Political Theory. Pete Woodcock

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       KEY QUESTIONS

Purpose of this book

      On a hot summer’s day in 1749 the polymath Jean-Jacques Rousseau decided to walk the six miles from Paris to Vincennes to visit his friend Denis Diderot who was imprisoned there for his persistent criticism of the government. Taking a break, he opened his newspaper and glanced upon an advert for the Academy of Dijon’s essay writing competition; entries were invited to the question ‘has the progress of the sciences and arts done more to corrupt morals or improve them?’ (Rousseau, 1953: 327). Rousseau outlines the effect that seeing this question had on him in his letter to the statesman/philosopher Lamoignon-Malesherbes. His head began spinning as thousands of ideas flooded into his mind of how he could answer this question, he burst into tears, and then collapsed under a tree where he remained for an hour and a half contemplating the philosophical issues that arose from the question. He was thereafter unable to do anything other than work on his essay. He could not sleep, so spent the night-times meditating on the essay, writing sentences in his head which he would dictate to his secretary in the morning. Perhaps this reminds you of yourself when writing an essay (other than the bit about the secretary).

      When he had finished his essay, he sent it to the Academy of Dijon thinking it ‘the most feebly argued, the most deficient in proportion and harmony’ of anything that has ‘proceeded from my pen’ (Rousseau, 1953: 329). It won first prize and is a classic in the history of political thought, known thereafter as Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. Its central theme, that far from improving morals, the arts and sciences have corrupted man’s¹ natural goodness, would be one that Rousseau returned to many times, and one we will discuss below.

      Such is the impact of political theory. The artistic epiphany and breakdown that Rousseau suffered is probably not the reaction that you or I have when coming across an interesting theoretical political question; if you are reading this as part of your studies, it is unlikely that an essay question has had this effect on you, nor is it likely that an advert in a paper would produce this reaction. Nor is Rousseau’s method of writing, even if one has a secretary, necessarily a way in which many of us can work productively. It is not necessary to have this reaction to regard political theory as being interesting, or even useful.

      I was a very boring child. I became interested in politics at a very early age, spent my pocket money on political manifestos, and watched the news diligently every evening over dinner, and discussed the key issues raised with my family. The politics that I was interested in then, however, was the political reporting you see on the news, that is to say basic British politics. It wasn’t until I became an undergraduate student at the London School of Economics that I was introduced to the history of political thought, and it immediately became my passion. Learning about political theory opened my eyes to a new way of discussing politics. No longer do I see it as being about individual politicians, about parties and pieces of legislation; instead, I now like to think of it as about ideas, arguments, and justifications. Understanding the history of the ideas that we cherish so dearly today and how they developed, whilst also noting how relatively recently those ideas have occurred, fascinates me. Likewise, noting how political theory greats such as Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx would criticize the political ideas by which we live today, albeit from entirely different angles and viewpoints, fascinates me. We should all of us examine the basic philosophical underpinnings of the way in which we live our political lives today.

I am an extremely lucky man in that I am able to make a living teaching the subject about which I am passionate to students at the University of Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. I no longer wish to simply learn about the history of ideas; I want to teach and enthuse others about the subject. I have been able to discuss all of the ideas contained within this book with many cohorts of students at the Universities of Southampton and Huddersfield, and I’ve arranged this text in the hope that you might become as fascinated by the topic as I am. Like so many other activities in life, one learns more about the subject the more one teaches it. Students ask different questions, apply them to different life experiences, and interpret the ideas in different ways. I have learnt far more about political theory from my students than they have ever learnt from me, and as a consequence this little book is a modest attempt to give something back to the discipline, in the hope that others may find it a useful guide to access the life-changing knowledge that is contained within the history of political thought.

      As a lecturer in political theory, I also think that there is something useful about the discipline for us in the contemporary world. We have become more ideologically polarized over the past few decades, and political discourse has become harsher, and more personal in its vitriol. Disagreement is inevitable in pluralist democratic societies, and this disagreement is nothing to be scared of in and of itself. I hope, however, that discussions around central theoretical political issues might go some way towards making political discussions more genteel and civilized.

      So the overall purpose of this book is to provide an introductory guide to some of the key questions in the history of political thought, and to provide a good sound knowledge of the ideas held by the key thinkers in political theory. I have written it in a particular way to attempt to make it accessible to СКАЧАТЬ