Q&A: David West

By Emma Verrigni Collegian Freelancer

David West is a professor of history at Ashland University in Ohio. He earned his M.A. from the University of Dallas and his Ph.D. from Boston University. His parents, Thomas and the late Grace West, are professors of politics and classics at Hillsdale College. At the recent CCA on Classical Greece and Rome, he lectured on Pericles and Athenian Democracy. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

What is the importance of understanding history, and how can the study of Greek and Roman states help us understand modern governments and regimes?

There are so many lessons to be learned. In the books of the Roman historian Livy, for example, you learn all about conflicts between the people and the Roman elites. You learn about these conflicts within Rome between certain politicians who represent a more populist strain of society, and they’re at odds with most of the other senators, but they have the support of the people. And what effect is that going to then have on top foreign policymaking? Sometimes it has a good effect. Sometimes it has bad effects. You can learn from the experiences of the room that the Romans own experiences and domestic international politics and see how affairs might play out in our own situation. The more fundamental point is that history repeats itself. And the best line in terms of an ancient story comes from Thucydides, a Greek historian. Early in his history, he says, “my history of this war between Athens and Sparta will be an everlasting possession.” It’s a possession for all time. And why he says, given human nature, the same events that you read about here will repeat themselves either in the same way or almost the same way.

You wrote your dissertation on Cicero’s arguments about how ethical philosophy should influence political engagement. Should politicians today study philosophy?

If people are required to study John Locke and the ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle and Cicero, yes, it might have some salutary effect on their minds and hearts. They need to learn the whole tradition, and especially the classics, the medievals, and the early moderns.

What inspired your research of Roman figures such as Cicero?

I’ve always been interested in politics. My undergrad major was actually not in classics, but in politics, with a focus on political theory. And I went to grad school to study Latin and Greek, because I love Latin and Greek. I love languages. So when I was an undergrad, I took this in addition to Latin, and Greek, and I did a minor in Latin and Greek with my politics major.

Later, I decided that when I went to get a Ph.D., I actually wanted to get into Latin and Greek and into those literatures and cultures. I was kind of always more inclined towards the Roman side, and one important, prominent Roman on the political theory side would be Cicero. You have to read dialogues of Plato in undergrad. But not everybody has to read the dialogues of Cicero. They’re not just treatises, they’re live conversations between actual Romans and historical figures. They are fictionalized, just like Plato’s dialogues are fictionalized conversations between people who are real. I thought that was really exciting to get into, the Roman philosophical dialogue.

What was democracy like in ancient Greece?

“I really liked my topic. I think it was the right topic for ancient Greece. What I tried to show is that we’re not a democracy. We’re not a strict democracy. Athens was a pure democracy. And that had its problems, because it seemed to go hand in hand with violent aggression towards others. Because it’s always done in the economic self-interest of the Athenians to control other people so they can take their money and make their lives more comfortable, make their city more glorious, and fuel the power of being able to push other people around. That’s the direction that pure democracy was going in. Thank goodness for the American founders not running a machine like that.

How has the concept of democracy changed since the time of Pericles in Athens?

In modern regimes, like our own, we don’t vote on laws directly, and we don’t vote on foreign policy decisions. Something like democratic Athens can only work in a much geographically smaller country, an individual city state. We got even further from direct democracy than that, because at this point, we elect representatives to Congress but with many of the laws they make, they are actually just delegating decision and law making powers to administrative agencies. So they’re not even making laws anymore. And they pass these laws which are unreadable because they’re thousands of pages long.

How can philosophy shape our daily lives?

It might not even be philosophy necessarily, it could just be some great, edifying work. Great work elevates the mind and the heart. And that could include, of course, great poetry, and history, and works of political theory. By habitually reading, you just learn to reflect anywhere and to reflect on what you’re doing, and on your own choices. It can imbue you with the habit of reflecting on your own choices or and put notable examples and noble ideas before you.