Our politics are breaking down, and has been for a while. I think that if we want to talk to each other, we’ll need to start speaking the same political language. To do that effectively, we must learn from the same canon.
“He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.”
–Aristotle
This is a foundational text when it comes to political understanding. Aristotle is so exact in his terms, it makes it easy to follow his thought and see how he ties his ideas together to create a political philosophy. Many of the terms he lays out are still used today, but are often marred in their meaning to push an ideology.
Grab your copy of Aristotle’s Politics here
Aristotle writes free from any ideology, and as a man in his time. So, some of the ideas may not be what we would find right today, but in his time and place, it was likely seen as enlightened compared to many of the legal systems that preceded the Greeks.
This and Plato’s Republic, are the foundation of our Western political philosophy, and to go without reading them is to neglect your duty to understand where this society comes from.
