[ihaveajob]

In Athens, an "idiotes" was a citizen who focused only on private matters rather than participating in the polis (city-state). Because civic participation was considered a duty, this term carried a negative connotation of being socially irresponsible or uninvolved.

This term evolved into the modern "idiot" which we are familiar with.

[esafak]

And as a fellow Greek man said, "Just because you do not take an interest in politics, it does not mean politics won't take an interest in you".

[IncreasePosts]

You could equally say "just because you take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics will take an interest in you".

[overfeed]

What does this even mean?

[IncreasePosts]

It means just because you now have an interest in politics, it doesn't mean you will be able to convince anyone of your points of view, or have any impact in whatever level of politics you're joining.

[danielheath]

Neither does baking a cake mean you'll get to eat any - but it's clearly a better cake-obtaining strategy than deciding not to bake a cake.

[ileonichwiesz]

The thing is that taking an interest in baking a cake doesn’t actually feed anyone. If you’re not going to spend your time baking (i.e. actually get involved in politics, to drop the metaphor), then what’s the point?

[overfeed]

"taking an interest" =/= winning.

My interpretation of the statement is that you can't ignore forces that affect you, even if they bore you. However loudly or frequently you declare or think "I don't care for gravity" matters not as it exists outside of your awareness or acknowledgement of it.

[ihaveajob]

It means that the consequences of politics will impact you, even if you don't think about politics in the first place.

[overfeed]

No, that is the meaning of grand-parent's comment, which makes sense to me, even passively because one has be to aware the environment they move in.

Taking parent's cue of assuming lack of agency - you can even replace "politics" with "the weather", and gp's comment still makes sense, parents inverted riposte does not make sense under its own priors. We can't change the weather, but it's prudent to know which days to carry an umbrella.

[MichaelZuo]

Well wasnt that a good thing?

After the extermination of Melos they could credibly say they were less responsible for the actions of the polis.

And had a higher chance of deflecting the inevitable revenge on to the non idiotes Athenians.

[landryraccoon]

If one civilization is taking revenge on another I don’t think they would show that much nuance.

For one thing, wouldn’t everyone claim they were against their old polis? How would the invaders have any idea who was an idiote?

I just don’t believe it’s at all easy to avoid the fate of your nation , and I especially doubt that the politically ignorant have a better chance of avoiding that fate than the well informed.

[MichaelZuo]

I did say higher chance, not guaranteed to avoid it.

The counter extermination was only 5% of Athens total population, or so historians say, so it seems like a lot of nuance was shown.

[landryraccoon]

> The counter extermination was only 5% of Athens total population, or so historians say, so it seems like a lot of nuance was shown.

That fact alone doesn't demonstrate nuance. It's possible that 5% of the population was innocent and treated as scapegoats, or chosen randomly, or that anyone high profile regardless of guilt was chosen to die.

Unless there's data on who was actually innocent or guilty, the mere fact that extermination was selective doesn't mean it was in any way accurate.

[MichaelZuo]

And your point…?

Of course nobody can prove either way beyond a reasonable doubt for something that happened so long ago.

[janderson215]

Funny seeing people pushing for other people becoming more active in politics with the assumption that “being more involved” means with their political fights, then get worried when the other side grows or intensifies.