April 23, 2001
Carl Mark Deppe lecturer probes questions of democracy
By John Newman
Is democracy genetic?
That may not be the kind of question you'd expect to be raised by a lecture in classics,
but if you're attending the annual Carl Mark Deppe lecture, you'd do well to leave
your expectations at the door. The series was established in memory of Carl Mark
Deppe, a Cowell College sophomore and classics major who was killed in an automobile
accident involving a drunken driver in 1985. Carl's parents, George and Patricia
Deppe, and his teachers and friends have established an endowment at Cowell College
to fund the lectures.
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| Josiah Ober, right, with George and Patricia Deppe, parents of Carl Mark Deppe. Photo: Karen Bassi |
Democracy is not a new idea, of course. It was practiced in ancient Athens more than 22 centuries before our nation was a twinkle in the founding fathers' collective eyes. Athenian democracy may not have been the kind of political institution with which we are familiar today--citizenship, for example, was commonly denied to slaves, women, and foreigners--but, according to Ober, the roots of democracy may run a lot deeper, and further back, than ancient Athens.
For Aristotle, Ober said, human beings were "the most political" of animals who come together in communities quite naturally, not only to flourish as a species, but to deliberate, by means of the unique gift of language, on moral considerations such as right and wrong. But, as Ober observed: "Some recent work on the two species that are our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, suggests that Aristotle was not entirely right."
As it turns out, both of these species (of which Aristotle was, of course, unaware) live in societies that seem to seek something resembling the "conditions of justice." Our primate cousins are highly social animals, and while they organize their societies as a hierarchy, they also cooperate and share knowledge.
"Chimps and bonobos alike spend a great deal of time and effort in creating and maintaining relatively stable intragroup alliances," explained Ober. "These alliances are based on practices that can be characterized as a simple form of justice: 'tit-for-tat' reciprocity."
Ober observed that teaching, learning, and sharing are all important to the success of primate groups and of individual animals. Early human, and proto-human, hunter-gatherer societies seem to have been organized in the same way, with leaders open to deliberate input from group members.
Athenians were successful against large, efficiently organized hierarchical competitors like the Persians because, in Ober's view, they freely shared knowledge in a deliberative, participatory democracy. This allowed the Athenians to make use of their inherited "core competencies" by actively sharing knowledge in the community and focusing it on the problem at hand.
Is democracy a genetic trait? The success, and ultimate collapse, of the Athenian democracy poses vital questions for citizens of modern democracies where knowledge is more promiscuous than ever--as demonstrated by the Carl Mark Deppe lecture series.
In addition to the lecture, the event was also the occasion for the presentation of the Saul and Esther Draznin Prize. This prize was endowed by UCSC alumnus James Draznin (B.A. Literature, Cowell '77) in memory of his parents. The Draznin Prize of $500 goes to the undergraduate (usually an upper-division student) chosen by the classical studies faculty as an outstanding Greek studies student. This year's recipient is Micah Myers, a College Eight student.
