J G A Pocock's "Machiavellian Moment"
aeon.co
aeon.co
(Generic ideological tangents are boring and therefore off topic here - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
The US constitution was the result of an attempt to build something that wouldn't easily break. That's clear from the debates at the convention, and the Federalist Papers, all of which survive and are still widely read. The US constitution was Version 2. Version 1 was the Articles of Confederation, which created a weak central government subordinate to the states. That government was closer to the United Nations or the European Union than a national government. It wasn't strong enough.
The framers knew they needed a strong central government. They expected the British to come back and try to re-conquer the United States, which happened in the war of 1812. The obvious solution was a monarchy. Hamilton wanted that. (He wanted to be King.) Nobody else did. They'd fought a war to get out from under a king.
The other worry was descent into anarchy and mob rule. Which is what happened in the French revolution. Followed by years of civil wars, then Napoleon.
So the framers wanted something between those extremes. They had the advantage that most of the colonies already had elected representatives and governors, and that seemed to be working. So there was a model to copy.
Much stability was built-in, such as 6-year terms for senators. Impeachment was made possible but hard. The President can't dissolve Congress and call a new election, as in a parliamentary system. Congress controls spending. It's not perfect, and it's being stressed at the moment, but it's still holding together.
Most of the rest was trying to work out the spheres of control of the federal and state governments. The original plan was that the Federal government is in charge of war, foreign policy, and interstate commerce, and the states do everything else. That's still pretty much the case. There's far more interstate commerce, but most government is still state level and below. That's rare, worldwide.
There were many arguments and compromises. But the Framers, on the whole, did a good job. It's worth reading the Federalist papers as a design exercise.
There are strange interpretations of what the framers did. There are people who claim they were divinely inspired. But no; the debates show lots of arguments and compromise. They were very afraid of failing. "We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately". Which would have happened had Britain won the war of 1812, which was a close thing. The British reached the Capitol and burned it.
There are also Anti-Federalist papers as well. https://history.nycourts.gov/about_period/antifederalist-pap...
This thread though really sums up this site. 100 comments about an article no one read about a book no one read.
Everyone is just so obsessed with their own political bullshit.
It is just so boring.
Future historiographers might note a similar relationship between the papers of computer scientists and the economy..
In particular:
>history is the most powerful element in the construction and destruction of self-knowledge of political societies
I wish the reviewer had attended to the novel thing that Pocock had pointed out about the age-old tension between collectivism and humanism, though:
The time scale factor. (Think tech debt)
>the difficulty he faced in reconciling an ideal of citizenship with the uncertain and temporal character of republics.
In sum, Pocock was paradoxically under attack for being too liberal, but also for not being liberal enough. Said differently, Pocock was criticised for being too American and for not being American enough – all the more intriguing for a New Zealander.
If you have both sides criticizing you, chances are you got pretty close to a truth. Reminds me of Dave Chappelle, someone that both left and right culture warriors turned on in recent years.
Also, you’re assuming there are always only two positions on a given topic. I know it might look that way on Twitter—most people today seem weaponized to pick one side or the other—but real social studies are far more nuanced than that.
The fact that everyone criticizes you only means that whatever you say doesn’t align with their narrative, not that you’re close to the truth.
It's simply people trying to write history while living it instead of waiting for it to actually be history or relying on experts to maintain an historical account. Facts don't matter. What gets remembered is all that matters, really.
Fascinating.
If anything - losing and surviving makes you more likely to write what you went through than just winning. And people who believe their pasts were better than futures tend to look into history more.
History is mostly written by survivors, and losing is a powerful motivation for self-reflection.
You can even see it in US with the different attitude people have towards civil war history. How many hardcore civil war history enthusiasts do you know that are mostly interested in Union?
Yeah... I don't know how it is these days, but my history lessons covered being attacked and under occupation for a very long time. But when Poland expanded the size, it just happened in the background. It's ok, I'm sure nobody was affected and it wasn't worth mentioning. Let's just be proud that it reached from sea to sea.
To your point: not to sound like an antisemitic conspiracy theorist, but it's pretty clear that while the Jewish people have been the victims of many tragedies, they also have managed to accumulate a great deal of political soft power as well, even while being a disadvantaged minority.
That's why certain types are so obsessed over the so-called "culture war". While some people just want a right to live and love who they want, the currently dominant cultural factions see that as a threat to their ability to, among other things, control the narrative of history for their own gain.
That's what Jews have been doing for 2000 years and their history is one of the best studied out there.
When a society wins political power - it looks into the future. A few eggheads will write the history but nobody'll read it.
Soft power is secondary - it comes FROM losing and focusing on history. Victors go split the loot, losers go write how they were the "moral winners".
