Only a Beast or a God can Ignore the Political

abailart

4-28-2008 5:06 PM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/8a7657b1-2a92-4822-a610-7b58f25b2bdc/B84EBA95-2ED9-477E-B7BC-9A58AA27865E/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aqui-pol.htm" href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aqui-pol.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.iep.utm.edu</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aqui-pol.htm"><P>To be fully human is to live in  political society, and Aquinas makes a great deal of Aristotle's claim that one  who is separated from society so as to be completely a-political must be either  sub-human or super-human, either a "beast or a god." (Aristotle's <EM>Politics</EM>, 1253a27; Cf. Aquinas' <EM>Commentary</EM>, Book 1, Lesson 1 [39]).</P><P> Aquinas  admits, of course, that political society is not the only natural community.  The family is natural in perhaps an even stronger sense and is prior to  political society. The priority of the family, however, is not a priority of  importance, since politics aims at a higher and nobler good than the family. It  is rather a priority of development. In other words, politics surpasses all  other communities in dignity while at the same time depending upon and  presupposing the family. On this point Aquinas follows Aristotle's explanation  of how political society develops from other lower societies including both the  family and the village.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/B84EBA95-2ED9-477E-B7BC-9A58AA27865E/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

tags:

political animal, aristotle, aquinas

abailart says:

Aristotle, the father of science, and Aquinas, one of the founders of modern Christianity. For them to claim separation from society (and politics) makes you beast, sinner, saint or god.

2 Comments |

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4-29-2008 1:12 AM

papananook

politics with dignity...something must have been lost down thru the ages..

4-29-2008 2:47 AM

abailart

I believe Aristotle and Aquinas were referring to something broader than the narrow sense we have today of 'political' (a sort of grotesque beauty competition of 'politicians'). Namely, the recognition that an individual should not be celebrated over the social. A very pre-enlightenment, pre-Kant, pre-individualistic idea, but one not totally dead today.

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