Frederic Raphael risks the wrath of the post-truth brigade, reminding us of the Second Trireme
By what process did Sky TV arrive at the decision to call a weekly so-called “debate” by the title “The Pledge”? The term’s most notable usage was, at one time, to denote a decision of abstinence from alcohol. Then again, the word “debate” implied a discussion in which some at least of the participants listened to the others. Sky’s notion of a debate is that one panellist delivers a monologue, after which the others all talk at once.
Among the regulars is Greg Dyke, performer of many parts: as B.B.C. director-general and chairman of the F.A., he has been everywhere, rarely for very long or with any great distinction, save when he began by saving TV-a.m. from a not necessarily regrettable eclipse. His contributions to The Pledge are delivered in the you-know-me-chums style of the unspoiled neo-grandee. Recently, he delivered a piece in which he sympathised with UKIP voters who, although they numbered more than three million countrywide, had only one M.P. According to Dyke, Proportional Representation would be much more “democratic”. Those with keen ears may have noticed that modern pronunciation now favours “dim-ocracy”; the long “e” was integral to the ancient Athenian version, but has now been curtailed (in demotic Greek no less than in English mass-speak). The notion that democracy was a Greek “invention” is part of the intellectual took-kit of the all-you-need-to-know-in-sixty-seconds of modern education. Democracy was, in truth, an expedient, never a theory or a morality. Its most effective agent was Cleisthenes, a not remarkably charismatic Athenian toff, who dismantled the old pressure groups, centred on local aristocratic fiefdoms, by creating “tribal” entities of mixed social and geographic elements. By high-minded gerrymandering, he made sure that no single interest could dominate the Assembly; fairness was irrelevant to the creation of pragmatic common purposes. As a result of Cleisthenes’ reforms, Athenian commercial and naval supremacy made the city the most successful in Hellas.
P.R. has never done anything but engender schematic political division and create political groups with the special interest of their own increased influence. Since P.R. requires lists of candidates from each political group, from which a percentage will be drafted into the House of Commons, it entails a centralised bureau to select, vet and grade candidates. None of these is ever likely to have direct allegiance to anybody except to those who accept their candidature. Local constituencies and common interests will no longer have leverage. Under P.R., Politicians come and go in accordance with their utility to whoever commands the caucus, whether it is the velvet-faced Farage or some smiling Adolf in the new Right Wing style. Greg Dyke has a B.A. in politics which, along with his classless pedigree, makes him our pundit for all seasons.
The notion, dear to Brexiteers, that democracy will be threatened by a change of mind on the part of the demos is evidence only that Some People think that they now have the country where they want it, even if the country no longer wants them. Dimocrats would have it that in a genuine democracy voters never change their minds, or should not be allowed to, especially when they have been gulled into not using them the first time.
The Athenian demos were schooled to delight in coups de théâtre. In 427 B.C.E., they voted, on Cleon’s advice, that the whole population of Mytilene, the principal city of Lesbos, should be put to death for rebelling against their hegemony. On the following day, on the motion of Diodotus (a speaker mentioned just once by Thucydides), the assembly was moved, as much by pragmatic as by humane considerations, to send a fast trireme to pursue the one that had already left with the death warrant. The second set of rowers (themselves members of the demos) bearing the reprieve arrived just in time pulled with such a will that they dead-heated with the one also rowed, with small enthusiasm, by a citizen crew. The idea that second thoughts are undemocratic has no worthy or antique precedent; it belongs to those who think they’ve got away with something and do not care to be challenged.