There are many people who trace the concept of equality back to the ancient Greeks. But when you examine their concept of equality, you can see it was no such thing in practice,
“When
it comes to discussing the origins of the concept of structuring society along
the lines of equality Creveld takes us to ancient Greece. Greece is famous for
its attempt to establish egalitarian societies. But while equality was an idea
that the Greeks toyed with, it is something they never really achieved, in fact
they did not even come close. For example, we are told of Agamemnon, a King
during the time of the Illiad, that his “tents are full of copper and many
choice captive women.” And while the city states of the classical period gave
the population more rights and more of a say in the decisions of the city, they
did not enfranchise the slaves, or the women, or even other Greeks. The Greeks
may have invented democracy, but they did not really achieve equality. Let’s
have a look at the two most notable attempts to do so, in the city states of
Sparta and Athens.
The
Spartan way of life was based on an extreme, almost monkish, form of equality
among the Spartan warrior class; the Spartiates. From the age of seven to the
grave their life was one of frugal living, devoted to military pursuits, and
based on a harsh form of enforced equality.
“Such
was the importance Lycurgus attributed to equality that it applied even to
death. Not only did he prohibit any kind of objects to be buried with their
owners, but tombs were not supposed to carry the names of their occupants. The
only exceptions to this rule were men who had been killed in battle and women
who had died in childbirth.”[1]
I
love that the Spartans regarded mothers as honourable as warriors, but, as with
all other attempts at establishing a society based on equality, Sparta never
really reached its goals:
“In
all this, the major deviations from equality were the fact that private
individuals could not speak in the assembly; that only old men could be elected
to the Senate; and that the kingship was hereditary and limited to members of
just two families, the Agiads and the Eurypontids. When somebody asked Lycurgus
about this his response, presented as a typical example of “Laconian” brevity
and pungency, was to tell the man to ‘go and first establish democracy in your
own household.’”[2]
Even
the supposed lifestyle of frugal and brutal equality that the Spartan men
enjoyed, if ‘enjoyed’ is the right word, rested on the massive slave labour
force they were able to bring to bear to maintain their society. While the
helots, the Spartan slave labourers, toiled in the fields, and the perioikoi
toiled in the house, the Spartan men could dedicate themselves to military
training.[3]
There is also their famous and disgusting treatment of infants they considered
not “equal” enough, which were either killed or raised as slaves. Spartan
equality really was not a form of equality at all, but a monkish military
elitism, that placed one class of men much higher than everyone else on the
hierarchy.
Athens,
is the other notable example of pretensions of equality in the ancient world.
Under a leader called Solon, the Athenians began to propose the idea of
equality before the law, isonomia, even at one point setting all
Athenians free from debts and servitude, in an attempt to bring more equality
to the Athenian people.
“The
move did not mean that slavery was abolished. Both Athenian individuals and the
state could, and would, continue to own slaves. What changed was the fact that the slaves
in question could not be Athenian citizens. From this point on, in other words,
all Athenian citizens were, by definition, free.”[4]
But
even these free and “equal” citizens were not really equal. The Athenian people
were separated into different classes by Solon, based on wealth and status,
with only people of certain ranks being allowed to enter respective positions
of power.[5]
Indeed, “…some modern historians have argued that, at this time, isonomia meant
no more than equality among aristocrats.”[6]
Then, as now it seems, the elites used cries of “equality, liberty, fraternity”
to gain more power for themselves, or to put it another way; equality for some
but not for others.”
As you can see the Greek concept of
equality was really a form of elitism dressed up as equality. In reality it was
no form of equality at all, but was a system designed to maintain the absolute
power of a small group of men, for their benefit, and what they may or may not
have believed was best for their city or people as a whole.
Many philosophers and democracy advocates look back to the Greeks as the philosophical foundation of modern egalitarianism. Which you can really only do if you don’t honestly evaluate the way the Greeks actually structured their societies. Though, modern elites do use equality as a pretext to secure power for a small group of which they are the beneficiaries, so there is that similarity.
