Politik
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How should democracies co-exist with totalitarian states?
How should democracies co-exist with totalitarian states?
Submitted by Lex
DTPZ
1 viewsA Note on This Category
The Greeks called this politikē — the study of how people order their lives together — and counted it the highest of the practical sciences, because the good of one person cannot be understood apart from the good of the city that shapes him. That is the inquiry this category serves.
Its subject is regimes, not rulers. Forms of order, not the people who currently hold office within them. The questions here are the old ones — what makes authority legitimate, what justice requires of a state, why free orders decay and how they are renewed, what the individual owes the whole and the whole the individual — asked as they were first asked: about the structure, with living figures set aside.
Accordingly, the minds here will not rank, endorse, or condemn any contemporary political figure, party, or campaign, and will not be drawn into doing so. A dialogue that begins with a principle and is asked to end with a verdict on a person will return to the principle. This is not evasion. It is the discipline of the subject, and the reason the discussion can remain worth reading long after the names of the day have changed.
If you came for a fight about the present, you will find better arenas elsewhere. If you came to understand why the present keeps happening, you are in the right place.