DEVICE OF OSTRACISM

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 19 November 1932, Page 11

DEVICE OF OSTRACISM

Ancient and Modem Methods

“ A BCHAEOLOGY,” says a writer in “The Listener,” has-the uncanny knack of suddenly restoring our jaded faith in history by turning up from some ancient rubbish heap fragments which make humanity’s past live again almost in its natural colouring. Every schoolboy who learns Athenian history has heard of Ostracism, a peculiar constitutional device which is hard to account for among a community of sensible men, but somehow is felt to correspond to a deep-rooted human instinct—the desire, of the common man to put a spoke in the wheel of public men when they get too great. The recent discovery at Athens of the three potsherds, with the names of Themistocles, Aristides and'Hipparchus scratched upon them, makes us wonder again at the old story of the Athenian voter who wished to banish Aristides because he

was tired of hearing him called “The Just.”, Ostracism has its counterpart in modern society, though in less rude forms than in Ancient Athens. To-day Aristides and Themistocles would be politicians who had lost their seats in Parliament—and probably their incomes as Cabinet Ministers as well—simply through the swing of the pendulum at a General Election. Less obvious, but equally effective forms of ostracism are to be found in social life, and even in the worlds of learning and business. The Athenians, in providing a simple outlet for, the ostracising instinct, probt ably saved themselves a good deal of underhand “sending to Coventry” of unpopular persons. But in the small City State of the 'Ancients banishment of this sort necessarily meant total, expulsion, whereas modern society is satisfied with Informal exclusion from a particular circle or sphere of activity.