MISSING GENERATIONS

Consider two major representatives of twentieth century democratic theorizing: Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. Jürgen Habermas' central contribution to democratic theory has been his theory of deliberative democracy, first explicitly discussed in his Gauss Lectures in 1971 (published in On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction, 2001a) and later developed in The Theory of Communicative Action (Vol. 1, 1984; Vol. 2, 1987) and Between Facts and Norms (1998). In these works, Habermas aimed to demonstrate the link between the formal institutions of the democratic state and the informal processes of opinion and will formation in civil society. According to the theory, democracies achieve consensus through an intersubjective discussion of experience that allows people to “harmonize” worldviews and actions. As Seyla Benhabib, who works within Habermas' framework, notes, “democracy . . . is best understood as a model for organizing the collective and public exercise of power . . . on the basis of the principle that decisions affecting the well-being of a collectivity can be viewed as the outcome of a procedure of free and reasoned deliberation among individuals considered as moral and political equals” (Benhabib Reference Benhabib and Benhabib1996, 68). Democracy is legitimate because it strives not just for majority rule, but for openness and rationality. All those affected by political decisions should be included in the process and given equal political rights to communicate their ideas. In this way, polities can come to just political decisions. Intergenerational politics can pose a challenge to deliberative theories because not all those potentially affected by the decision could possibly be included in the discussion; some are too young, and others are not yet born. Although deliberative theory provides a window into how actual deliberation works and should work in democratic society, Habermas' work takes a relatively static view of this process, focused on the present and making it difficult to imagine how exactly the particular perspectives of as yet unborn groups of people might find their way into the conversation.Footnote ¹ A few scholars—notably Robyn Eckersly (2001), Kristian Ekeli (2005; 2007) and Robert Goodin (2000, 2003)—have begun the important work of incorporating future concerns into deliberative models, yet much more needs to be done to push intergenerational justice issues to the center of our democratic imaginations.Footnote ²

Whereas Habermas' deliberative model focuses on the present, John Rawls's work explicitly urges us to think about the future and the possibility of intergenerational justice. According to Rawls's liberal theory, “the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality” should guide our political arrangements (Rawls Reference Rawls1971, 11). After the omission of questions of intergenerational justice from earlier work, A Theory of Justice included a short chapter on this subject, insofar as it affects our understanding of the “original position.” According to Rawls, people would not know to which generation they would belong when in the original position and would thus agree to the same principles in order to ensure a fair outcome regardless of when they might be born. Thus, the “present generation cannot do as it pleases but is bound by the principles that would be chosen in the original position to define justice between persons at different moments in time” (293). Although Rawls's effort to raise the problem of intergenerational justice is important, it was only an opening—a very brief discussion to be built upon.Footnote ³ Unfortunately, his efforts did not fundamentally change the way we talk about justice; it is still largely viewed as something that takes place in a single moment or, perhaps, over a person's lifetime, but not as a matter as long-term intergenerational obligations. It lacks what Peter Laslett refers to as a “processional” perspective (Laslett, Reference Laslett, Kertzer and Laslett1995).

Yet an even larger problem remains. Although Rawls's theory helps clarify what principles should guide a just society, his theory resolves the problem too neatly and abstractly—the present generation is obligated to consider the perspective future generations might have on the issue, but we hear little of what this might entail or what conflicts might arise. Although Rawls notes the importance of justice over time, he does not raise and grapple with the unique problems intergenerational justice presents. We therefore never consider the possibility that intergenerational justice could pose irresolvable conflicts between groups or require sacrifice, leaving us ill prepared to deal with challenges posed. This essay is an attempt to build on Rawls's insights by keeping the difficulties front and center.

Beyond their general absence in democratic theory, this periodic forgetting of the intergenerational dimensions of democracy also tells us something about how we think of democracy more generally. One of democracy's great appeals is its promise of freedom of action. A strong commitment to intergenerational responsibility can, like demands for economic justice, seem to many to be too much of a burden on individuals’ ability to decide for themselves what their actions will be, limiting the choices that help identify us as sovereign persons. We crave the lack of limits that forgetting certain responsibilities allows; when we neglect the intergenerational dimensions of politics, we are freer to pursue a variety of paths of our own choosing. Yet equally important to democracy (as Rawls and Habermas help us appreciate) is a sense of justice, a sense that paradoxically allows a more lasting freedom by imposing certain limits.

Intergenerational issues matter because of a simple biological–political fact: we are constantly adding new citizens to our polities through biological reproduction. But members of the next generation are particular types of citizens: they do not yet have opportunities to participate in the activities of citizenship, such as voting or discussions in the public sphere. But unlike permanent classes of noncitizens, those individuals will become citizens at some point. The next generations’ choices will matter for politics, eventually, although they do not matter currently. This places future citizens in an odd position for politics. They exist as potential citizens, but they do not have a say in our collective decision-making processes, and they are unable to call fellow citizens to account for decisions that have an immediate impact on their lives. From a longer-term perspective, we can also see that each generation inherits its range of political options from the previous one—we are each born into a context with a long history that limits our choices in certain ways. The choices made this year about global climate change policy will have lasting effects for several generations; how we decide to deal with (or fail to deal with) this issue will very likely limit the range of options available to the as yet unborn generations that follow, defining their scope of political deliberation. Welfare state politics obviously has a strong intergenerational dimension; social security provision, family leave policy, and the 1996 welfare reform, for example, all have tremendous effects on future generations, although current adult citizens made the political decisions. These choices were themselves conditioned by the choices made generations before. Likewise, decisions about whether to provide slavery reparations in the United States or apologize for past injustices committed against indigenous peoples are problems that arise only because our political life has a temporal dimension, leaving us to inherit the complicated political legacies created by members of long-deceased generations. At the same time, and as Aristotle and Arendt emphasize, politics is about things that we have freedom to deliberate about and can occur only when we can choose among different possible actions. So what do we owe the following generations, given that we set the terms of their freedom of action—that is, their opportunity to engage in politics at all—in such a fundamental way?

Of course, we cannot avoid action indefinitely. We create policy, which in turn limits future options; at the same time, not creating policy also has particular effects on the world. The generations that follow have no say in these decisions and a sharply circumscribed ability to demand accountability. Imagine, or recall, the great frustration induced by the fact that democracy promises freedom, yet citizens remain constrained by the choices made generations before. As Danielle Allen notes, “democracies inspire in citizens an aspiration to rule and yet require citizens constantly to live with the fact that they do not. Democracies must find methods to help citizens deal with the conflict between their politically inspired desires for total agency and the frustrating reality of their experience” (Allen Reference Allen2004, 22–23). Because we must make choices that limit the freedom of future citizens without consulting them or offering them an account of why we decided as we did, we need to think carefully about how we go about making such judgments and how to honor the tensions and sacrifices that inevitably arise.

