Champion Lance
Dragon Master
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- Dec 9, 2009
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It's important to remember that "tyrant" did not originally have the negative connotation we give it today; in Ancient Greece, when the word was invented, it simply meant "ruler" or "leader."
This is not true. A τυραννος was a man who had seized power through atypical means--that is, non-hereditary. His power could either come from the soldiery (depending on the city-state in question, obviously) or from the peasant or merchant classes. A tyrant was not a legitimate ruler, and they were bitterly opposed by royals and aristocrats alike.
The word was still seen as a term of abuse, at least by the better sort. Certainly a peasant might well champion a tyrant, but to be called one by your political opponent would not be a good thing at all.
Certainly, the term lays no aspersions on the quality of one's rule and in that case you might argue the term is different, but that's suspect as well. Certainly, an aristocrat might argue that a tyrant is unfit to rule simply because he lacks the erudition and training required of a ruler--this, as much as "spreading power," was often the aristocratic complaint of tyranny.
It certainly doesn't just mean "leader." You might have mistaken it with αρχων--this is a common mistake. Words that might appear to mean similar things carry a great deal of significance, and that has to be negotiated before employing them.
The phrase "tyranny of the majority" plainly speaks to a more modern, post-Roman understanding of the term, where tyranny represents unjust, arbitrary, and inequitable rule. However it acquires a delicious shift in meaning when thought of with the more archaic definition, especially in terms of the gay marriage discussion.
Consider, for example, the CA Supreme Court case that led to the Proposition 8 fiasco. The Court plainly felt that it was not within the People's sovereignty to circumscribe a social convention. It's been some time since I've read the majority opinion, but I recall that their argument was based on a read right to "happiness" and "self-affirmation" in the state constitution rather than any concerns about equal protection, given that the CA civil unions had the same privileges.
This is very interesting, because whatever one's opinion on the social institution and the pointlessly irrelevant discussion on history of the word (as opposed to the construct it names), equal protection has been one of the strongest arguments proponents of gay marriage have employed. Now to what extent certain tax privileges are applicable to partners incapable of breeding is debatable, but since these privileges apply to childless and infertile couples as well, I'd think this was the strongest legal argument for allowing gay marriage.
The CA SC did not have to contend with that, and still ruled that there was a right to marriage irrespective of legal privileges. It's a rejection of the populace's ability to make decisions on that regard because the court found them unsuitable to properly protect the rights of a minority--in other words, this was a tyranny by both reckonings of the term.