In contrast with this mindset is that of the medieval jurists, whom I much prefer. Rather than being obsessed with equality,
“Medieval
minds were fascinated, captivated by an alternate vision – the vision of
hierarchy. In real life they were ruled by hierarchies of government in church
and state. But beyond this they perceived the whole universe as a great
hierarchal chain of being. From God authority flowed to an angelical hierarchy
in heaven to an ecclesiastical hierarchy on earth…To medieval men, divinely
ordained hierarchy seemed, not just an abstract theory, but an observable fact
of nature.”[7]
This
most certainly is an observable fact of nature. Everywhere we go, amongst
people or creatures great and small, we observe hierarchies in action, they are
unavoidable. This is not an argument for absolute tyranny either. The medieval
thinkers were onto something when they sought to establish God given or natural
rights, and limits and responsibilities of power. There is much good in their
arguments there, and we would be foolish to reject all of the grand nobility of
medieval thought, just because we are quibbling with one very minor aspect of
it. Chaucer captures the medieval understanding of why God ordained hierarchy,
and shows us why it is a noble aspect of the world that should be preserved,
not rejected,
“Now,
as I have said, since it was because sin was the first cause of thralldom, then
it stands thus: that all the while all the world was in sin, it was in
thralldom and subjection. But certainly, since the time of grace came, God
ordained that some folk should be higher in rank and state and some folk lower,
and that each should be served according to his rank and his state… but in as
much as the estate of Holy Church might not have come into being, nor the
common advantage kept, nor any peace and rest established on earth, unless God
had ordained that some men should have higher rank and some lower: therefore
was sovereignty ordained to guard and maintain and defend its underlings or its
subjects within reason and so far as lies in its power, and not to destroy or
to confound them.”[8]
The Greeks used the rhetoric of
equality to justify a small segment of society holding all of the power. If
this sounds familiar, it is because this is very much what modern elites do, as we noted above.
They make pretensions of equality but in reality they are seeking to maintain
their own positions of power and authority for their own benefit.
In contrast the medievalists are open
and honest about their preference for hierarchy, but they see in hierarchy both
the image of God and the genius of God. God has ordained the strong that they
may defend the weak, and he has ordained that we should honour those who are
over us. Give honour unto to whom it is due, as Paul would say. It is not an accident that in hell no one is honoured.
Both the Greek system and the Medieval
system were in practice hierarchies. But the medievalist system is far more
honest and open about the good reasons for hierarchy, and the responsibilities
which the powerful have to use their power for just ways. They may not have
always done this in practice, no society is perfect, but at least the philosophy
of the medievalists was that all people exist under God and will be judged by
him for how we use our power. So, don’t deny power, but use it justly.
But this is also why it was the medievalists who developed the idea of human or natural rights, because these rights flowed out of the network of responsibilities connected to the roles people had in the hierarchy. Greek equality could not lay such a foundation. It did make use of slaves, though, of course. Notice how our modern egalitarian cultures are always chasing cheap foreign labour? That's not a coincidence. The people at the top feel no loyalty to the people below. Whereas, a medieval Lord had a God given role to protect his charges. Which many leaders took seriously. And no peasants were not slaves. They had rights.
We live in an age which despises
hierarchy. To some degree we are all affected by this. Especially here in
Australia, but also in other parts of the West. But the world was created to be
hierarchical, any claims to the contrary are simply dishonest. Hierarchy
is both observed and also a necessity for a healthy society. We should look
more and more to the medievalists, we might learn some important things.
(Both large blocks of quotes in this
article come from a new book I am writing).
List of References
[1] Van
Creveld, Martin, 2015. Equality: The Impossible Quest. Castalia House,
Finland. Kindle Edition. Chapter 2
[2]
Ibid. Chapter 2.
[3]
Ibid. Chapter 2.
[4]
Ibid. Chapter 2.
[5]
Ibid. Chapter 2.
[6]
Ibid. Chapter 2.
[7]
Tierney, Brian, 1982. Religion, Law and the Growth of Constitutional Thought,
Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge; Pp42-43.
[8]
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 2017, The Canterbury Tales, JKL Classics Publishers,
Kindle Edition; p516
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