Res Publica: Revista de Filosofía Política, 30 (2013), 15-58 ISSN: 1576-4184 La frágil construcción de la democracia en la Grecia Antigua y la búsqueda del orden en la teoría democrática moderna y contemporánea

Abstract

Greek thinkers were conscious that all human work is futile and unsubstantial and, consequently, that the order reached for democracy is unstable. Moreover, the disorder can return at any time. Modern and contemporary theorists inherit this dialectic order-chaos, but with different variations and nuances. In this sense, only Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Dahl, Gutmann and Thompson seem to have understood the old helena lesson, namely that democracy is, in its essence, unstable. The other theorists, have forgotten it and have tried to allot absolute values to democracy, or -in the case of postmodern-denied any possibility even unstable of order, of grounds and understanding. But from the comparison between the old and current thoughts on this form of government, can also be extracted deep and solid inheritances as well as unavoidable differences. And, ultimately it is revealed that the classical and contemporary democracy evolve from absolute to other related concepts, which leaves us in the air a disturbing question: if the Greek democracy precisely finished because of relativism, extreme polarization and crisis, what can happen with current democracy-if we do not put remedy-as it is marked by a relativism even greater than the Greek, by an abysmal polarization and a sharp and widespread institutional crisis, political, economic and sociological.