Tagged: democracy

From Inside Higher Ed: Democratizing the Great Books

John Dewey’s classic book on education, “Democracy and Education,” is one of the indispensable contributions to civics that we’d do well to be revisit in our present time. A timely reminder of this appears in Inside Higher Ed, in an article by three Professors who report some of the interesting points from a daylong conference […]

Jay Samons & ‘What follows Democracy?’

Prof. Samons gave his famous Trireme lecture last Tuesday – a most exciting highlight of CC101 according to our alumni! Refresh your memory with some select quotes from previous years: “Triremes were built to kill. You can’t have fun on a trireme. You can’t water-ski behind one. You can’t hold an afternoon BBQ on one. […]

Core Readers Series #1

Alumnus Michelle Kwock occupies a summer afternoon reading What’s Wrong With Democracy by Core Humanities lecturer, and chair of the Classics department, Prof. Jay Samons. Would you care to be a featured Core Reader here on the Core blog? Just send us a photo, by attachment to core@bu.edu, showing you reading a Core or Core-related […]

Six Quotes on Democracy

Prof. Samons: “How would Plato describe America? We are primed for tyranny.” “Plato would be so appalled by the television and internet that he would commend us for keeping it together this long.” Prof. Esposito: “Plato wants to know what Sophocles is trying to teach us in Ajax or Hecuba. It is not quite clear […]

Analects of the Core: Plato on democracy

Democracy…is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. – Plato. Today’s analect, suggested by Sarah Cole (Core ’10, CAS ’12), addresses democracy, as does today’s panel discussion in CC101

From a CC101 debate on democracy

The problem with storytelling is that it appeals to the desirous part of the soul and not the rational — that’s why Socrates has such a problem with it. So, my question is: Would it be just to ban Sophocles and his plays in the city of Athens, when they clearly show a deep understanding […]

Analects of the Core: Aristotle on democracy

In anticipation of the debate on democracy being presented in CC101, consider this point made by Aristotle in Politics: In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. Is there any way this can be critiqued?  Offer your […]