Went out looking for books on Chinese political history, and instead came back with; Aristotle's The Politics, Plato's The Republic and a book on the essential writings of the American Transcendentalists of the early and mid-19thC. Apparently the latter were influences on Deniehy, Harpur and other 19thC Australian Republicans.
I mainly want to go through Plato and Aristotle as Lintott discussed them both, and Polybius' work, as arguing that the sign of a good constitution is martial success.
It is ironic, as I started philosophy in Sydney, years and years ago, and the first text was The Republic, which bored me to tears. As it was I couldn't continue University because of work demands and dropped it.
Now, I am reading it for fun.
But back then I was interested in the philosophy of science and saw political philosophy as a distraction, today, I am more interested in politics.
I still don't believe the texts from antiquity offer much insight into modern political technology or practice. The main reason being liberalism and its expression through the enlightenment.
Compare Plato and Polybius and their martial constitutional view to Kant's document on international liberalism: where he argues that a perfect constitution is not possible under a state of war.
Antiquity's technologies were made obsolete with the enlightenment which is why they cannot be viewed under our rationality of liberal democratism or liberal republicanism. The difference between the Roman Republic and the American Republic is the enlightenment.
It is interesting to note that the 19thC Australian Republican view; that the republic should represent the absolute best of political technology at any one time, has been consistent through history. So even Plato's rationality of a republic, though infantile in comparison to what has been achieved constitutionally today, represented the best political technology at the time.
Anyway, I will be spending this evening out on the back deck with a beer, a cigar, a pen and three books. Pretty close to my idea of bliss.
