The nature of citizenship in general emerges clearly from these considerations; and our final definitions will accordingly be: (1) ‘he who enjoys the right of sharing in deliberative or judicial office attains thereby the status of a citizen of his state’ and (2) ‘a state, in its simplest terms, is a body of such persons adequate in number for achieving a self-sufficient existence.’
- Aristotle Politics Book III Chapter 1
Building off of yesterday’s post, I want to show how the Greek’s idea of Polis applies and is relevant to today’s political scene. We’ll start with domestic politics.
As you can see in the quote above, Aristotle believe that a citizen was only one that actually held power to change political agenda and policy. He specifically, earlier in Politics, says that he doesn’t care about what other legal rights you give people within the bounds of your State or Polis. Those are simply the people the citizen rules and cares for, governing them towards the good live of virtue and the common good.
What matters is POWER.
Power to change the direction of those working beneath you, and the lives of those over whom you govern.
He would, I believe, be ambivalent to how this is attained. He is, at the time of the quote, speaking of the ideal state, where they also regularly appointed generals as well.
Thus, applying it to ourselves when our country was founded, we arguably had a Polis of Citizens living and working in what eventually came to be the Polis of the District of Columbia - our Senators, House of Representatives, Supreme Court Judges, Generals, President, and Vice President. That Polis ruled over other Polis’s, often with conflict, as a reading of history will show - the Whiskey Rebellion and various other conflicts, etc.
I will argue that, the language of the constitution itself is deployed to think and inherently put forward this type of thinking. To take someone from another geographical location, another Polis, and convert them to the District of Columbia Polis. The Founders set it up this way, making it a various State Polis vs District of Columbia Polis. Once one was in the Federal level, one became a Citizen of that Polis, and not of the other. The thinking and acting changed, and this has played out, repeatedly, over history.
Now, it took some time for it to become this way, I will give you that. And there were factions and tugging on the individual level as well. One personal advocating for his state, or making a power play for himself, I personally think does not negate the idea that the founders did some very hypocritical actions and certainly centralized power somewhat quickly when one looks at history. The political jockeying is merely a power struggle within the Polis, with a veneer of “state’s rights and representation” over it, in many cases.
Obviously, it became more centralized with the end of the American Civil War. States lost power, the central government gained it.
This occurred again after WWI.
And again, this occurred under FDR in the 30’s.
And continued as the bureaucratic state expanded.
Thus, I do not believe that he would have any qualms about me saying that, depending on if your view of Bill Gates, Mark Milley, Elon Musk, et al are oligarchs in their own right, they would be citizens as much as our National Senators, House of Reps, and President.
In the same way, some departments, organizations, and businesses such as the FBI, CIA, Hollywood, Blackrock, etc may be able to be thought of, roughly, as Polis’s in and of themselves.
All of the above mentioned are able to barter and sway with the main, governing Polis of District of Columbia, but are allowed to govern themselves as long as they don’t break some basic governing laws in the public eye, pay some taxes, some fees, and bend the knee in public. Maybe pinch some metaphorical incense to Caesar, as it were.
Either way….
You and I are not citizens, as defined by Aristotle.
We’re peasants.
Legally protected (kinda) peasants.
But peasants none the less.
But!
We certainly are not part of the D.C. Polis, unless you live in D.C. Otherwise, you’re far down on the food chain, depending on where you live and you’re circumstances.
I would argue that, those living in the rural communities, while lower in the Empire’s hierarchy, have it better because they actually have a better chance of mattering to their actual local Polis. They can know the Citizens - again, those who make and change the policies that affect them. They can interact with them on a by name basis.
Yes, on a national level, the podunk town may get steamrolled, sacrificed, or simply crapped on for some random reason for ‘the good of the Empire.’ However, I count those as long odds.
So, as I’ve said in the past…
If you can’t have a pig roast and throw a block party where you’re at, inviting all you’re neighbors…
It’s a sign you’re not in a Polis (or don’t belong to the one you’re in),
And that you probably shouldn’t live there,
That you have bad people to try and build a Polis with,
And should find another place to do so.
Because, as we’ll start looking at, everyone else has a Polis but us.
And that, dear readers, is why the U.S.S.A. is in dire straits.
A citizen proper is not one by virtue of residence in a given place: resident aliens and slaves share a common places or residence. Nor can the name of citizen be given to those who share in civic rights only to the extent of being entitled to sue and be sued in the courts. This is a right which belongs also to aliens who share its enjoyment by virtue of a treaty […] What we have to define is the citizen in the strict and unqualified sense, who has no defect that has to be made good before he can bear the name - no defect such as youth or age, or such as those attaching to disfranchised or exiled citizens (about whom similar questions have also to be raised and answered). The citizen in this strict sense is best defined by the one criterion, ‘a man who shares in the administration of justice and in the holding of office.’
- Aristotle Politics Book III Chapter 1
Something I’ve recently realized is that my small, rural town I live in is actually slightly larger than Boston during the revolution. It really put into perspective how large and unwieldy the Government has gotten.