O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Law Giver, the desire of the nations and the Savior thereof, come to save us, O Lord our God (Is. 7:14; 33:22).

It was rather hasty of me to assume that I would finish no more books before the end of the year. I seem to have grossly underestimated the hours available in the day when one has neither job nor classes with which to concern oneself. So, today I finished up another book left undone during the semester: Aristotle's Politics.

The contrast between Aristotle's politics and that which today passes for politics is enormous. For Aristotle, the main task of the politician is precisely to "legislate morality", whereas this is now taken to be the worst crime a politician can commit. A summary of Aristotle's political thinking would look something like this: The goal of human life is happiness; happiness is action in accordance with virtue; the purpose of the city is to help men to achieve happiness; therefore, the city is to enact laws that encourage virtue and punish vice.

Ah, well. Politics has never been my cup of tea. As far as political arrangements go, because the cultivation of virtue is the end (goal) of the city, virtuous men have the best claim to rule (paper topic: see sidebar), and therefore the best regime will be either a kingship or an aristocracy depending only on whether there is one or a few virtuous men (it not being possible to find complete virtue in a multitude).

Practical thinker that he is, though, Aristotle does not stop here. Knowing full well that the best regime is beyond the capacity of most cities, he also teaches which form of regime of those attainable by most cities is best. This is that in which the middle class is strong - something of a halfway house between democracy and oligarchy. In democracies the poor rule to their own advantage which is contrary to the interests of the wealthy; and in oligarchies the wealthy rule to their own advantage which is contrary to the interests of the poor. Now correct regimes (unlike these deviant ones, to whose ranks should be added tyranny) rule for the common advantage, but this presupposes virtue on the part of the rulers. If this is unattainable, the best regime is that in which the middle class is strong and rules to its own advantage. This corresponds most closely to the common advantage because the interests of the middle class coincide sometimes with the wealthy and sometimes with the poor.