{"title":"《滑稽的民主:从古代雅典到美国共和国》作者:安格斯·弗莱彻","authors":"Robert C. Danisch","doi":"10.1353/CRC.2018.0028","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Modern democracy is a complex and contested idea. We can view it as a system of government that loosely describes most of the institutions of politics in the West, or we can view it as a way of life defined by the pursuit of freedom and equality. Both views may, in our moment, be under assault by various forms of demagoguery. We, in the West, seem to agree that whatever our view of democracy happens to be, its origins are in ancient Athens, and that the idea itself may need some revitalization in order to continue to meet the demands of our ever-changing sociopolitical landscape. Angus Fletcher’s Comic Democracies is both a look back at the historical origins of thinking about democracy and a set of suggestions for how we might best cultivate and improve our current democratic practices. This book begins with the contention that the origin of democracy is tied to the origin of comedy and that these ties require us to ask why the two developed together and what contemporary uses might be made of the connection between the two. To begin to develop a narrative that will answer those two questions, Fletcher makes a careful distinction between ancient and modern democracy that informs the argument of the book. He claims that modern democracy is “more principled” in its attempts to actively promote human rights and freedoms, while ancient democracy is “more pragmatic” in its attempts to alleviate hunger, poverty, and misery (3). In order, therefore, to promote modern democracy, we can borrow some of the ancient pragmatic techniques embodied in comedy to address some of the issues of our current predicament.","PeriodicalId":56165,"journal":{"name":"CANADIAN REVIEW OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE-REVUE CANADIENNE DE LITTERATURE COMPAREE","volume":"45 1","pages":"328 - 330"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/CRC.2018.0028","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Comic Democracies: From Ancient Athens to the American Republic by Angus Fletcher (review)\",\"authors\":\"Robert C. Danisch\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/CRC.2018.0028\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Modern democracy is a complex and contested idea. We can view it as a system of government that loosely describes most of the institutions of politics in the West, or we can view it as a way of life defined by the pursuit of freedom and equality. Both views may, in our moment, be under assault by various forms of demagoguery. We, in the West, seem to agree that whatever our view of democracy happens to be, its origins are in ancient Athens, and that the idea itself may need some revitalization in order to continue to meet the demands of our ever-changing sociopolitical landscape. Angus Fletcher’s Comic Democracies is both a look back at the historical origins of thinking about democracy and a set of suggestions for how we might best cultivate and improve our current democratic practices. This book begins with the contention that the origin of democracy is tied to the origin of comedy and that these ties require us to ask why the two developed together and what contemporary uses might be made of the connection between the two. To begin to develop a narrative that will answer those two questions, Fletcher makes a careful distinction between ancient and modern democracy that informs the argument of the book. He claims that modern democracy is “more principled” in its attempts to actively promote human rights and freedoms, while ancient democracy is “more pragmatic” in its attempts to alleviate hunger, poverty, and misery (3). 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Comic Democracies: From Ancient Athens to the American Republic by Angus Fletcher (review)
Modern democracy is a complex and contested idea. We can view it as a system of government that loosely describes most of the institutions of politics in the West, or we can view it as a way of life defined by the pursuit of freedom and equality. Both views may, in our moment, be under assault by various forms of demagoguery. We, in the West, seem to agree that whatever our view of democracy happens to be, its origins are in ancient Athens, and that the idea itself may need some revitalization in order to continue to meet the demands of our ever-changing sociopolitical landscape. Angus Fletcher’s Comic Democracies is both a look back at the historical origins of thinking about democracy and a set of suggestions for how we might best cultivate and improve our current democratic practices. This book begins with the contention that the origin of democracy is tied to the origin of comedy and that these ties require us to ask why the two developed together and what contemporary uses might be made of the connection between the two. To begin to develop a narrative that will answer those two questions, Fletcher makes a careful distinction between ancient and modern democracy that informs the argument of the book. He claims that modern democracy is “more principled” in its attempts to actively promote human rights and freedoms, while ancient democracy is “more pragmatic” in its attempts to alleviate hunger, poverty, and misery (3). In order, therefore, to promote modern democracy, we can borrow some of the ancient pragmatic techniques embodied in comedy to address some of the issues of our current predicament.
期刊介绍:
The first issue of the CRCL/RCLC appeared in the winter of 1974. Published on behalf of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association / Association Canadienne de Littérature Comparée (CCLA/ACLC), the CRCL/RCLC is providing a forum for scholars engaged in the study of literature from both an international and an interdisciplinary point of view. The editors define Comparative Literature in the broadest manner. The journal publishes articles on the international history of literature, theory of literature, methods of literary scholarship, the problematics of translated literature and translation studies, literature and the other arts, and the relations of literature to other media and disciplinary areas.