The Candid Clodhopper reached out to me, inspired by the the works on Polities, to put together a piece upon the break down of Yugoslavia and the Balkanization thereof. To look at it from the perspective of “polities” in light of the writings here. We wrote back and forth, him doing a lot of the writing, myself acting as editor, putting in the quotes, song, and image.
I have to say, he does fantastic work, and I’m quite happy with how well the piece turned out in the end between the two of us. I think that it offers a wonderful real life example of how the Polity works, how it broke down along religious lines after being built up to a federation of Polities in the face of Empires.
Check it out here - Homage to Yugoslavia.
Heterogeneity of stocks may lead to sedition - at any rate until they have had time to assimilate. A state cannot be constituted by any chance body of persons, or in any chance period of time. Most states which have admitted persons of another stock, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by sedition. There are many instances. […] Heterogeneity of territory is also an occasion of sedition. This happens in states with a territory not naturally adapted to political unity. At Clazomenae the inhabitants of the suburb of Chytrus [on the mainland] were at discord with the inhabitants on the island; and there was a similar discord between Cleophon and its sea-port Notium. At Athens, again, there was a similar difference: the inhabitants of the port of Peiraeus are more democratic than those of the city of Athens. Taking our analogy from war, where the dividing line of a ditch, however small it may be, makes a regiment scatter in crossing, we may say that every difference is apt to create a division. The greatest division is perhaps that between virtue and vise; then there is the division between wealth and poverty; and there are also other divisions, some greater and some smaller, arising from other differences. Among these last we may count the division cause by difference of territory.
- Aristotle Politics Book V Chapter 3
It was a real pleasure collaborating with you - keep up the great work!