TRAGEDY, THE ORESTEIA, AND INTERGENERATIONAL POLITICS

As a reflection of then-contemporary democratic sensibilities, fifth-century tragedy both was a product of the democratic environment and helped constitute the political understandings of citizens as well as early political theory.Footnote ⁴ By taking up the heroic myths and recasting them in light of the new ways of thinking that marked the young democracy, tragedy was both a link with the aristocratic past and a rejection of it (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet Reference Vernant and Vidal-Naquet1990, 26–27). It was

Thus the form grew out of this particular political context, which it then in turn helped to shape. As Peter Euben explains, “tragedy's distance from the urgency of daily decisions [during the democratic period] . . . allowed it to develop a uniquely ‘theoretical’ perspective” (1990, 56). It was not that tragedy directed the citizens about how to think about and solve particular problems; instead, it provided Athenians with a “space for questioning and reflection” (30, 52). In this forum, spectators developed the habits of mind necessary for citizenship. Thus the trilogy is not simply a story about the legacy of this particular aristocratic family, but is part of a larger story in which aristocratic fathers give way to democratic sons and the city considers the meaning and requirements of its radical democratic experiment.Footnote ⁵

In this way, ancient tragedy and the festivals at which it appeared had a profound effect on actual practices of democratic citizenship in Athens. Paul Cartledge argues that tragedy was “an education for Athenian citizens . . . an important part of their learning to be active participants in self-government by mass meeting and open debate between peers” (1997, 19). Sara Monoson likewise notes that theater was an important element of Greek democracy: “a fundamental political act” that enacted political norms and negotiated political tensions (2000, 89). Coupled with its appearance as part of the city's Great Dionysia festival, with its patriotic pageantry, tragedy allowed the city as a whole (a partial whole, clearly) to reflect on itself and consider the conflicts characterizing political life in a democracy. Furthermore, a trilogy such as the Oresteia, whose action culminates in the establishment of legal justice in Athens and a replication of the Great Panathenaia processional, explicitly emphasizes the political nature of theater.

Also important for the purposes of this essay was the festival's emphasis on intergenerational themes. One of the ceremonial events preceding the tragedies consisted of a parade of war orphans, young men whose fathers had died in battle for the polis. These future citizens were raised and educated at the state's expense and would later receive hoplite armor from the city, taking part in another parade before promising to defend the city as their fathers had (Goldhill Reference Goldhill1987). Here the city could see the procession of generations and the special intergenerational needs created by their political judgments. More generally, “Greek tragedy shows a serious preoccupation with family concerns,” a theme with obvious intergenerational aspects (Maitland Reference Maitland1992, 26). Intergenerational issues were also a part of regular civic life in Athens. Upon becoming citizens, young men swore the ephebic oath, by which they promised, among other things, to hand over not merely as good a city as they received, but one in even better condition. Intergenerational concerns were also noticeable in the dokimasia, or scrutiny, that preceded deme acceptance upon one's eighteenth birthday. Whereas the first dokimasia examined a citizen's birthright—that is, was he the son of an Athenian father?—a later dokimasia also inquired as to whether he had treated his parents respectfully, among other things. (If the candidate was up for the office of strategos, he was also asked if he had legitimate Athenian children.) We also know that participation in the polis was relatively circumscribed in one's youth. Not only did a young citizen face the informal limits imposed by a relative lack of experience, the emphasis placed on respect for one's elders, and the nostalgic attitude Athenians tended to hold toward the past, but also he was not allowed to participate in the Council until 30 years old. We can imagine the frustration felt by new citizens as they realized the limits placed on their freedoms (and can later see it in Aristophanes’ plays and among the characters in the Republic [Carmola Reference Carmola2003], among other places).

It was in this context in 458 BCE that Aeschylus presented the Oresteia as a trilogy (composed of Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides) at the City Dionysia, winning first prize.Footnote ⁶ It presents the story of the House of Atreus in Argos and dramatizes Athens's move from a traditional system of reciprocal violence—personified by the Erinyes (the Furies)—to the judicial processes of the polis (Havelock Reference Havelock1978; Seaford Reference Seaford1994). Some commentators also argue that the Oresteia reflects Aeschylus’ perspective on the important political issues of the day (namely, Ephialtes’ reforms of Areopagus or the Argive alliance); others maintain that the play cannot be reduced to a particular message in such a way (Dover Reference Dover1957; Goldhill Reference Goldhill2000; MacLeod, Reference MacLeod1982; Podlecki Reference Podlecki1999; Said Reference Said, Boedeker and Raaflaub1998). Of particular interest to theorists has been the play's exploration of gender conflict and its legitimation of women's exclusion from the polis (Betensky Reference Betensky1978; Euben Reference Euben1990; Maitland Reference Maitland1992; Saxonhouse Reference Saxonhouse1984; Winnington-Ingram Reference Winnington-Ingram1948; Zeitlin Reference Zeitlin1978). These themes are undoubtedly key to understanding the plays’ political significance. Moreover, the intergenerational and gender conflicts are closely connected; the trilogy tempers the intergenerational conflict in the end only by denying the role of the mother in producing future generations. At the same time, the trilogy's intergenerational dimensions and their relation to a democratic polis remain largely unexplored.Footnote ⁷ By linking this particular story with the establishment of citizen-directed judicial processes and presenting it to a democratic audience, Aeschylus ties democracy—and not just the polis more generally—to the promise of intergenerational justice for each citizen. Yet it is not simply that the existence of such institutions as the lawcourt can absolve the present of responsibility for past injustice. Rather, the trilogy shows us that dealing with these questions requires a democratic sense of intergenerational responsibility that depends on deliberation and processes of accountability—qualities that inform a specifically democratic comportment in the face of threats of violence and injustice that span across generations.

We can better appreciate the critical place of intergenerational themes in the plays by reviewing the mythological backstory of the plays. The family history of the House of Atreus actually extends much further than the action of this particular tragedy and is replete with stories of children suffering as a result of their parents’ folly. According to Greek mythology, it begins with Tantalos, a son of Zeus, who is invited to dine with the gods on Olympus. In a display of arrogance, he serves his own son, Pelops, disguised as dinner, to the gods. The gods bring Pelops back to life and he becomes king of Mycenae, going on to have two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. After a battle over which son has rightful claim to the throne, Atreus finds out that his wife, Aerope, and Thyestes were lovers. In revenge, Atreus kills Thyestes’ sons and serves them to him—another terrible feast. Thyestes has one more son, Aegisthus, who, according to some accounts, kills Atreus and exiles his sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, to Sparta. Agamemon later returns, overthrowing Thyestes and Aegisthus (in the play here, however, Aegisthus is exiled while still a baby and only returns while Agamemnon is away at Troy; Ag. 1605Footnote ⁸), and ruling Mycenae until he leaves for the Trojan War with his brother, the husband of Helen, who was sister to Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra. The fleet gathers at Aulis, waiting to depart for Troy under the brothers’ command. However, the winds stall as a result of Artemis’ anger after she sees a pregnant hare devoured by two eagles. The expedition's seer reveals that to appease Artemis, Agamemnon has to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon is put in the position of either giving up the expedition (in front of his allies and against Zeus's command) or killing his daughter. He at first struggles with the decision, but ultimately chooses to sacrifice Iphigenia: “How can I become a deserter of the fleet, losing my alliance? That they should long with intense passion for a sacrifice to end the winds and for the blood of a maiden is quite natural” (Ag. 212–16). The winds pick up after the murder and Agamemnon's fleet is able to sail to Troy; while he is away, Aegisthus plots with Clytemnestra to usurp Agamemnon. The action of the trilogy begins when Clytemnestra learns of Agamemnon's imminent return.

