Politics (Lord, 2nd ed.) (udgave 2013)

EBB-5

Unconventional thoughts about politics: Aristotle thought that democracies—not something that he thought was an unalloyed good—had a symbiotic relationship with war, and especially where the common people formed the backbone of the army. Experience would seem to validate this, in several periods. (That is, modern periods; I know very little of Greek history, although some ancient Greek history is sprinkled throughout this book).

It is a bit of a proverb that America has been more democratic than Europe, formally before the 20th century or whenever, but even now Europe is more bureaucratically managed and America more unwilling to be governed, with all the negatives (and positives?) that go with those things. (It is a little jarring at times to read Aristotle, for whom “democracy” (=mob rule) and even “constitutional government” (=rational democracy) are not synonymous with hugging babies, as though life were American television.) Anyway the Americans were certainly the more military people, as they dispossessed a whole continent of natives, and it was done by the fighting of the common white man, unlike say England, which was a much more settled country and in which guns were not so much in the hands of the ordinary man. (Prussia was a military state, but the army was not popular, nor its main strength in numbers.) So America had “democracy”—an aggressive thing—though we talked about it like it was Jesus.

In the 20th century life became more democratic in many places; partly it's economic and dates back to industrialization in the Victorian period, but the World Wars and especially the spectacular blow-up with Hitler was a huge shot in the arm, at least in the West, for democracy, because the whole people was mobilized and went to war, which led to more popular power and prosperity, as well as a common human turning away from the horrors of the gas chambers and terrible oppression generally a generation later. But with the 70s—anti-Vietnam movements and such, popular participation in the army started to wane, and at more or less the same time, neoliberal policies started to more or less punish the commoners for this and for their new-found lack of respect in general (new wave music, rap). On the other hand, as women started to enter the armed forces in greater numbers, (although they were obviously part of the WWII effort too, even wearing uniforms, they got less credit then for that sort of thing), they started to enter other professions as well, with the military and police work being some of the most celebrated.

So democracy isn’t all about politicians kissing babies, although it’s not always good, either.

Read for my philosophy class- less engaging and harder to get meaning from than most of Plato’s work, but still very interesting, with a very interesting typology of regimes. Also contains Aristotle’s defense of natural slavery, which is very famous and worth a read. Politics is the pursuit of the good life. ( )

Read for my philosophy class- less engaging and harder to get meaning from than most of Plato’s work, but still very interesting, with a very interesting typology of regimes. Also contains Aristotle’s defense of natural slavery, which is very famous and worth a read. Politics is the pursuit of the good life. ( )

Read for my philosophy class- less engaging and harder to get meaning from than most of Plato’s work, but still very interesting, with a very interesting typology of regimes. Also contains Aristotle’s defense of natural slavery, which is very famous and worth a read. Politics is the pursuit of the good life. ( )