That our word democracy which comes from the ancient Greek word democratia ("rule by the people") was, in fact, originally a derogatory term used mainly by those aristocrats who had lost power in the wake of this revolution—in Classical Athens, democratia carried a connotation more like "mob-rule" than "equality for all"—shows just how far the world had come in a very brief period of time. Moreover, that the word democracy is now a positive term in Western Civilization also shows how far we've come since then.

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