Gymnastic education should never be professionalized or allowed to hinder the individual’s higher education.[VI-33] The excessive training which leads to Olympic victories is anti-social, because the constitution of the given individual is exhausted. Music is valuable inasmuch as it has the power of forming character.[VI-34] The persons who are engaged in seriously-minded occupations need amusements which will give relaxation.
In summary of Aristotle’s social thought it may be said that the Stagirite introduced the comparative method of studying human institutions. He demonstrated the relative value of institutions, showing that those which are best for one age of society will be worthless for a later period. In order to meet changing social needs and conditions, institutions must change. There is a fundamental evolution in social changes.
A communistic social organization, according to Aristotle, is psycho-sociologically untenable. The importance of the middle classes is socially inestimable. Laws should be respected in small particulars. The attitude of the members of society toward their social organizations is more important than the type of organization itself. Human conduct in the mass is to a degree predictable.
After the time of Aristotle, Hellenic life degenerated. Political corruption, military intrigue, and intellectual scepticism vitiated the Hellenic morality that was founded on custom. The ideal, held by Plato and Aristotle, of man as an integral part of a constructive social order was supplanted by a philosophy of pure individualism.
In Athens, Epicurus (341–270 B. C.) became the leader of the popular hedonistic philosophy with its emphasis upon pleasure. Self-sacrifice and noble conduct in the social sense are foreign to Epicureanism. Friends should be sought, not for the sake of cultivating their friendship, but for the pleasure to the seeker. If you treat other persons unjustly, they will retaliate; therefore, treat others justly.
Stoicism which was founded in Athens by Zeno reached its culmination among the Romans and hence will be discussed in the following chapter. Polybius (203–121 B. C.), known as the last Hellenic social philosopher, developed a theory of social evolution, based on the belief that people associate because of the selfish benefits that accrue, and on the fact that group approval and disapproval play a leading part in the development of human attitudes.
Grecian social thought is noteworthy because of its intellectual foundations. It ignored many affective elements, and for that reason it became one-sided and unbalanced. It was rational rather than affective or supernatural. It was designed to meet the needs of this life. It moved away from authority and towards opportunism.
Economically, Hellenic social thought assumed or justified human slavery. It postulated a democracy, but a democracy builded on the backs of thousands of slaves. In practice at the height of the Athenian democracy there were only about 25,000 free Athenians as against 300,000 slaves. Women were not enfranchised. The governments put slaves into the armies, and ultimately attempted to throw out a commercial net over the other Mediterranean states. As a result they lost the spirit of democracy. The whole system and concept of democracy was undermined by the debilitating influences of an industrial autocracy. The social thought of the Greek was limited in its actual application largely to the privileged few, who aristocratically ignored the needs of the helpless many.
Grecian social thought at the height of the Athenian democracy did achieve, however, for its day and epoch, a unique degree of expression among the free citizens. For example, in the matter of athletics and recreation, the Athenians worked together in furnishing themselves organized group activities. Their athletic contests were of a free community nature, untrammelled by commercialized motives. In furnishing recreation for themselves, they co-operated, they acted as community units. Moreover, in these community activities they generated in themselves the spirit of a genuine democratic consciousness.
The fundamentals of Grecian social thought were preserved by the Romans, without being augmented by them. Together with the Hebrew and early Christian social thought, Grecian social thought laid the foundations for the rise of modern social science, and even of sociology.