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Tag:political-philosophyClear

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
— Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy (1531)

3d ago

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members, and the bond of union is reason itself.

3w ago

It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.

3w ago

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones.

4w ago

The moment you have protected an individual you have protected society which is made up of individuals. The moment you have lost the individual you have lost everything.

2mo ago

theconvivialsociety

Friendship Suffices

"If there is something like a political life to be, to remain for us, in this world of technology, then it begins with friendship. Therefore my task is to cultivate disciplined, self-denying, careful, tasteful friendships. Mutual friendships always. I and you, and I hope a third one, out of which perhaps community can grow. Because perhaps here we can find what the good is."

2mo ago

dwarkesh.com

Ada Palmer – Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time

Machiavelli could have left exile and worked for any number of different principalities that would have been eager to make use of his talents. Instead, he decided to rot in the countryside and compile his career's lessons about power, politics, and human nature into a book he dedicated to the very man whose new regime had tortured and exiled him, Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici.

3mo ago

noahpinion.blog

America needs liberal nationalism back

I believe that in the 20th century, under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States devised the single best governing ideology that any country has ever created: liberal nationalism.

3mo ago

3quarksdaily.com

The Achilles Heel of Trump’s Mafia-State Authoritarianism

What is different today is Trump's view that the exercise of state power is no longer in need of ideological excuses, that he possesses a king-like divine right to do as he pleases, unconstrained by norms or law, which people must simply accept as legitimate.

5mo ago

To be entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. The first principle for the relations between States should be loyalty to natural obligations of human beings, not to the state, whenever these conflict. A man who truly believes in an ordered society must believe in the equality of human rights.

5mo ago

Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.

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