In my assignment I would be digging deep in Aristotle’s political philosophy of democracy and his religion as the world today is largely dependent on democracy as the best political practice but, is the world practicing democracy as prescribe by the author of democracy? Why is there so much misuse of power today by our leaders which we gave them power to be where there are and why is power not used for good of the people as Aristotle demonstrated? This paper will concentrate on two nations or states one from the develop world that practice democracy and the other from a developing world and how this two states practices democracy to the benefit or detriment of her citizens.
According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( 2017), Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher, logician and a scientist, though been taught by Plato generally Aristotle was one of the most influential thinker in his time in different fields including politics. Born in Stagira Northern Grace, his father was a court physician and in his young age he studied at the Plato’s Academy in Athens, after the death of Plato he went to conduct research on philosophy and biology in Asia Minor but was invited by the King of Macedonia to teach his son Alexandra the Great. It is often said Aristotle interest in Biology brought up the concept of naturalist in politics and because of his constant traveling, he developed the politics of democracy. Aristotle’s word for politics is a Greek word called “politikê” which is the short form of political science which he sees it as an ends in itself therefore politics in general is a noble action that makes citizens happy though it is a productive science that creates, preserve and reform politics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2017), to Aristotle political science is a subject that is to be studied by politicians non in Greek as “politikos” and should be studied like physicians study medicines. Aristotle think the most important task of a politician is, in the role of lawgiver gotten from a Greek word called “nomothetês” drawing up appropriate constitution for the state including moral education. To Aristotle a state is made up of different communities or villages brought about as they faint their daily needs while a village is brought about by men and women who are attracted to each other by their reproductive instincts (Zarri, 1948, p.1).
Aristotle look at the growing population of the world which began from two individuals attracted to each other by their productive instincts to village brought about individuals fighting to meet their daily need and when communities are too large not self sufficient the state comes in (Zarri, 1948) and saw a need to elect members of the sate who serve as leaders to other through simple vote with each person having the right to votes for representative just once and the person with the highest vote being the winner. These leader where main to enact laws on behalf of the community, settle dispute and reform constitution to suit the represent need of the state and teach moral education.
127 our experts are availableright now
Though some nations, what Aristotle would called states have successful practice democracy as prescribe by Aristotle others have not. For examples the United State America, I think is one of the nation that is practicing democracy as prescribe by Aristotle because, it put first the welfare of her citizens, what according to Zarri (1948) Aristotle say the state and its authorities should exist for the good of the people and the only thing that differentiate the state from the community is that its enable its people to live good life which is what the US government is doing by ensuring her citizens gets good health care through medical insurance, good educational system, high employment rate which ensure citizens can get jobs that pay their bills. An example of a nation that has abuse or misuse democracy is the nation Cameroon where I come from, where authorities clam to practice democracy but on the other hand they are dictators who use nation’s resources and power for selfish interest while the people who are suppose to live a good life are languishing in poor with a majority living on less the $1per day. Cameroon constitution has been changed three times to favor the some people in authority, I say so because the president has been in power since 1982, serving for 37years as a president is an abuse of democracy and each term he changes the constitution to increase his term of office, a reform that according to the father of democracy Aristotle was to be done to better the life of the citizens not for the interest of a few persons in power (Zarri, 9148). The change of the Cameroon constitution which originally, considered Cameroon as Federal State in 1961 ( Wikipedia, n.d) to Unitary State in 1972 is what had brought about the Anglophone crisis we are currently facing, which therefore means the constitutional reform made by the president and his parliament is not for the good of the people as prescribe by Aristotle without this, ongoing crisis in Cameroon that has lost thousands of life and millions of refugees would not have arose.
Personally I think the misuse of power is due to selfishness or greed and the fact that when people assume power instead of them using power for the people, power is been use against the people as such they would do everything possible to remain in power because of the fear of been judge and jailed after leaving power since when in power, they have some immunities.
