The Athenian Tragedy and Democracy: On Antigone
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Choi Young-Jin 
Published: June 2018

Although there is few who object the claim which the Athenian tragedies are “political,” it is no easy to answer how deeply the tragedy is related to democracy. Recently, Rhodes asserted that it was hard to see the Athenian tragedy as “democratic” in terms of its subject matters, ideologies, and backgrounds as well as the institutional framework. It was said that the Athenian tragedies do not seem distinctively “democratic,” but “polis-dwelling Greek,” It is alleged that it would be better to see the Athenian tragedies as “polis-dwelling Greek” in that they contain the political and social values and backgrounds the Greek polis has shared. But it has been hard to find a proper counter-argument against Rhodes' opinion.
This article aims to provide a reasonable response to Rhodes' claim, articulating the democratic affinity of the Athenian tragedies with a focus on Sophocles' Antigone. In order to correctly understand the politics of the Athenian tragedies we should try to imagine roughly the effects of the tragedy performance by assuming how the Athens would feel after watching the drama performance in case that we should consider the characteristic of the tragedy as a performance art.
As Aristoteles said, the tragedy basically follows its plot; the structure of an irreconcilable conflict. Although the excellence of tragedy depends on the structural competence of plot, the driving power of tragic pleasure with dramatic escala tion of the conflict lies in the human flaw(Hamartia) of heroic characters, who face a tragic ruin due to keeping obstinately their ethic or political principles. The tragedy audience would recognize that the heroic characters are arrogant and foolish in the extend that they are courageous and faithful. The Athenian tragedies show that those who are courageous but foolish will face the collapse like death, and that those who are competent but arrogant will not escape from the pain of unbearable loss. What will the Athens feel when they watch the tragic drama with heroic characters who bring down tragic ruin because of their incurable arrogance and obstinateness? They would recognize that all human beings are fundamentally incomplete, and that any hero can not help doing mistake.
If they acknowledge the thesis of incompleteness[the possibility of error] of human being, they will not make a mistake of concentrating all the power to a handful of heros. When it is needed to construct a political system in which incomplete and untrustable human being should live together, and then it looks dangerous to concentrate political power, what is important is for as many people as many to share power equally and to keep a balance of power checking each other. It could be called “the institutionalization of distrust” in that the democratic system bases on distrust to the incomplete beings. In this point it would be acceptable to assert that democracy and the Athenian tragedies share a similar epistematic foundation, and each other are deeply connected at the level of belief and practice.
The Athenian tragedies show that our lives is far from certain. Our lives look uncertain and ambiguous to the extent that human beings is incomplete. As the life of Oedipus, the fate of Antigone is anxious and ambiguous like a dice casting over the table. If our lives is like that, we can not relax for a flash. we should ceaselessly question and deliberate the our lives, value systems, institution working, social structure, and political practice. Because democracy essentially tends to get fugitive and fragile, we will not keep its health shape if we do not question and keep a close monitor our political system and practice although we have enjoyed the high level of democracy. That is why we need some critical questioning and serious deliberations on our public lives.