Comic Democracies

In Comic Democracies, Fletcher offers a sweeping account of the comic form and its potential affinities with democracy. He argues that we ought to view democracy not as the best system of government for promoting the principles of justice, equality, and liberty but as the one with the kind of pluralism, pragmatism, and empiricism that make it a more sensible and effective form of government than its alternatives. Having set out this account of democracy in the introduction, Fletcher proceeds to offer a broad series of case studies illustrating the ability of various comic forms to promote such democratic sensibilities. Starting in classical Athens with the comedies of Aristophanes, Fletcher argues that plays like the Lysistrata and Frogs “model an instrumental pluralism” and illustrate a “pragmatic logic” that can serve as resources for promoting democratic sensibilities (23, 24). The remaining chapters proceed in a similar fashion, demonstrating how comic forms in a wide range of texts, from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (1516) and William Shakespeare’s Henry V (1600) to Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1776), to name just a few, also resonate with a conception of democracy that is pluralistic, pragmatic, and empirically driven.Given the range of thinkers and ideas surveyed, Comic Democracies is certainly ambitious in scope. The great strength of the book is Fletcher’s ability to draw what are often interesting and suggestive connections between thinkers and texts that are distinct both ideologically and chronologically. Yet, this impressive breadth often comes at the expense of some rather one-sided interpretations. For example, although the pragmatic understanding of Athenian democracy certainly has merit, readers of the Periclean Funeral Oration in Thucydides would likely be surprised to read that “where modern liberals have called on fellow citizens to ‘martyr’ themselves for liberty, ancient proponents of demokratia eschewed such otherworldly appeals” (8). Likewise, Fletcher’s claims that Epicurean philosophy was pragmatic and that Epicurus did not possess a “positive conception of ‘the good’” are odd, to say the least; Epicurus was a dogmatic philosopher who held the good to be pleasure (77). Moreover, even though Fletcher’s contention that Thomas Jefferson’s alteration of John Locke’s “life, liberty, and property” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” bears the influence of an eighteenth-century revival of New Comedy with Epicurean undertones is intriguing, the evidence is ultimately speculative. Furthermore, the idea that “Jefferson’s revision of the Declaration banished the logic of acquisition that had led to the festering inequities of demokratia” is also a stretch (89). Such passages call into question just how robust such connections are between comedy and democracy.Despite these reservations, Fletcher is to be commended for his ability to bring together such a diverse range of texts and ideas. Although readers are unlikely to agree with all of his conclusions, Fletcher sets forth a suggestive and provocative argument that will be useful to those interested in the political dimensions of the comic form

Aesthetics · Art · Comics · Democracy · Empire · Epistemology · Ideology · Literature · Pluralism (philosophy) · Political science · Politics · Pragmatism · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Law · Philosophy

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