Although we do have instances of violence between siblings and spouses, and although the gods and fate play a defining role, the plays’ motivating tragic elements focus on intergenerational violence. This backstory, which would be known to the Athenian audience, is invoked right from the start of Agamemnon: the watchman's opening speech is marked by fear and silence—“About other matters I say nothing; a great ox has stepped upon my tongue” (Ag. 35–37). The choral ode that immediately follows consists of the aged of Argos, lamenting both the war and their inability to have taken part in it—the power of their generation has waned. They liken their situation to that of children, reminding us of the impotence of both groups: “But we, who because of our ancient flesh could not then contribute to the force in support, and were left behind, remain here, guiding our childlike strength upon staffs” (Ag. 72–75) The chorus then delves into the story of the events leading up to the war and the scene of the two eagles, stand-ins for Agamemnon and Menelaus, eating the pregnant hare, bringing to mind the family's tragic history; the chorus goes on to tell the story of Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia. Like the Athenian audience, the chorus knows the family's history and watches as the new rounds of violence unfold.

The action of the trilogy also explicitly calls to mind the intergenerational tensions of the present. It includes two important child-as-avenger images—a lion cub in Agamemnon (716–26) and a suckling snake in Libation Bearers (527–50). Libation Bearers is replete with references to salvation through the children, as the elders (chorus) wait for Orestes to avenge Agamemnon's murder: “Children, saviours of your father's hearth” (264–65); “These hateful sufferings are a reproach to the father and even more so to the children” (379). The tensions between the generations are evident in the refusal to acknowledge the role of the mother in the birth and upbringing of the child: Apollo's story of gestation in Eumenides, Elektra's refusal of her mother at the start of Libation Bearers, and the role of Orestes' nurse in place of his biological mother (the resolution of these tensions leads to the institutionalized exclusion of the female from the public realm). Moreover, whereas Orestes is a true child—that is, politically irrelevant—when the plays begin, he becomes a potentially accountable adult by the trilogy's end, highlighting the changing position of offspring. The intergenerational conflict also extends beyond the human world. Eumenides repeatedly notes the relationship between the bearers of the old laws (the Erinyes) and the younger generation of the Olympian gods and their usurpation of the former's powers: “Ió, you younger gods, you have ridden roughshod over the ancient laws and taken them out of my hands into your own!” (E. 778–79 and 808–9). Aeschylus presents for the audience the intergenerational tensions that characterize life, setting up the drama and resolution in terms of conflicts between those who have held power in the past and those who have arrived to demand their share of it.

Because the story, presented to citizens of a democratic polis, is so fully framed by problems of intergenerational justice and culminates in the founding of civic institutions in Athens, the Oresteia helps us think about two components of a democratic approach to the problem, components that often seem to lie in tension with one another. First, intergenerational justice requires intergenerational responsibility. Each generation must take responsibility not only for the conditions it creates, but also for the conditions in which it finds itself, even when those conditions are unchosen. Weighing on the other side of the equation is freedom. Intergenerational justice not only involves accepting things as they are and owning one's actions, it also requires acknowledging the promise of freedom in democracy (even if that promise was left unfulfilled in one's own experience). In a democratic context, this means refraining not only from harming future generations, but also from severely circumscribing their potential range of actions. Although it may seem contradictory to argue that we must take responsibility for our actions instead of attributing them to necessity, and then that we must not bind the generations that follow to necessity, this argument is meant to highlight the odd burden placed on each generation. As one comes into full political citizenship, one inherits both a demand to own the past—accepting the constraint on one's own freedom that responsibility poses—and an obligation to keep open the potential for democratic deliberation among one's descendants.Footnote ⁹

Confronting this tension is the hallmark of political adulthood in Aeschylus' trilogy. The action culminates in a democratic conception of intergenerational responsibility capable of negotiating the conflicting imperatives that arise in an intergenerational context, although the plays stop short of a seamless resolution. Aeschylus' work legitimates problematic exclusions in the polity and highlights the ways in which democratic procedures fall short of their often idealized status. However, the playwright nonetheless memorializes that mythical founding moment in which the bargain is struck between freedom and responsibility and encourages his audience to take on the democratic ethos engendered by that moment.

Of course, questions of responsibility can be especially difficult in a world marked by gods who take an active role in human affairs. Can Aeschylus' characters really be said to take any meaningful responsibility for their actions? Did they make choices, or simply act according to divinely ordained necessity? There are actually two questions here: First, what was the ancient idea of choice? Second, what role does Greek religion play in those choices? Clearly, the characters are not autonomous choosers of the modern sort. Yet neither are they passive actors, listlessly encountering a god-determined future. Instead, we should view the actions on which responsibility rests as the result of decisions emanating from an individual's character, drawing on Aristotle's idea of prohairesis (usually translated as either decision or choice). In his view, a decision comes about after deliberation; prohairesis thus refers not simply to voluntary action, but to thoughtful voluntary action (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 3, Ch. 2). After this process of thoughtfulness, we then come to desire to do certain things, which motivates us to act. These actions in turn shape our character, which reflexively shapes the choices we make in the future (Book 3, Ch. 5; cf. Frank Reference Frank2005, 50–52 for discussion of this circularity). Because of this, we can be said to be responsible for both our characters and actions. What we choose is what we are responsible for, even if that choice emanates from deep within our character, as Aristotle would have it, and therefore is not truly “free” in our modern sense of the word.

