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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Giving democracy a bad name</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Franlin W. Knight
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Franlin W. Knight</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Excessive use of anything invariably results in depreciation. This holds true for mechanical instruments as for words. The popular expression "It is not the chronology but the mileage" applies to many things in life. It means that some things can be prematurely aged like excessive mileage on a recently bought motor car, or a soccer player's knees.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Excessive word usage leads to confusion and triteness. One word being used excessively nowadays and which is imperfectly understood is democracy. Indeed, excessive usage is rapidly giving democracy a bad connotation in today's political world.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Words in living languages inevitably undergo transformation. Anyone can easily think of any number of words that have developed radically new meanings during their own relatively short life experience. Only a few years ago, a happy person was described as being gay, as in a jolly fellow. Grass was something mowed, not smoked. Radical referred to politics and sweet implied sucrose content.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Languages are, after all, organic constructs that manifest their versatility and functional utility by the inherent capacity to change constantly in order to facilitate better verbal communication.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Not only are new words being created and incorporated into daily speech, but old words morph, giving new meanings the way old wine can morph into vinegar. Originally, a plantation represented a religious community. By the 17th century, the Caribbean experience converted the meaning to an agro-industrial complex.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Before the Spanish established colonies in the New World, creoles referred to animals born in the high mountain pastures and maroons were cattle that escaped from the herd. New colonial circumstances transformed the original meanings of many words in the course of the European experience in the wider world.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The word democracy entered the English language sometime during the 16th century from the French word, démocratie. The French got it from two Greek words: demos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning rule. In the small Greek city states, it was possible for all adults to participate in the day-to-day government of the state. The highest form of this Greek development probably took place in Athens during the fifth century.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Athenian democracy equated state and society and infused liberty, respect for the law, and equal applicability of justice among all citizens. Citizenship was restricted to property-owning and highly educated free males. Women, minors and slaves were excluded. The Athenian concept percolated through the ages and became especially attractive to European intellectuals during the 18th century Enlightenment.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The principal problem of democracies from the time of the Greeks until the present lies in defining who constitute the people, and how the wishes of the people become expressed through just laws that provide the greatest good to the broadest majority. To the Romans, the ideals of Greek democracy were best represented by the republic and later the empire, but in neither case did the concept include rights for non-citizens, females, minors, or the mentally deranged among the lower orders. Then, as now, the wealthy and the powerful
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Franlin W. Knight
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Franlin W. Knight</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Excessive use of anything invariably results in depreciation. This holds true for mechanical instruments as for words. The popular expression "It is not the chronology but the mileage" applies to many things in life. It means that some things can be prematurely aged like excessive mileage on a recently bought motor car, or a soccer player's knees.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Excessive word usage leads to confusion and triteness. One word being used excessively nowadays and which is imperfectly understood is democracy. Indeed, excessive usage is rapidly giving democracy a bad connotation in today's political world.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Words in living languages inevitably undergo transformation. Anyone can easily think of any number of words that have developed radically new meanings during their own relatively short life experience. Only a few years ago, a happy person was described as being gay, as in a jolly fellow. Grass was something mowed, not smoked. Radical referred to politics and sweet implied sucrose content.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Languages are, after all, organic constructs that manifest their versatility and functional utility by the inherent capacity to change constantly in order to facilitate better verbal communication.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Not only are new words being created and incorporated into daily speech, but old words morph, giving new meanings the way old wine can morph into vinegar. Originally, a plantation represented a religious community. By the 17th century, the Caribbean experience converted the meaning to an agro-industrial complex.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Before the Spanish established colonies in the New World, creoles referred to animals born in the high mountain pastures and maroons were cattle that escaped from the herd. New colonial circumstances transformed the original meanings of many words in the course of the European experience in the wider world.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The word democracy entered the English language sometime during the 16th century from the French word, démocratie. The French got it from two Greek words: demos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning rule. In the small Greek city states, it was possible for all adults to participate in the day-to-day government of the state. The highest form of this Greek development probably took place in Athens during the fifth century.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Athenian democracy equated state and society and infused liberty, respect for the law, and equal applicability of justice among all citizens. Citizenship was restricted to property-owning and highly educated free males. Women, minors and slaves were excluded. The Athenian concept percolated through the ages and became especially attractive to European intellectuals during the 18th century Enlightenment.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The principal problem of democracies from the time of the Greeks until the present lies in defining who constitute the people, and how the wishes of the people become expressed through just laws that provide the greatest good to the broadest majority. To the Romans, the ideals of Greek democracy were best represented by the republic and later the empire, but in neither case did the concept include rights for non-citizens, females, minors, or the mentally deranged among the lower orders. Then, as now, the wealthy and the powerful