My latest column for The Cresset, about lessons from Aristotle and Plato on current politics.

Harmodius and Aristogeiton INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo

“Democracy today is under siege. It is being replaced in parts of the world with soft authoritarian regimes that preserve but manipulate democratic trappings to guarantee perpetual rule for a single ruler. The ease with which the new authoritarians have dismantled democratic institutions has caught many by surprise, in part because twenty-first century potentates appear so cynical and transparent in their grab for power. In the past the great threats to democracy came from rival political ideologies – communism, fascism, Nazism. Today, however, the threat lacks strong ideological definition. The mini-dictators who would destroy democracy resemble not so much the totalitarians of the twentieth century, but rather the self-aggrandizing tyrants of ancient Greece.”

Read the full article here

Categories: Opinion, Politics