But even this Aristotelian understanding of choice still does not answer the question of whether Aeschylus' characters are in fact choosing to act. Do these actions emanate from the individual's character or are they fated? And in fact, Aeschylus is writing at precisely the moment at which the Athenians are beginning to work this out—do human actions originate from within or without the self (cf. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet Reference Vernant and Vidal-Naquet1990, 46–48)? Was Agamemnon compelled by divine forces or did he choose—in the Aristotelian sense—to act as he did? Was he deaf to his daughter's cries because he had a blameworthy character or because this was the only way to complete the deed, which had to be done, as Bernard Williams argues (1993)? Yet it may be that both necessity and choice are at work. According to Jean Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet;

This reading is supported by the fact that the sacrifice occurs in a particular way that seems to be in keeping with Agamemnon's character and lust for war—he first weighs the conflicting imperatives, and then moves forward: “his mental wind veering in a direction that was impious, impure, unholy, from that point he turned to a mindset that would stop at nothing” (Ag. 219–21). Although the demand for the sacrifice comes from Artemis, the way in which it occurs is the result of decisions made by Agamemnon. Moreover, the relevant question for this essay is how the characters themselves confront this relationship between their actions and necessity; do they acknowledge their (albeit often constrained) decisions to act in the particular ways they did? Or do they refuse responsibility for their roles in events? Even under conditions not of our own making and where necessity seems to be bearing down on us, each moment provides opportunities for us to make some choices. It is precisely the acceptance of this constraint as a condition of our actions that drives this analysis. As Williams notes; “Living in a world in which such forces or necessities operate does not, then, mean that you cannot do anything, or that you think that you cannot do anything. You can act; you can deliberate; and so you can think about what different things would have happened if you had acted differently (1993, 141).” And as Williams goes on to point out, living under such a condition may not be as foreign to contemporary experience as we might think, gods and oracles notwithstanding (1993, 165).

A DEMOCRATIC CONCEPTION OF INTERGENERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

So what exactly is this bargain between freedom and responsibility in a democracy? It occurs at the moment in which one commits oneself to collective judgment, considered in the light of both history and future commitments. We see it when citizens take responsibility for their actions by allowing their freedom to be constrained by a collective decision and when this decision involves thinking about balancing the responsibilities generated by the past with attention to freedom of action for the future. This requires being open to the possibility that submitting to the decision may entail sacrifice on the citizens' part or that they will have to work to ameliorate the pain that the decision causes others; as Allen discusses, these sacrifices must be just ones (2004).

To elaborate further on this particular approach, I turn to Hannah Arendt's notion of political responsibility:

According to Arendt, even if particular individuals are not personally responsible for past events, those individuals remain politically responsible by virtue of their (involuntary) membership in the polity (149). This is not guilt: “There is such a thing as responsibility for [those acts]. But there is no such thing as being or feeling guilty for things that happened without oneself actively participating in them” (2003, 147).Footnote ¹⁰

Even if the terms of the inheritance are patently unjust and the scope of action is incredibly circumscribed, politically responsible adults do what they believe must be done without excusing it as a necessary result of decisions made long before their arrival. Thus, one of the first components of a democratic conception of intergenerational responsibility must be an acceptance of conditions as they are and an acknowledgment of one's place in a historical continuum. This relation to others may be deeply unwanted and resented, but as Butler argues (in reference to Levinas and persecution, but I think the sense of givenness is useful here):

That is, responsibility is an acceptance of the conditions of our lives, conditions often created by others over whom we have no control or influence. It is not a matter of creating something from nothing, but of taking what is there and responding to it.

Meanwhile, political life is about those moments when we choose to act. Arendt divides human activities into three categories—action, work, and labor. Democratic politics at its best is action, which includes both speech and what we more commonly think of as action; it reveals our “unique distinctness” (Arendt Reference Arendt1998, 176). Action is different from the other forms of activity because it is marked by uncertainty and the attempt to create something new (archein), whereas labor is the result of our physical necessity and work is an instrumental effort to attain an outside goal. The interesting thing is that attempts to create something new—or action—become more limited the greater the claims of responsibility as a result of someone else's past actions become. Yet acceptance of the tension between the freedom to act and the necessity created by the existence of the past is precisely the issue. In this regard, one sense of our natality (the fact that we are born into a particular historical and political environment) is closely related to and sometimes in tension with another sense of our natality (our ability to give birth to new things). A democratic conception of intergenerational responsibility involves not only an acceptance of things as they are, but also a commitment to preserving future potentials, using one's own freedom to ensure the possibility of future politics for those who come after. And as Max Weber would point out, in politics it is consequences, rather than intentions, that matter; so begins again the cycle of accepting things as they truly are (rather than as we had hoped they would be) and then acting to open future possibilities.

Moreover, one cannot accept necessity and take responsibility, which depends on choice, without freedom. These two concepts are not so much opposed as intertwined, enabling aspects of politics. The conditions may very well not be of one's own making, but what one does with those conditions reflects a particular choice for which one can be assigned responsibility. Also, one may deny choice, but that does not mean it did not exist.

We see this repeatedly in the Oresteia (and in contemporary politics)—an actor had no choice, gods (or economic necessity) dictated it. Yet even when freedom is most severely constrained, there are choices to be made; for example, in how one should approach deliberation or how one should handle the aftermath of the decision. In fact, as Patchen Markell notes, the relevant distinction is not so much about alternating between constraint and freedom; instead it is about the character of one's response to events in the world. He highlights the notion of arche as beginning:

It is our ability to experience events and to respond to them in unique ways that characterizes democratic political life. Thus, by taking responsibility for the conditions in which we find ourselves by responding to them, we exercise our freedom.

What we are responsible for rests on the choices we make and, as noted earlier, this involves deliberation (in the broader, Aristotlean sense of considering different sides of a question with uncertain answers, rather than the more specific or rule-bound sense used by some deliberative democrats). One must weigh various options, because choices are there to be made and actions will have some effect on the situation. Now one can do this more or less fully and more or less well, but deliberation must still occur—even if attempts are made to minimize the importance of deliberation later or even if the situation feels compelling in one way or another. Thus we can, at least in part, judge the extent and quality of responsibility by the quality of deliberation. Finally, because it is a democratic conception, it must involve recognition of others as worthy of moral respect and political power—that is, as equals—and a willingness to engage in the practices of accountability that flow from this recognition. One must acknowledge the equality of others, offer justifications for decisions, and accept the collective judgments of democratic groups. Thus, a democratic conception of intergenerational responsibility involves an acceptance of the conditions of one's actions (even though one did not make them) and a commitment to maintaining the opportunities for future generations (considered equally worthy of freedom to act) to engage in democratic politics themselves. It also requires a willingness to deliberate about the proper course of action, to explain one's own position, and to submit oneself to the collective judgment of equals.

