Since this is a blog about politics, it will be useful to set out what my basic understanding of government is.
I like studying the past, particularly the early civilizations. So when i'm thinking about issues of today, i often try to conjecture how things started. My assumption being that the true nature of a thing can best be seen in its origin. This is the approach i've used when asking myself, what is the most fundamental purpose of government?
The way i see it, the most fundamental purpose of government is to impose order. This is probably why our earliest ancestors created the concept. They needed a way to minimize conflict within the tribe, and lead conflict against other tribes. So a chief or a king was given the power to enforce cultural values on those who didn't embrace them willingly. And he was given the power to conscript the society into a fighting force in times of external conflict, or to make deals on behalf of everyone else to avoid conflict.
Okay, that's how i imagine the beginnings of government. I don't claim for a second that this conception is scientifically generated. I do, however, think it's rational, and accurate in a very rough, broad manner.
So, how does that inform the way i think about government and political issues? It leads me to believe that government is, by nature, oppressive. When it's doing its job well, it's oppressing activities that are destructive. However, that oppressive power has no inherent properties that restrict it to destructive activities. It can very easily oppressive other activities, as well.
This makes me suspicious of government. This suspicion arises about government itself, before we figure in any of the policies of a particular government, with which i may or may not agree.
So my attitude towards government tends to the negative. I don't think it is an evil, unless perhaps in the sense of a "necessary evil"; but i certainly do not think of it as inherently good. It does, when working well, contribute to the construction of society. However, it does so through oppressive and usually violent means. At best, government is like a root canal. It is very unpleasant, expensive, and to be avoided if possible, but sometimes necessary to avoid worse problems.
2 comments:
Hi I come from your post in ami-angelwings by curiosity.
Well there are lot of point of view...
For Machiavelli the only purpose of politics or government is to conserve the power they had, and in an other aspect to control people because naturaly humans are bad. ^^
For Rousseau, people (when society was created) accept to loose a little part of liberty in order to be more protected.
Well I think the true liberty is not to do all we can do physically or morally, there must be limit whereas it would be total chaos and wolves reign so I consider that governments take a little of our liberty but protect us in the other way.
But one aspect is to conserve the power too, so being oppressive, so the big question for me is to determine if the liberties lost are redeem by the actions of government.
liberty for me is doing what I choose to do unless it starts to harm other people, if it what protects government ok, but if I loose more liberty just in order the people in charge or the government conserve their power it's not acceptable.
nicodemus: That's my basic attitude, too. People should be not be prevented from doing what they want to as long as it doesn't directly harm others.
This political blog is very much an experiment for me. I haven't promoted it at all. Ami knows me through the other one, which is about comics, movies, etc.
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