Once again I find Aristotle’s opinion very interesting. In “The Politics---On Slavery” Aristotle mentions that slavery is necessary for a well-functioned society. The superior beings must rule over the inferiors. According to him there are three ways to determine who must rule and who must be ruled over.
Before explaining the three ways, I must say that it is understandable that he had this opinion because of the way the society worked back in the Ancient Greek culture, but nowadays his views wouldn’t apply.
First, he says that men are by nature marked to rule over women. In the Ancient Greek culture, women were not allowed to make important decisions or even have an opinion when it came to serious matters like politics, economy, military, etc. Those things were completely controlled by men. The few women that dared to have an opinion or rebelled to the men were called evil and dangerous and usually exiled or punished. It was a society merely ruled by men.
Second, he mentioned that depending on the physical and mental capabilities men were marked to rule or be ruled over. Some men had the body to do physical work, but not the brain to discuss politics and war and vice versa.
And third slavery by law, which means that whatever is taken from war, belongs to the victorious. If nation has a stronger army or forces, has the power to rule over the weaker ones.
My opinion is that nobody is born to rule or be ruled over. Women have the intelligence and strength to be as or more powerful than men. Humans have the same mental and physical abilities to acquire any kind of knowledge and experience to make important decisions and take action. But I understand that back in the day, government forms were just being formed and for them to actually work, they needed to really stand out and define who was to rule and who to be ruled.
4 comments:
I think you did a better job of explaining the "why" of Aristotle's opinion than I did. I think I was still just perturbed at the idea of someone justifying slavery when I posted my blog. Men with money, and social standing ruled everything during that time, but it been that way for a long time before that. You are right, governments were still forming, people were trying to figure out ways that worked best for them.
While I agree with you in general over the "slavery" is, no one is born to rule over another, perhaps if you substituted the word slavery for leadership we might get a more modern understanding.
True men are not superior to women, nor one man over another. But you cannot deny that some are born with greater intellect than others and some with greater physical abilities.
For instances, many people are great business strategist while other are great military strategist. We have incredible musicians that despite the mathematical complexities of music are not great mathmeticians. Further, you would dare consider the Michael Phelps of the world to be inferior to anyone of the above.
In other words, while no one is better than the other, Aristotle was correct to a large extent. Both, or rather all, are necessary for a well-functioning society. Deigned to compliment each other, to fill in were the other lacks.
Thank you for your insight on Aristotle's statements. It helped me gain a more concrete interpretation of his meaning. I like how you state that his ideas would not work in today's context. Another thing that we might all consider is that the negative connotations that we all hold for the word "slavery" is probably much greater that what ancient romans held. Not to say that slavery was any less terrible, I'm just saying that it meant something totally different to them.
Aristotles teachings and readings have influenced many people, but they have also reaised many questons, some for and some against the great philosopher. I thought you did a good job of explorig his thoughts on slavery. He makes a bold statement, a statement that would not fly in todays society. I think each decade we are progressing and we have definately progressed since Ari's time. Power is powerful, but gender and rank isn't as powerful these days.
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