REFUSALS OF RESPONSIBILITY

The tension between claims of necessity and responsibility run throughout the Oresteia, alongside the development of a democratic ethos of intergenerational responsibility. It begins with the story of Agamemnon's murder of Iphigenia. Did Agamemnon act here because of necessity (ananke)? Was Agamemnon just a pawn in the longer line of familial tragedy? Agamemnon's murder of Iphigenia and excesses in Troy are, in this view, simply the unavoidable result of fate, all put into motion by the terrible feasts served up by his forefathers. As Tompkins argues, however, the term ananke was highly ambiguous—it is a starting point for discussing agency, rather than an alternative explanation for action (Tompkins Reference Tompkins2006, 6; cf. Dodds Reference Dodds1973; Lesky Reference Lesky1966; Lloyd-Jones Reference Lloyd-Jones1962; Williams Reference Williams1993). Agamemnon makes a decision to act as he does. At first, he wrestles with the god's command: “It is a grievous doom not to comply, and a grievous one if I am to slay my child, the delight of my house, polluting a father's hands with streams of a slaughtered maiden's blood close by the altar. Which of these options is free from evil?” (Ag. 206–11). He felt compelled, but that does not mean he did not come to desire it himself: “And when he put on the yokestrap of necessity . . . from that point he turned to a mindset that would stop at nothing . . . he brought himself to become the sacrificer of his daughter, to further a war of revenge over a woman and as a preliminary rite to the fleet's departure” (Ag. 218–27). It is an unjust sacrifice, desired by Agamemnon and left unhonored.

Agamemnon refuses the responsibility laid upon him by this murder–sacrifice. As Nussbaum argues, “he adopted an inappropriate attitude towards his conflict, killing a human child with no more agony, no more revulsion of feeling, than if she had indeed been an animal of a different species” (1986, 33). Like the generations before him that seemed to confuse human and animal, Agamemnon sees his own child as an instrument in service to other ends and refuses the responsibilities generated by his act. Rather than another human being with desires of her own, Iphigenia becomes a disposable means to the parent's end; attention to Iphigenia's cries would distract him from what he feels must be done. Although Agamemnon acts under more complicated motives than hubris or revenge (unlike his forefathers), the sacrifice of his daughter is not attended by the necessary conflict that it should have engendered. “[H]e becomes a changed man, unable to recognize that part of himself and the world he had cherished just a moment before. Now blinded, he becomes one-sided, partial, unjust” (Euben Reference Euben1990, 72). Once he makes his decision to proceed in the way he does, he can only see and desire that option; no others are acknowledged. He later returns to Argos with no mention of his dead daughter; meanwhile, the chorus anxiously awaits Agamemnon, warning of the “black furies” that may yet await the king for the excesses at Troy (Ag. 461–68). We see that Agamemnon denies responsibility for his actions; he quickly moves on as if they have no further effects.

This problem repeats itself with Clytemnestra. Does she act on her own or is she just part of the long-standing tragedy that follows the House of Atreus? Clytemnestra often invokes Agamemnon's actions as the true cause of her own: “Why, the offspring that I conceived by him, the much-bewailed Iphigenia, was sacrificed by her father. He is suffering his deserts for an action that deserved them” (Ag. 1525–27). The chorus highlights the sense of unavoidability, as well as the anxieties generated by the logic of inherited guilt and retribution: “But now, if he pays for the blood shed by his forefathers and by dying causes the dead to exact further deaths as a penalty, what mortal, hearing this, can boast that he was born to a destiny free from harm” (Ag. 1338–42)? In the context of kin-led reciprocal violence that marked murder–justice prior to the establishment of courts, Clytemnestra's actions might make sense to the Athenians, were it not for their transgression of traditional gender roles, which the chorus repeatedly points out after its initial period of confusion (Ag. 1346–71). A more typical woman would likely have acted differently; Clytemnestra's actions are strange and reveal her to be more male than female. This deviation also indicates that Clytemnestra's actions are motivated, not simply automated; the standard feminine response would have been deference to her husband, but Clytemnestra breaks out of this model, indicating choice in the matter. Moreover, the immediacy of a god's command and a stalled fleet do not play the same prominent role here as earlier. The audience understands that these actions are rooted in the family's tragic legacy, but they are nonetheless the result of Clytemnestra's particular character.

Clytemnestra's response to the action improves on Agamemnon's, yet she never takes full responsibility for the results of her decisions. She does not deny her part in the murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra and does not seek to erase the past as Agamemnon did—“Then I struck him twice, and on the spot, in the space of two cries, his limbs gave way; and when he had fallen I added a third stroke, in thanksgiving to the Zeus of the underworld, the saviour of the dead, for the fulfillment of my prayers” (Ag. 1384–87). She relishes the act: “I rejoiced no less than the growing corn rejoices in the liquid blessing granted by Zeus when the sheathed ears swell to birth . . . I glory in it!” (Ag. 1391–92; 1394). She confidently and repeatedly asserts her justification for the deeds—Agamemnon's murder of Iphigenia and his forefather's similar slaughter of his own children. The king had “sacrificed his own child” (Ag. 1417), and her act meted out the “justice that was due for my child” (Ag. 1432), as “the ancient, bitter avenging spirit of Atreus, the furnisher of the cruel banquet, has taken the likeness of this corpse's wife and paid him out, adding a full-grown sacrificial victim to the young ones” (Ag. 1500–1504). Clytemnestra also believes that her murder of Agamemnon has stopped the cycle of bloodshed that marks this family, a cycle that was certainly devastating to the women who bore these children: “I am willing to make a sworn agreement with the spirit of the Pleisthenids [an alternative family name for the Atreids] that I will be content with what has happened, hard though it is to endure; but that for the future it should leave this house and vex some other family with internecine killings. Even if I am left with only a small part of our possessions anything is enough for me if I can remove the madness of mutual slaughter from our house” (Ag. 1568–76). She acknowledges her actions and offers justifications, believing she can end the claims of necessity and the violence, freeing future generations from the familial legacy.

However, Aeschylus' characterization of Clytemnestra ensures little audience sympathy for her approach. She relishes the deed, secure in her hatred of Agamemnon and referring to his sexual infidelities abroad. “Here lies this abuser of his wife, the charmer of Chryseis and the rest at Troy, and with him this captive . . . this cheap whore of the ship's benches” (Ag. 1437–43); she then goes on to discuss her extra pleasure in the murder of Cassandra, “a choice side-dish to the pleasure in which I luxuriate” (Ag. 1446–47). There is little conflict but much certainty in her righteous claims of justification for Agamemnon's murder at the end of the first play. At other times, she refuses to take full responsibility: “Destiny, my child, shares the responsibility for these events” (LB, 910). We also see her rejection of her living children, as she basically turns Elektra into a household slave and sends Orestes away, denying him his patrimony (LB 135–36). Clytemnestra thus also refuses to acknowledge the enduring difficulties of her decision to act. Elektra speaks ruefully of being “dishonoured, treated as worthless; shut up in the bowels of the house, like a dangerous dog” (LB, 445–47) and laments “the pains we have suffered, and from a parent too” (LB, 418–19). The only reason Clytemnestra releases her to pour libations is because of a dream she has about a suckling serpent; after her claims of acting on behalf of her murdered child, Clytemnestra has rejected her living children. Full responsibility for her actions would surely not involve punishing her children like this in an effort to protect her position in the household, but instead acknowledging the new dynamics, incorporating the members of the family in a way that does not require their erasure. Although she provides justification for her actions, she fails on all other counts of democratic, intergenerational responsibility; she refuses to acknowledge her children, the sacrifices entailed by her choices, and the results of her actions.

