Citizens to Lords. Ellen WoodЧитать онлайн книгу.
ancient Greek form but in a new and distinctively capitalist meaning, which no longer represented a fundamental challenge to dominant classes.
Throughout this ‘Western’ history, there were also, as we shall see, significant theoretical variations among diverse European states, not just because of linguistic and cultural differences but because social and political relations varied too. Not only were there several European feudalisms, but the dissolution of feudalism gave rise to several different transformations, producing forms as diverse as the city-states of Italy, the principalities of Germany, the absolutist state of France, and the commercial republics of the Netherlands, while the so-called ‘transition from feudalism to capitalism’ occurred only in England. For all the commonalities of European culture, and all the shared social issues that continued to make the Western tradition of political theory a fruitful common legacy, each of these transformations produced its own characteristic ‘traditions of discourse’.
One further point is worth making. The ambiguous relation between ruling class and state gave Western political theory certain unique characteristics. Even while propertied classes could never ignore the threat from below, and even while they depended on the state to sustain their property and economic power, the tensions in their relations with the state placed a special premium on their own autonomous powers, their rights against the state, and also on conceptions of liberty – which were often indistinguishable from notions of aristocratic privilege asserted against the state. So challenges to authority could come from two directions: from resistance by subordinate classes to oppression by their overlords, and from the overlords themselves as they faced intrusions by the state. This helped to keep alive the habit of interrogating the most basic principles of authority, legitimacy and the obligation to obey, even at moments when social and political hierarchies were at their most rigid.
The Canon
A final introductory word needs to be said about why we should concern ourselves with the classics of Western political theory at all. Why select a few ‘classic’ works or ‘great books’, written by ‘Dead White Males’, largely confined to Western Europe and its cultural offshoots? Is it not true that, with very few exceptions, the ‘canon’ neglects the life experience of most of the world’s population, the male domination of women, the oppression of racial and national minorities, the endemic violence in social relations, the whole history of colonialism and imperialism – when it does not actively support such domination and oppression?
For that matter, is it even meaningful to talk about the ‘Western’ tradition at all? The days are long gone when courses on ‘Western Civilization’ were taken for granted, particularly in US universities, as a necessary introduction to higher education. Even the division between ‘East’ and ‘West’ is now recognized as problematic. What, for instance, does it mean to identify ancient Greek culture as belonging to the ‘Western’ tradition? ‘East’ versus ‘West’ is an artificial historical construct, and even ‘Europe’ is a concept that emerged fairly late. It is even more artificial to detach ancient Greece from, say, Egypt or Persia, as if the Greeks were always ‘European’, living a separate history, and not part of a larger Mediterranean and ‘Eastern’ world. Besides, the ‘East’ is even more diverse than Europe or the ‘West’, so there is no justification for treating it as some kind of residual category, encompassing everything not ‘Western’ or ‘European’. And even if we accept the ‘West’ as a kind of shorthand, without lumping together the rest of the world as an undifferentiated ‘other’, which Western tradition are we talking about? Are there not, for instance, working class traditions as well as ruling class ideologies?
Let me offer at least a partial reply to these important doubts. First, for the purposes of this study, the main justification for using the shorthand ‘Western’ political theory has to do with the particularities of political life, since classical antiquity, within the geographic area we now call Europe. For all its internal diversity – which should be evident throughout this work – this ‘Western’ world has been marked by certain social and political peculiarities, which have been briefly outlined in this chapter and which have produced certain distinctive patterns of political thinking. The justification for treating ancient Greece and Rome as part of this ‘tradition’ is simply that we can trace the ‘West’s’ political divergence back to Greco-Roman antiquity, and with it the development of political theory.16
The classic texts of political theory considered in this book, then, focus upon the Western state. Generally conceived by powerful minds and often written by first-rate literary stylists, they give us unparalleled access to the West’s political history; and whether we like it or not, these works have indelibly stamped our modern culture and the world today. They have, in general, been the ruling ideas of ruling classes; and this also means, of course, that the imperial powers which have spread their tentacles throughout the world have taken these ideas with them. The spread of the West’s ruling ideas, it must be said, has had its benefits, but they have also been invoked to justify colonial oppression. For better or worse, they have, in various ways, governed the world.
It is also true that, since classical antiquity, the Western state has been marked by a systemic inequality and domination of the many by a few. This reality, too, is reflected in the canon, since the voices we hear tend to be those of the ruling classes, propertied men (it is indeed men) and those who speak for them. Although we occasionally hear dissent from below, the peasants who have made up the majority of the population throughout most of the relevant history are largely silent. Yet this silence is not a reason for neglecting the voices of the masters. On the contrary, they are often our best access to the voiceless majority, to their grievances and the challenges they posed to those who dominated and exploited them. We are able, of course, to learn a great deal more when we can also listen directly to the words of those who opposed and resisted; but even when those words are unavailable, a careful and contextual reading of the canonical texts will tell us much about what dominant classes expected from their subordinates as well as what they feared from them.
This study works from the premise that it is wrong to treat the canon uncritically and to take its dominance for granted. It is equally wrong to write out of history identities and cultures not represented in canonical texts. But it is also a mistake to pretend that nothing like the canon exists or that the dominance of ruling ideas is not a major fact of history. The important thing is to recognize that this fact does indeed have a history. This means, among other things, trying to understand the conditions in which this canonical tradition emerged and developed, the social relations and struggles that shaped it. Without that kind of historical understanding, we cannot learn whatever universal lessons the classics may still have for us, but nor are we in any position to dismiss them as having nothing to teach us at all.
1 ‘Political’ thought, in any of its forms, assumes the existence of political organization. For the purposes of this book, I shall call that form of organization the ‘state’, defining it broadly enough to encompass a wide variety of forms, from the polis and the ancient bureaucratic kingdom to the modern nation state – although throughout this book, we shall often have occasion to take note of the differences among various types of state. The state, then, is a ‘complex of institutions by means of which the power of the society is organized on a basis superior to kinship’ – an organization of power that entails a claim ‘to paramountcy in the application of naked force to social problems’ and consists of ‘formal, specialized instruments of coercion’ (Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society, New York: Random House, 1968, pp. 229–30). The state embraces less inclusive institutions – households, clans, kinship groups, etc. – and performs common social functions that such institutions cannot carry out.
2 Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought was first published in 1960. The most recent expanded edition was published by Princeton University Press in 2006.
3 This is not