greece.
Perhaps the most dangerous of our departures from the original democracy is not dealing with threats to our democracy. The US governmental system has lost its nerve to banish a convicted felon, liar, grifter, and literal destroyer of the people’s property who sits in the White House. The legislative bodies in Washington, DC rarely use their power of censure and/or removal of members who blatantly break their oath to defend the Constitution of the United States in favor of a cult party following at the expense of their constituents.
These are individuals who clearly threaten American democracy and its citizenry. We don’t vote with pottery sherds anymore but with paper ballots. Come this fall and then again in 2028, don’t mark the names of these seriously threatening individuals, but mark the names of someone who loves the American experiment with democracy in its purest form. Power of the people.
