Polis and Democracy – the idea of the city for free citizens
Democracy, and the related ideas of free citizens and human rights, are no self-evident achievements. Worldwide, democracies are in retreat, in favor of authoritarian and autocratic regimes. Inclusion of citizens on an equal basis is essential for democracy, next to the capability for true dialogue and a community allowing for diversity in public discourse and positions.
It was an idea that originated in Western culture, and one of its origins has been the Greek Polis. In its democratic versions, it is a human habitat where free citizens vote and discuss with equal rights and duties, to actively influence their own lives – and not just getting influenced as it is the case for the majority today, influenced and effectively steered by just a few in power, no matter if on the political level or that of multinational corporations.
The community of free citizens was a reality and a dream, at the same time, a dream reflected in many utopias. One of the habitats of such a community is the city. Today, the majority of all people worldwide live in cities. As regards the basic human condition, for Aristotle, the human being was a zoon politikon, an animal living in the Polis. For human beings, it is ‘natural’ to live in that way. A Polis means community, i.e. true inclusion, and in its democratic variants, deliberate participation in molding the habitat where I, as a free citizen, am living.
What about these features today, even in pro forma democratic states? Is a ‘parliamentary’ democracy still truly democratic in the sense of active, direct participation? What about the habitat, the city? What are the forces molding it? What about its architectures and their suitedness for communal living, and communities? Is a revival of city, community and direct democracy possible? Even more: is the ideal of direct democracy and cities suited to it still up to date, in times of socially and politically fragmented societies consisting of millions of people, the primate of neoliberal economy, and the internet?
Ulrich Gehmann & Andreas Siess in August 2024
Inside this issue
Our second edition Polis and Democracy – the idea of the city for free citizens is about the very idea of democracy and the kind of citizenship aligned to it. Being aware that this is a rather encompassing theme in this issue, we want to throw just some initial highlights on it. The theme as such will accompany us in the forthcoming issues as a constant theme in the background because it determines our near future, given the manifold threats democracy is encountering today from different sides.
For an occidental understanding and its cultural heritage, democracy is aligned to the city, the home of the human being as a city-related, “political” animal, a zoon politikon according to Aristotle. To live in a democracy (or not) finds its expressions in city architecture, in its appearance, its eidos both in terms of conceptions, ‘ideas’, and their realizations. It is about an urban eidos in an encompassing sense. Therefore, we start with a short explanation of what this means, and why our journal got its name, in The Concept of Eidos in Urban Spaces – Remarks on the Title of this Journal, by Ulrich Gehmann and Andreas Siess.
Central for democracy and citizenship are conceptions of the communal, and the idea of community. It is the question in which kind of society we live in, and want to live in, alongside with its expressions in an urban eidos. It is about how we live, and want to live in a societal and urban context. Which is a question of reality, in particular a modern reality with its aligned image of the human as both a real and conceived conditio humana, and of hopes and aspirations, of “utopia.” Utopia as Community by Gregory Claeys, an internationally renowned scholar in these fields, deals with different aspects of relevance.
Such aspects are rich in prerequisites – cultural heritage, images of the human and self-understanding, mindsets, values and norms, as well as social, political, and economic situations. In particular with regard to citizens living in democratic conditions, democracy itself is neither self-evident nor just a legal and institutional frame condition. Democracy is more than voting. It needs a certain mindset and willingness to actively participate for being kept alive, and obeying formal ‘democratic’ procedures is not identical with democracy. This turned the very idea (and hope) of democracy into a mere narrative in today’s societies? These aspects are addressed in Is Democracy a Reality in Today’s Mass Societal Order by Grant F. Raynham. Grant is a business developer and entrepreneur active in the film industry, a business that deals with narratives of the most diverse kind.
Democracy and free citizenship also relate to art. As a narrative in its own art, in particular public art, was an essential part of a pre-modern urban eidos – such as the fountains on a piazza, the public buildings, the public places and gardens. What happened to art today, how it could evolve from public art into private art in the sense of branding and mass design for consumer goods? Art always had a social function; but the functionalization of art we observe today is a new way and understanding of what is ‘art.’ The Lessons of Modern Art: And why it needs to be uncomfortable by artist Sean D’Antoni, trained at an art academy and familiar with tendencies in modern and recent art, deals with the evolution of these aspects, and why they are important for an understanding of recent art.