The next form of association - which is also the first to be formed from more households than one, and for the satisfaction of something more than daily recurrent needs - is the village. The most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony or offshot from a family; and some have thus called the members of the village by the name of ‘sucklings from the same milk’ or, again, of ‘sons and the sons of sons.’ This, it may be noted, is the reason why each Greek polis was originally ruled-as the peoples of the barbarian world still are-by kings. They were formed from households and villages and household are always monarchically goverened by the eldest of kin, just as villages, when they are offshots from the household, are similarly governed in virtue of the kinship between their members.
- Aristotle Politics Book I Chapter 2
As we slowly form a new outlook of how to look at the power structure within the United States, from a point of view of a Polis power structure, with One Polis to Rule Them All, and that the One Polis is Failing, it behooves us to begin looking abroad and begin questioning our assumptions about our mental models there as well.
Within Western Civilization, we look down upon the East. Almost within all realms.
Militarily.
Politically/civilizationally.
Artistically.
Within the sciences.
Culturally.
Asia may be an exception within some categories to the average Westerner; particularly the sciences. But the average person is unlikely to consider them up to par with the West within other areas.
We are the Shining City on the Hill, in DC, after all, right?
Yet, I would argue, the more I ponder Aristotle… And the more I look at the East in light of him, the more natural their civilizations and situations are to ours.
We, in our pride, call them “Tribal” when referring to those in the Middle East and Africa, as if it were a derogatory word. As far as I can tell, looking at history and Aristotle, it’s not. It’s simply prior to a village and, possibly, if we stopped bombing them, assassinating their leaders, and destabilizing the Middle East, it wouldn’t be so bad.
I’ll be honest in that I find it ironic in the rise of the pop culture use of “find your tribe” in recent years, while still looking down our nose at them.
These tribes remember their background, their history. They know their culture and where they came from, probably going back at least five generations, if not ten or more. They know the lands they live on, and, if they weren’t refugees during the time, have possibly been on that land for those ten generations.
How few Americans know their family back five generations? How many know ten? If asked, I think I could get four on my dad’s paternal side, because Italian blood does that to a family.
But we, here in America, have so few ties to each other that very few of us are even tied to our families. Not being tied to our family, how can we possibly be expected to be tied to each other? To our country, which Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas consider something of a virtue coming out of our ties to family? And, again, they consider country more in line with the idea of Polis.
So, perhaps those tribal countries in the Middle East are more natural and civilized than us…
And we’re the savages….
Without a Polis, sons and daughters screaming in the void.
When we come to the final and perfect association, formed from a number of villages, we have already reached the polis-an association which may be said to have reached the height of full self-sufficiency; or rather we may say that while it grows for the sake of mere life, it exists for the sake of a good life.
- Aristotle Politics Book 1 Chapter 2
>>How few Americans know their family back five generations? How many know ten? If asked, I think I could get four on my dad’s paternal side, because Italian blood does that to a family.<<
This. A people who do not know, revere & understand their roots can never lecture others on 'how you all are so much more inferior to us all!' This is true, even if done in a rounabout way.
I see this all the time, especially with Westerners peddling CIA-talking points about Russia, China & Iran. It's a form of Hubris & Arrogance which reminds me of 19th century Qing Dynasty politics, which was basically nothing more than 'We know everything, & the barbarians can't teach us anything meaningful anyway!'... & we all know what happened to the Chinese people after that...