The Right Mixture

Aristotle taught the doctrine of the mean. We see extremes in everything. Too much or too little can be destructive and we search for the right application to everything in life. It doesn't mean the middle ground but the right ground. This is similar to cooking. When we put the right amount of the right ingredients and bake at the right temperature for the right amount of time, something good comes out. Making adjustments in each area can either make it better or worse. Too much salt or too much heat aren't evil, they just don't make the end product turn out as well. So we can have fun pulling ideas out and organizing them to see what seems to work best.

We are examining ways to bring people together on a state level so they can reach their potential. Rather than having broad ideals based on passions such as everyone having everything in common and commitments only to the state, we find there are always certain things should only be shared with the people we are close to. Some areas of life are better shared to a lesser degree in order to belong to certain associations.When an arrangement works out well, we naturally keep it in mind, especially if it works consistently. This approach gives us a natural philosophy rather than an idealistic one.

It is important that there be unity and that is the purpose of having a state or a government. It is a beautiful thing when people work together in unity. Great things can be done. We see technological advances that can be attributed to cooperation between individuals. But history shows that not all cooperation is good. It can be destructive also. Wars occur between countries even though inside each country there is strong cooperation. That seems to be what happens with totalitarian rule. We are after a basic level of proper unity that brings contentment and peace.

The basic structure for unity can be seen in a family. We want our children to be well taken care of yet at the same time, they need to be independent. A home belongs to the parents yet each child wants his own room. Having and taking care of possessions and having a degree of cooperation while remaining independent are what parents want for their children. We need social interaction yet also need our privacy. The family is the closest natural relationship we have as an example. A state would need to address similar terms with its citizens on a level that is less.

So we ask ourselves, who is going to run this thing, what needs to be shared, and how do we keep greed and vice out of the mix?. We already know that people have ambitions and we don't want someone else's ambitions to overshadow our own. Ambitions can be skewed when influenced by vice. If someone gets in power who has an ego problem, the citizens suffer to feed it. People have self-interest and it is natural to want to get the most for the least amount of effort. This makes it necessary to limit governing to work within specific parameters. Those who are insecure will desire security and ease. They will tend to trust more government control. Those who are independent and secure will want less intrusion in their lives. We see this with our own children in a family situation. The teen years are defined by the desire to be independent and parents can have a hard time letting them go since they like being their security and feel a void without it.

When it comes to leadership, the family example is one of perpetual governing where the children go out and lead their own families. But in order to have equality in a state and keep from having only one group's interests represented, we should rotate leadership out and back into a private life. A leader that makes politics a career would be the best at the bureaucratic part of governing but would also lose touch with the practical things that are of interest to private citizens. Rotating them back into their place as private citizens also gives others a chance at governing. We don't want the leaders to consider the citizenry their own possession or worse, they have been sent to save the people from themselves. Good leadership in a state will consider everyone's interests and everyone their equal in the decisions they make. The ideal leaders will realize they are servants of the citizens with an assigned job to do and will work hard at enforcing the laws the people have agreed upon.