Afrofuturism didn't come from winning any kind of political power. It came from the opposite. Similarly, white American males aren't fascinated by Rome, the American Civil War, and WW2 because they collectively lack any representation or political power.
There is still white privilege, but the direction is obvious.
That's not to deny that there isn't an interesting point of view in exploring the connections among different threads of history. James Burke's fantastic Connections series comes to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...
Some people are keenly interested in the history of their profession or hobbies. E.g. musicians interested in the history of music, or the development of their favorite instrument and such. Hackers, software devs and computer scientists interested in the history of computing and retrocomputing. Etc. Usually they are not into the political connection unless they are also interested in politics.
There isn't anything wrong in that, is just the way we work, we live in a particular culture, in a particular social system, in a particular time, and we are political beings.
An true history without politics would be like raw data of the state of every atom trough history, and even that may be political (why you choose to view the world as data?)
Actual political history itself can have political biases.
An apolitical history can also have political biases.
The biases aren't what make political history political, but rather its explicit discussion of politics: political events and the people behind them: the when, where, what who.
I am certainly not confused among "study of politics" and "personal politics" and "political bias" and such.
seems contradictory. If you lived on earth, there is no "apolitical lens" to look in. You can only try to grab a truly comprehensive view by finding and studying multiple lenses.
>The biases aren't what make political history political
If you lived in a country, or need a public press to post your findings, or are simply hidden in exposure based on some private company with their own biases, I'd say all those are connected to the political.
What is the test you are using to detect politics, and what is the evidence that it universally detects politics in everything?
And if it detects politics in everything, how do you know the test works? Counterfactuality is lacking. There has to be some calibrating example of something in which the test finds no politics.
History in itself tries (or should try) to be objective and avoid the bias you mention, but that doesn't make it less political by any mean.
Do you have a direct quote for that? For me, this seems like more than a mere misunderstanding of Aristoteles' work. In Politics book 1, he already explicitly distinguishes between "oikonomike" (the household) and "politike" (the city state) as being two different spheres of engagement. So the claim that any human action is by itself political is just plain false, as actions can either be political or domestic. I struggle to think of any work where he classified mundane acts such as eating as belonging to either category, it seems out of character to me.
Secondly, in Ethics Aristotle stated that he considered politics as a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself: the goal of man is to lead a morally virtuous life, and the goal of the community is to enable and enhance the moral character of its citizens. Therefore, the virtuous man engages in politics to increase the virtue of his entire community, in order to breed more virtuous men. He was also quite clear that public education was required (Politics, book 8) to mold the young into successful statesmen. Both of these seems at odds with your assertion that "humans are political beings" by default.
Aristotle said politics is the study of how communities can achieve “the good life” through governance and organization. He said we are political animals (zoon politikon) who naturally form communities, such as the polis (city-state), to achieve common goals and virtue.
The idea that any human action is political cannot be attributed to Aristotle. It is also a silly and amateur assertion — to breathe is not political, to think is not political, to eat is not political, etc.
Breathing is a physical action, so there isn’t much to debate there. However, even some physical actions—like using the bathroom—can have political or cultural dimensions. For instance, why do you use a toilet instead of a bidet, as is common in parts of Europe or South America? That choice is shaped by cultural and economic factors that influence your behavior.
Because my bathroom is too small to house a bidet.
Also, a bidet and toilet don’t serve the same purpose so your example is a false choice.
> Well, that depends on what you eat. Do you eat meat, or are you vegan?
The choice of what to eat can reflect or engage with political and social systems, but it isn’t a political act. It is a personal act. And “to eat” is also not a political act.
Note that absolutely nobody is around.
“Political” refers to things related to the governance, policies, or affairs of a country, organization, or group. Usually involves the structure of power, decision-making, and public administration, and debates or actions concerning laws, rights, or societal issues.
Having a worldview is not a political act.
Your perspective seems limited to the more common or everyday meaning of “political,” and I understand that; however, in social studies, “political” usually has a much broader scope.
You’re confusing politics with ethics. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies moral principles and values, focusing on what is right, wrong, good, or bad in human behavior.
Ethics focuses on morality, while politics addresses power and governance, though they often overlap in discussions of justice and societal well-being.
> Having a worldview is a political act.
Having a worldview is not inherently a political act, but it can become political when that worldview influences or interacts with societal structures, policies, or governance. A worldview shapes how you see justice, power, and societal organization, which may align with or challenge political systems or ideologies.
And that's ok, there isn't anything wrong with that.
>Having a worldview is not inherently a political act
yes it is, because that world view doesn't come up to your head in the vaccum, is result of all social interactions you had in your life and every thing you saw etc, and from that you are creating a political posture. You may not take any action and be completely silent about it the rest of your life (doubtful) but even not talking about it is a political act.
