still working on things we cannot see…
Political philosophy is based on the study of politics, liberty,
justice, property, rights, laws and the enforcement of laws by
authority, what laws are and why they are needed, what, if anything,
makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and
why, what forms should it take, what the laws are, what duties citizens
owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately
be overthrown, if ever…
I think these questions, while important, misses the real point…
and the point lies in the very title, political philosophy…
philosophy is the understanding of values…
so what values are important in a political sense?
and the second “miss” is this, what is the role of the individual
in a civics sense… in other words, what is the relationship between
the government and the individual citizen?
our understanding of this relationship does not stem from
our understanding of the economic…in other words,
our economic system, capitalism, the attitude of laissez-faire,
doesn’t play into our understanding of the relationship between
the government and the individual citizen…
to have a laissez-faire attitude from its citizens to its government
is not an acceptable attitude from it citizens to the government…
for a government to be successful, it must have active, engaged, willing,
participation from its citizens…it could be argued that the Soviet Union,
failed because it was a top down government and its citizens didn’t or
weren’t allowed to engaged or be active within the governmental process
of deciding policy…the U.S has succeeded because its citizens
have been active, engaged and willing participants in government and
the governmental process in deciding policy…
a laissez-faire attitude from its citizen’s about the government and
its actions will lead to the failure of that government… that is the first
point to remember…
the second point is about values and the political process…
this is where philosophy can aid in the political process…
what values are important in the relationship between
a government and its citizens?
as we understand that a society where the citizens react
to the government with a laissez-faire attitude will fail,
we must have active, engaged, willing participation
by its citizens, so to allow the citizens all the knowledge needed
to make participation effective, we must have open, transparent
government…to prevent citizens from having knowledge
of governmental actions and policy, means the citizen
cannot make an honest engagement with the government…
hiding the truth prevents someone from being able to make
choices about governmental actions and policy…
if in playing a game of chess and I am unable to know
my opponent’s move, how can I make good moves?
I can’t… the key to making decisions, any decision, is to have
all the facts, all the knowledge necessary to make an intelligent
choice and by the government hiding information prevents that…
so, a value we need from government is transparency and openness…
honesty is a value we must have from government to better allow
citizens to make “good” moves…
the key phrase is
“government of the people, for the people, by the people”
either that is true and we must, must have more inclusion of the people,
for the people, by the people in government or we risk failure of the government
as the failure of the Soviet Union shows us…
so one of the key understanding of the political is the
inclusion of philosophy into the political as we must
begin any thought or action to be taken in terms
of values… what values do we want to express
by governmental actions and by governmental policy?
do we want to express values like hate, anger, violence,
bigotry in our governmental actions and policy or
do we want to express values like love, hope, honesty,
peace, charity in our governmental actions and policy?
decide on which values we want to express and we effectively
decide governmental action and policy…
do we follow anger and fear by governmental actions
and policy with say, an increase of the already massive defensive
budget or do we express values like peace and love with an equally
impressive increase in our social budget…
and in this we return to an earlier point, which is
what value is more important, security or freedom?
and we now can express values in terms of governmental
actions and policies by asking, is it security we are focusing on
or is it freedom… with our governmental actions and policy…
which values are we going to support as citizens?
political philosophy is really about which values we should
and must support… and so, political philosophy is about values
and values is philosophy…
Kropotkin