I don’t know if we have many readers in Greece. But any who may be reading this might be interested to know that I will be giving a lecture on my forthcoming book Democracy and Political Ignorance at the University of Athens on Wednesday, May 4 at 7 PM. Details available here.
I’m really looking forward to speaking about this subject in Athens, the city where both democracy and the debate over political ignorance began. In this short article, I explain why ancient Athenian citizens were probably less ignorant than modern voters. Although much-maligned by critics such as Plato and Thucydides, the Athenian electorate may well have had a fairly impressive level of political knowledge.
You might wonder, why is my wife willing to tolerate this sort of thing on our honeymoon? It’s because she loves political theory almost as much as I do, and even read my some of work on political ignorance and related subjects before we met. She thought it would be cool to do a lecture on this subject in Athens. I am far more fortunate in my marriage than I deserve.