 DK Audio presents The Politics Book by DK, read by David Shaw Parker. Introduction Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, a knot of mere companionship. Aristotle For forms of government let fools contest. What air is best administered is best. Alexander Pope The philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it, Karl Marx. Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians, Charles de Gaulle. If everyone could have everything they wanted, whenever they wanted, there would be no such thing as politics. For the precise meaning of the complex activity known as politics might be, and as this book illustrates, it has been understood in many different ways, it is clear that human experience never provides us with everything we want. Instead, we have to compete, struggle, compromise, and sometimes fight for things. In so doing, we develop a language to explain and justify our claims, and to challenge, contradict, or answer the claims of others. This might be a language of interests, whether of individuals or groups, or it might be a language of values, such as rights and liberties or fair shares and justice. But central to the activity of politics, from its very beginnings, is the development of political ideas and concepts. These ideas help to make our claims, and to defend our interests. But this picture of politics and the place of political ideas is not the whole story. It suggests that politics can be reduced to the question of who gets what, where, when, and how. Political life is undoubtedly, in part, a necessary response to the challenges of everyday life, and the recognition that collective action is often better than individual action. But another tradition of political thinking is associated with the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle, who said that politics was not merely about the struggle to meet material needs in conditions of scarcity. Once complex societies emerge, different questions arise. Who should rule? What powers should political rulers have, and how do the claims to legitimacy of political rulers compare to other sources of authority, such as that of the family, or the claims of religious authority? Aristotle said that it is natural for man to live politically, and this is not simply the observation that man is better off in a complex society than abandoned and isolated. It is also the claim that there is something fittingly human about having views on how matters of public concern should be decided. Politics is a noble activity in which men decide the rules they will live by and the goals they will collectively pursue. Political moralism. Political did not think that all human beings should be allowed to engage in political activity. In his system, women, slaves, and foreigners were explicitly excluded from the right to rule themselves and others. Nevertheless, his basic idea that politics is a unique collective activity that is directed at certain common goals and ends still resonates today. At which ends? Many thinkers and political figures since the ancient world have developed different ideas about the goals that politics can or should achieve. This approach is known as political moralism. For moralists, political life is a branch of ethics or moral philosophy, so it is unsurprising that there are many philosophers in the group of moralistic political thinkers. Political moralists argue that politics should be directed towards achieving substantial goals or that political arrangements should be organized to protect certain things. Amongst? Sample complete. Ready to continue?