With Orestes, Aeschylus provides another attempt to move out of these failures to balance freedom and responsibility, although it remains incomplete. It is significant that we see this as Orestes grows into manhood over this period, becoming a politically important actor for the first time (to accomplish this, he first pretends to be dead—representing a symbolic rebirth into adulthood). For the audience, he comes to represent a new way of being in the world, contrasted with his parents, who continue the cycle of violence because of their refusals of responsibility for their actions. Of course, his range of action remains narrowed by what has come before. As N. G. L. Hammond writes:

Given the context of the plays as part of civic education in Athens, as well as the political import of monarchical struggles, this is not an issue solely of personal responsibility. Instead, Orestes faces a political problem, trying to restore stability and justice to Argos in the wake of his family's crimes against one another. As the trilogy progresses, we see this process of creating a new beginning from an inherited legacy intimately connected to the founding of legal procedures in Athens. With the help of Athena, Orestes becomes a model of democratic comportment, accountable and responsible, even as he is seemingly bound by the yoke of the past.

For much of the Oresteia, we see Orestes attempting to deal with the burden of his inheritance, struggling with these claims of necessity. At the most basic level, he was ordered by Apollo to avenge his father and the compulsion was nearly unbearable. In a long speech running from 269 to 305 in Libation Bearers, Orestes details the compulsion: “The mighty oracle of Loxias . . . bade me brave this peril . . . and it spoke openly of catastrophes that will bring dire chill into my hot heart, if I did not pursue those guilty of my father's death . . . He said that I myself would pay for it with my own dear life, enduring many disagreeable sufferings, enfeebled by penalties that went beyond loss of property. He revealed the effects of the wrath of hostile powers from under the earth against mortals, and spoke of these dreadful afflictions.” These compulsions spring not only from Apollo's command, but from the need of murdered kin for vengeance. When confronting his mother, Orestes responds to Clytemnestra's invocation of fate with the assertion that fate is now responsible for her death (911). He also appears to refuse his own capacities as an agent.

Yet Aeschylus portrays an Orestes who acknowledges his role much more clearly than the other characters in the trilogy; he confronts both the legacy and the results of his actions in light of it. We see here the multiplicity of causes for his action: “the deed still must be done. Many motives join together to point the same way: the command of the god, my great grief for my father, being deprived of my property,” as well as the need to liberate Argos from “a pair of women” (a slur on Aegisthus here) (LB, 297–304). Orestes wrestles with the decision to murder his mother, for he is aware that what he is about to do is a grave task. His companion Pylades must reinforce Orestes’ commitment: “Pylades, what shall I do? Should respect prevent me from killing my mother?” (LB, 899) Orestes, to be sure, believes in the justness of his actions—to his mother, he notes, “It is not I that will kill you: you will have killed yourself” (emphasis in original) (LB, 923). Like his mother in certain ways, Orestes notes that he is fulfilling commands set in motion by forces outside his control. Unlike his mother, though, he acknowledges the dual status of his act as a fulfillment and as a violation of justice: “You killed the one whom you ought not; now suffer what you ought not” (930). He goes on later; “I do grieve for her deeds, and for her suffering, and for my whole family, having acquired an unenviable pollution from this victory” (1016–17). His temporary madness at the end of Libation Bearers is further testament to his acknowledgment of his own guilt.

Orestes does not try to retain power in Argos, but flees instead to Delphi, quite aware of his crime, but hopeful that Apollo will fulfill his pledge as his protector. Apollo counsels Orestes to proceed to Athens, where he will find “judges to judge these matters, and words that will charm, and we will find means to release you from this misery for good and all” (E, 81–83). Apollo promises an end to the familial violence—notably through speech (muthos—speech, tale, or story). But Apollo's faith in speech is not a model of democratic intergenerational responsibility; he means to vanquish the Erinyes who torment Orestes: “why, they were absolutely born for evil, for they dwell in the evil darkness, in Tartarus beneath the earth, and are hateful to men and to the Olympian gods” (E, 70–74). He is uninterested in accommodation and, like Zeus over Cronus (and Cronus over his father Uranus), instead maintains the superiority of the Olympian gods over the older ones.Footnote ¹¹ Although we see greater acknowledgment of choice in the light of conditions not of one's own making as the trilogy progresses, the threat of violence has continued. The necessary transformation will not depend on Apollo's wholesale defeat of the Erinyes or Orestes' continued torture, but instead must occur through a rebalancing of the tensions between the generations. Both Apollo and the Erinyes—the present and the past—demand total victory in this conflict and claim that anything short of it will be unjust. Yet in order to secure the future, symbolized by Orestes in Athens, the two parties must temper their demands and abide by a transformative democratic procedure (although, to be sure, the compromise is not an equal one, as we see when Athena sides with the male). It is in the responsiveness of the present to the past that we find democratic openings for the future—not in the enforced priority of one temporal position over all others.

Such a transformation will work because Orestes is open to its possibility, although he will not be able to effect it himself. Like his predecessors, Orestes believes he has justice on his side, but, unlike his parents before him, he notes his vulnerability—“for I have no idea how this will end” (LB. 1021). We thus see Orestes heading into his adulthood, taking responsibility for his actions and admitting his lack of control over the whole of human life. Instead of the triumphant Clytemnestra at the end of Agamemnon, the end of Libation Bearers offers the audience only the vision of a hunted and insecure Orestes, reduced to suppliant status. It is Orestes’ acceptance of his profound vulnerability that eventually drives him to Athens; haunted by the Erinyes for the murder of his mother, he seeks refuge in a foreign city at Apollo's urging. Orestes’ vulnerability and dependency on others here is indicative of our own condition as interdependent members of a shared community; we often face situations in which we do not hold all the power necessary to achieve some desired result and so must also rely on others. In this case, it is Athena and the citizens of Athens who will found the institutions and community necessary to deal with Orestes’ family history. This occurs not by erasing the past and starting with a clean slate, but by acknowledging it and forging a new path in light of it. Aeschylus dramatizes this for Athenian audiences, providing a civic education that celebrates the transformative potential of democracy and links the claims of intergenerational justice with those of democracy. At the same time, the trial and aftermath highlight the difficulties and sacrifices that such transformations can require, even in democratic settings.