Are you in the USA? This is just something they promulgate in the educational system, along with the idea that there is always room for another opinion that is just as valid, even after domain experts have reached consensus using rational evidence.
The doctrine is just something someone made up. It is not justified by rational evidence of any kind.
If it were the former, it would be uncontroversial. I don't disagree with the claim that worldviews are political. The concept of a world view is a set of perspectives and opinions which encompass the human sphere of existence, which has a big political content. (The ideas contained in a worldview are not all political; a worldview needs facts, too, like salt being sodium and chloride, which isn't something voted on in a parliament.)
So, yes, while my worldview necessarily encompasses political topics, I also have thoughts that are rational and unrelated to politics. Or possibly even to a worldview.
History is biased, I don’t think anyone would debate that, but bias isn’t necessarily political. There’s lots of reasons for people to think some item or story is worth preserving, and most of them aren’t about politics.
The “everything is political” concept has been a very successful propaganda campaign, particularly in the US.
Everyone thinking politics is only about 2 parties and some controversial thinkg to even utter is the successful propaganda.
>the academic study of government and the state.
That's all it is. unless you are truly independent and in the wild, it's hard to say anyone isn't influenced by politics. Hence, biases. Bias in this lens is a byproduct of your environment, managed by politics.
You keep making a point that no one is bringing up. Not only I don’t believe that, as a non-US citizen living in Europe I don’t even care about your two parties.
But there’s quite a stretch between “humans are biased” and “what you think about how society should work influences absolutely everything you do”.
As a silly example, I have quite a collection of music. I keep physical copies of the ones I think are more important to me. If a future archeologist were to find them, they’d get a biased picture of what people listen.
But my taste in music has nothing to do with my beliefs about politics. There’s artists there with every type of conviction, from different eras, from different countries,..
“Everything is political” is a great slogan for activists to get people to do what you want them to do, but like all slogans it’s not actually true.
They even made a whole movie about the politics of nuclear science last year, it was a massive hit.
This site is a perfect example. It presents itself as a technical forum where politics is occasionally tolerated but never the focus. And yet you could probably write an entire book about the politics behind the name of the site itself, never mind its history, rules, culture, and means of support.
And this isn't just about governmental politics. the dispute over the inventor of the light bulb is a big example.
My grandfather couldn't de facto vote. These politics are not that far removed from any country.
>The politics of technology has only itself as its enemy
and the biases of the winners, yes.
But when you dive into it, it is almost cringy.
An obvious example is the story about Alan Turing that mostly leaves out the foundational work carried out in Poznan.
History is stories we tell ourselves about the world, stories backed by the evidence not yet lost to entropy. But which stories we choose to tell and which to forget — and what records to preserve — are always influenced by politics.
As someone who was born and raised in behind the Iron Curtain of the Eastern Bloc, for instance, I remember the Periodic Table of the Elements being taught as "Mendeleev's Table". That's a political stance: crediting "Us" as much as possible for every development rather than "Them".
Political bias in ostensibly apolitical historic storytelling, is not quite the same thing as historic storytelling from an explicitly political angle.
It sounds like you are talking about intent rather than politics - you example does, however, seem to be made with intent.
Don't get me wrong: There should be no reason at all to make technological history political, but in practise it is, was and will be made political, either subconsciously or on purpose. Even a good historian can't separate themselves from their own blind spots or darlings — and those colour their selections. And whenever you have to make selections you get political no matter how hard you try not to.
Try to talk to a certain class of people a about whether Lady Ada Lovelace wrote the first thing deserving to be called a computer program — this should be a matter of facts, but you may quickly find yourself in a heated debate lead by people who have no clue what the logical flow of that program entails.
Every history is political because telling a story about the past that isn't commonly told is political and not telling a story about the past that should be told is political as well. And both constantly happen, regardless of which subsection of history we look at.
No, history of any kind is always political.
Why? Simple: History is written by the victors.
Not all kinds of victories are political. Transistors over vacuum tubes: is that a political victory? Or just a matter of the former not being easy to shrink to microscopic sizes, or operate without high voltages and waste heat.
Sure, feel free to research how much resistance (no pun intended) there was over the mass adoption of transistors. the years of meetings and debates, the propoganda and fear tactics against transistors, the subjective claims over quality and safety of vacuum tubes.
This wasn't just some iterative upgrade like an RTX 2080 to a 3080.
You can't hold a referendum to eliminate the Early effect from a transistor, or Miller capacitance from a tube stage.
We can give an accurate and informative technical history of electronic parts, while completely avoiding discussions of mass adoption struggles, and vendors spreading FUD and whatever other fluff. If you add some that to the story it's still primarily a technological story and not political.