The Politics is a book dedicated to concepts of state, political
communities. Aristotle starts his writing by defining state as a community of communities.
All communities aim for a good. The state
is the largest community and embraces the rest. Because of this relationship,
it aims at a deeper and larger good. Aristotle debunks the qualifications and
conceptions people have for rulers of a certain community (king, statesman, householder,
master). The mistake he identifies is people differentiating between rulers by
the number of their subjects. Aristotle suggests politics should not be viewed
this way but rather as a compound composed of elements. This statement sets the
tone for book 1. His mission now is to reveal these elements.
According to Aristotle, looking at the origin will reveal
"the clearest view" of the essence of a state. Family is first
elements identified. Family is the union of people, starting with that of man
and woman, who need each other and cannot exists separately. Since family is
the first element of society, it gives rise to villages, which give rise to
communities. Within these communities Aristotle makes the distinction between
master and slaves. The difference between master and slave has to do with the exercise
of the mind and the exercise of the body: "For that which can foresee by
the exercise of mind is by nature lord and master, and that which can with its
body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave hence
master and slave have a same interest". This evolution of
communities seems natural to Aristotle. It is by nature's design that people
organize themselves this way. Hence, Aristotle concludes that by nature, people
are political animals. This reveals an important characteristic of the
field of Politics.
Nature is therefore the designer of state. Aristotle considers the
one that by nature has no state is considered an evil person or not human. He
says “And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is
either a bad man or above humanity, he is like the tribeless, lawless,
hearthless one, whom Homer denounces- the natural outcast is forthwith a lover
of war.” In my opinion Aristotle reveals the standards to which a state
should always be measured. The lack of a state that is not built by our nature’s
design can be called not a state and even a lover of war. This made me reflect on
the way we currently build our states. Are we driven by nature’s design? Going
back to the roots of a society per Aristotle, families. Nowadays, we are
witnessing families being formed in distorted ways, skewed from what nature demands.
Many women for example opt to stay as single mothers. Can this have
repercussions on the way our society will function?
The take home for me is that philosophy invites us to think deeper
for the way that our societies are developed and that the roots or basis are important. It is interesting to see the tie that families have to the state.
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