ATHENA'S ATHENS AND DEMOCRATIC RESPONSIBILITY

It is during Orestes’ trial in Athens that the trilogy moves to a full picture of democratic intergenerational responsibility. With Athena, we have the establishment of institutions that allow citizens to negotiate intergenerational conflicts, helping them to accept the conditions inherited from the past and open future potentials. Athena begins this founding by recognizing the complexity of the situation. Neither the demands of the past nor the needs of the present and future can be dismissed easily:

Athena therefore convenes a tribunal of Athenian citizens bound by oath to judge the case. It is especially notable that Athena relies on these men to adjudicate the conflict. Although a goddess, she does not act alone, instead setting up an institutionalized way to deal with future conflict within the polis. Athena realizes that such conflicts require collective deliberation. Both sides have legitimate and incompatible claims, so coming to a just decision is extremely difficult; having more perspectives present among those who will judge increases the likelihood of a good decision. Even more importantly, it forces the newly created Athenian democracy to take responsibility for itself. Athenian citizens will decide the city's own fate (because the outcome may engender anger from either Apollo or the Erinyes against the city). The collective decision-making powers here established by divine direction create a self-sufficient citizenry that relies on the power of persuasion to more productively channel intergenerational tensions.

During the proceedings, Athena appears to try to balance each side; after each side speaks, she asks, “Shall I now instruct these men to cast a vote in accordance with their honest opinion, on that ground that there has been sufficient argument?” (E, 674–75). As voting proceeds, both the Erinyes and Apollo hurl threats of what will happen should their own side lose, intensifying the stakes; Athena exhorts the citizens to judge carefully. Because of the possibility of a tied vote, Athena also judges Orestes; she votes to acquit Orestes, arguing that “I commend the male in all respects (except for joining in marriage) with all my heart: in the fullest sense, I am my Father's child” (E, 736–38). Athena takes responsibility for her own judgment, casting her own vote. We may hate her reasons, but she offers them; even though she has power enough to do what she pleases, she partakes in and models democratic accountability. Meanwhile, freed from his familial legacy through an institution of Athenian citizenship, Orestes finally achieves the freedom craved by and promised to the Athenian citizens watching the performance.

The resolution is imperfect, however. In the lengthy aftermath of the trial (about 300 more lines), the Erinyes become enraged at the disrespect they feel has been shown them by the younger gods. Athena tries to calm them: “Let me persuade you not to take this with grief and groaning. You have not been defeated; the result of the trial was a genuinely equal vote, and did you no dishonour” (E, 794–96). As the Erinyes persist in their anger, so continue Athena's entreaties: “You are not dishonoured! And do not yield to excessive anger and, goddesses that you are, afflict mortals with an evil canker on their land” (E, 824–25). She reminds them of her power: “I for my part have trust in Zeus. And—what need have I to say more?—and, alone among the gods, I know the keys to the chamber in which his thunderbolt is sealed up.” (E, 825–29). But she quickly moves from a focus on force to assert her faith in persuasion: “But there is no need for that. Be readily persuaded by me: do not loose off against this land the words of a foolish tongue . . .” (E, 829–30). She promises them honors and offerings on behalf of children and marriage if they will agree to the outcome. Athena tries to contain the conflict through persuasive speech.

This passage is complicated in its intertwining of threats of violence alongside the emphasis on persuasion as an alternative. Is Athena modeling the rejection of violence for democratic Athens, noting the fact that violence may always be a possibility but that wisdom lies in renouncing it? Or is she making a subtle threat against the Erinyes, reminding them to accept her offer because otherwise she could make use of Zeus's thunderbolt? My sense is that this statement is neither simply a threat nor simply a noble rejection of the means of violence for higher ends, but rather just an admission by Athena of the conditions at hand. The Athenian spectators can then see that even the most powerful goddess relies on persuasion, thus exhorting them also to submit to what happens in their own courts and assembly, even if their faction is the strongest and most powerful. And although we see here the imperfections of persuasion—it is not the force-free, purely rational medium that we often idealize it to be—even this imperfect medium is critically different from violence, which Athena here explicitly rejects as a worthy alternative. This difference moves us to a democratic approach to the problems of living together. The danger of angered ancient goddesses blighting the city in the future highlights the insufficiency of the recourse to violence and the importance of persuasion—even as we see persuasion bound up with a type of force here. And by honoring the anxieties engendered by the outcome of the democratic procedure of the trial, Athena further opens future possibilities for the city, trying to limit the threat of continued violence between opposing forces. She defuses the language of victory and defeat used by both Apollo and the Erinyes, and instead tries for a mutually acceptable solution—not necessarily the most preferred, but acceptable nonetheless. Aeschylus thus calls the audience's attention to the tensions that remain even at the moment in which persuasion is institutionalized.

At first, the Erinyes want no part of it, continuing their laments. Athena defers, acknowledging their anger: “I will be indulgent towards your anger, since you are older than I . . . for that reason you are much wiser than I am” (E 848–49). Athena—the goddess of wisdom—here humbles herself before the older goddesses, offering them the respect they feel they have been denied and acknowledging the sacrifice they would be making by submitting to the collective decision. But Athena also maintains her position of authority: “Still Zeus has given me too a fair degree of intelligence” (E, 850). She goes on to detail the special position of Athens, enticing the Erinyes to make their home in this city. She continues soothing the Erinyes, arguing “I will never tire of speaking to you of these good things I offer . . . If you have reverence for the awesome power of Persuasion, the charm and enchantment of my tongue, well, anyway, please do stay” (E, 881–87). The Erinyes are offered an honored place in the city, keeping the city free of internal conflict, unleashing their violence only in war with outsiders. Athena notes the uncertainty of the outcome and credits the powers of speech: “I am happy that the eyes of Persuasion watched over my tongue and lips when they responded to these beings who were savagely rebuffing me. Yes, Zeus of Assemblies has triumphed; and my struggle in the cause of good has won a victory that will last for ever” (E, 970–75). Speech has a seductive quality here, even as it is associated with wisdom and understanding. Given Athenian anxieties about the dangers of persuasive speech in their own polity, it is not surprising that Aeschylus would include this aspect of persuasion here in the resolution (Hesk Reference Hesk2000; Markovits Reference Markovits2008, Ch. 2). Yet in light of the earlier actions, we can see speech here as a much preferred option to the violence of the past.

Aeschylus thus presents for the audience the imperfections of democratic procedure, acknowledging that we must act under conditions not of our own making and without the freedom we crave. As the Erinyes must deal with the younger gods and as Orestes must deal with his family history, we do not choose the circumstances in which we must act. Oftentimes, the choices offered by the circumstances leave no ideal resolution; no choice leaves all parties to the decision fully satisfied. This is not in itself unjust; it is, rather, a fact of political life. The point, however, is to mitigate present injustices, to acknowledge and honor them, and to try to open possibilities for the future.

