The conflict between politics and antipolitics has replayed throughout
Western history and philosophical thought. From the beginning, Plato's
quest for absolute certainty led him to denounce democracy, an
anti-political position challenged by Aristotle. In his wide-ranging
narrative, Dick Howard puts this dilemma into fresh perspective, proving
our contemporary political problems are not as unique as we think.
Howard begins with democracy in ancient Greece and the rise and fall of
republican politics in Rome. In the wake of Rome's collapse, political
thought searched for a new medium, and the conflict between politics and
antipolitics reemerged through the contrasting theories of Saint
Augustine and Saint Thomas. During the Renaissance and Reformation, the
emergence of the modern individual again transformed the terrain of the
political. Even so, politics vs. antipolitics dominated the period,
frustrating even Machiavelli, who sought to reconceptualize the nature
of political thought. Hobbes and Locke, theorists of the social
contract, then reenacted the conflict, which Rousseau sought (in vain)
to overcome. Adam Smith and the growth of modern economic liberalism,
the radicalism of the French revolution, and the conservative reaction
of Edmund Burke subsequently marked the triumph of antipolitics, while
the American Revolution momentarily offered the potential for a renewal
of politics. Taken together, these historical examples, viewed through
the prism of philosophy, reveal the roots of today's political climate
and the trajectory of battles yet to come.
