‘on the grounds of excellence alone’

I’ll swipe this quotation from Arthur Alpert because it is so stunning as to deserve

echoing. mjh

That’s when my mind flew to the book that was waiting for me at my iMac, “Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea

(Why the Greeks Matter)” by Thomas Cahill, and to the page I had book-marked.

It was Pericles’ famous funeral oration over the

Athenians who died in the Pelopponesian War. Specifically, this passage:

“Our constitution is called a democracy, because power

rests in the hands not of the few but of the many. Our laws guarantee equal justice for all in their private disputes; and as for the

election of public officials, we welcome talent to every arena of achievement, nor do we make our choices on the grounds of class but on

the grounds of excellence alone.

“Open and tolerant in our private lives, in our public affairs we keep within the law. We

acknowledge the restraint of reverence; we are obedient to those in authority and to the laws, especially to those that give protection

to the oppressed and to those unwritten laws of the heart whose transgression brings admitted shame.”

I have no doubt Pericles was

gilding the lily, but even if his speech represents only what he and other Athenians aspired to, it speaks of a decent society.

Contrast it with ours. What a fall-off. (Yes, they had slaves, but so did we until what, 140 years ago?)

The measure of our

society’s weakness is that we ridicule idealism, sometimes with whole heart and sometimes for fear we will be ridiculed.

This

need not be forever, though. One day, maybe soon, we will muster the courage to be idealistic.

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