The play then ends with a civic processional escorting the Eumenides to their place of honor beneath the city. Through speech (backed by threats of force), Athena—the patron goddess of the city—expands opportunities for future generations by engaging with the past; the Erinyes must be incorporated, not just vanquished.Footnote ¹² It is important that Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is Aeschylus' conduit for this transformation; through her founding act, she symbolically constructs a citizenry wise enough to handle these tensions on their own, guided by their speech and democratic institutions rather than revenge and kin-based authority networks. “She (and, correspondingly, her city) stands out as a force of intelligence and compromise among warring, purblind gods and men” (Herington Reference Herington1963, 69). These new conditions release future generations from the earlier logic of automated revenge, allowing solidarity among the Athenian citizens and providing institutional means for resolving conflict. The past becomes a resource for the community, rather than cause to renew cycles of violence. Thus, for audience members, the result of Orestes’ tragic ordeal is the political culture in which the Athenians live—tying the challenge of intergenerational tensions to democracy in their minds, reminding them to face these tensions through the communal judicial processes of the city and the legitimate, if imperfect, power of persuasion. This also helps to fix in their minds the proper attitude of the democratic adult toward the demands of living in a biopolitical world, one marked by both responsibilities and freedoms set in motion by those who came before.

Although the trilogy offers a democratic model of intergenerational responsibility—an acceptance of the past and a commitment to future politics, anchored in democratic procedures—tensions remain. Given the outcome of the action, it is too easy to slip into the language of resolution and replacement—that is, the replacement of the archaic order with democracy, chaos with order, female with male, family with polis—that would obscure the tensions that remain and the fact that the vote was so narrowly decided. Ultimately, the female is completely pushed out of both the public arena and her role in parenthood, thanks to Apollo's infamous exegesis of parenthood and Athena's favor of the male “in all respects.” This exclusion obviously limits freedom of action for much of the population and is bound up with the Athenian treatment of intergenerational tensions. There will be no faction in Athens and generations of citizens can find ways to negotiate these tensions, in part because women no longer have “man-hearts” and must defer to the male. We can also see how difficult democratic conversations can be—the struggle around mutually acceptable terms, the seductions of speech and its often obscured relationship to force.

Nevertheless, the play does call on us to consider the tensions inherent in questions of intergenerational justice and the difficulty in confronting the balance between freedom and responsibility—what do we owe the past? What claims can the past rightfully make on the future? How can we best respond to such questions, considering that we cannot fully resolve them? As an artifact of democratic Athens, the trilogy also reminds us that this commitment to intergenerational justice is part of the original idea behind democracy. The democratic city establishes justice through speech as a way to end the cycle of revenge that marked the House of Atreus, but the intergenerational tensions do not simply disappear and must continually be renegotiated. The jury was equally divided in their judgment—it was not clear whether old or new should prevail. In return for their reluctant acceptance of Athena's final decision, the Erinyes become the Eumenides, protectors of marriage and childbirth in the city, instead of dark forces of revenge. Birth and new beginnings are again tied to democracy, not through a wiping clean of the slate, but via a transformation through speech and a recognition of the past. Nor do we see a full release from the bonds of family in Athens, for parentally directed obligation remains key to Athenian society and citizenship remains based on descent, rather than a territorial birthright. But the city does organize itself based on demes rather than kinship networks; myths of autochthony were central to Athenian political practices; and the judicial system allowed any citizen to prosecute another for crimes, not just blood relatives. This system relies not on higher authority (such as elders or divine authority), but on a specific democratic posture that requires human judgment—as we see in the play, Athena alone cannot decide the case. The balancing act between the old and new is key; it occurs through an acceptance of intergenerational responsibility—a willingness to own and respond to the past through the democratic procedures of persuasion and collective judgment, thereby opening future potentials. Individuals always come from somewhere, a fact that often limits their range of choices and freedom; but they also retain an ability to act—an ability that can only make sense through an admission of agency in spite of the seeming compulsions of inheritance.

CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS

How then can we confront this tension in our own polity, especially given that our stakes are much higher? The Athenians did not face a globalized, technology-driven world where human-induced climate change threatened and generational welfare-state compacts faced dissolution. A democratic conception of intergenerational responsibility involves an acceptance of the conditions in which one involuntarily finds oneself and a commitment to maintaining the opportunity for future generations to engage in democratic politics themselves. It thus looks both forward and backward, considering the political options and providing justification for one's claims and actions. In the backward shift, intergenerational responsibility involves something like Spinner-Halev's arguments about addressing “enduring injustice” (Reference Spinner-Halev2007).Footnote ¹³ He argues that political communities have a responsibility to address these forms of injustice (although he eschews the language of “taking responsibility for the past”). I would take it further; in order to ensure that we live in a democratic—let alone just—society, we need to attend to these historical legacies. Moreover, responding to the past is the only way for the community to create greater possibilities for the future, stopping various cycles of seemingly automatic logics of violence and revenge. Only through this transformation, whereby a community accepts responsibility for conditions it had no part in making, can citizens find the freedom that makes democracy so appealing to begin with. As Spinner-Halev argues, the point is not necessarily to pinpoint the causal agent, but to repair the damage that has been done (although this may in fact sometimes require identifying a causal agent); thus, we see Athena concerned to incorporate the Erinyes into the new polity, return Orestes to his birthright, and set up an Athenian institution to communally deal with future murder cases. Oftentimes, as in the trilogy, one side may be left feeling that they sacrificed more than the other, took responsibility for more than they ought to have been required. Yet, as Allen notes, “an honest account of collective democratic action must begin by acknowledging that communal decisions inevitably benefit some citizens at the expense of others, even when the whole community generally benefits” (28). What is critical is that we develop ways of acknowledging, honoring, and fairly distributing those sacrifices.

But intergenerational justice claims must also look forward. Here we seem to have fewer resources. How can we possibly know the needs and desires of future generations? It is not, however, a matter of trying to figure out what future generations will need or what their preferences might be. Instead, as this essay has shown, it involves a particular democratic attitude toward intergenerational justice. This was the importance of Aeschylus' play: it helped to inculcate that particular stance toward intergenerational tension, a stance that was fundamental to the Athenian democratic self-understanding. The audience sees both the risks of neglecting intergenerational tensions and the particular habits of democratic responsibility necessary to attend to them. Aeschylus models for them a democratic posture: an acceptance of the conditions of one's actions and a commitment to maintaining the opportunities for future generations, both of which require deliberation and processes of accountability. Although the future world does not get an actual say in the world we create for it, we can mitigate the difficulties by acknowledging the complexity of balancing responsibility and freedom in democracy. The ability to create new beginnings and to choose from a variety of possibilities defines democratic freedom; in order to protect that freedom, we must expand our own temporal horizons.