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• Alienation --While there a multitude of variations on this term the central figure identified with the concept is Karl Marx. For Marx, particularly in his early writings such as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and the Holy Family alientation is a condition of disengagement characterisitic of the working class in a socialistic society. The term is for Marx fundamentally tied to a capitalistic society that alienates the worker from the product of their work. Humans as productive animals instantiantes their identity and craftsmanship in the goods they produce. Capitialistic society alienates us from the product of our labor by expropriating our surplus labor and then using that product to control and debase human striving. Bertell Ollman in Alienation offers a subtle rendition of the the concept.

• Augustian --The doctrine derives from the teaching of the great church figure St. Augustine. (354-430). St. Augustine's religious life is one of the great triumphs of the church (born again): The proverbial prodigal son returning to the fold. The central theme of Augustine is love of God and debasement of the self and material things. He offers a "realistic" and grim picture of social and political reality, stressing our very human limitations. The role of the state, as a servant of the church, is important, but limited to the mainteanace of social order. As fallen creatures we must demonstrate by our actions and deeds in this life that we warrant enterance into Heaven.

• Aristotelian --The reference is to one of the towering figures of classical Greece, Aristotle (384-322 B.C). " Man is a social and political animal." Some of the most famous lines in all of political philosophy. Aristotle regarded the Polis (Greek-City State) as a given, a natural phenomena. We acquire our humanity by our conscious pursuit of the virtues in accordance with the Golden Mean (balance between extremes). Aristotle, unlike Plato, regarded politics as a "practical science" and as with Plato the highest of human vocations. As a practical science, we must adjust our political decisions to our conditions and allow for variation of the truth in confrontation with the particulars. There is in Aristotle no talk of the individual, the social contract, limited government and the notion of rights. While he cautioned against the dangers of arbitrainess in political decisions and the need for responsibility in the law and individual decisions he regarded the state and our participation in it as crucial to human existence. During the Middle Ages, even while his writing are not discovered until the 12th century, looms over the Middle Ages as the Philosopher. (For a marvellous novelistic rendition of his place in the middle ages see Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose -- also a fine movie with Sean Connery.)

• Burkean --Edmund Burke is distinguished by a defense of what is often called classical conservatism or traditioal conservatism. He stresses a preservation of the status quo for fear that rapid change threatened untold unattended consequences. Burke did allow that change was necessary, but argued that it must be evolutionary in the context of norms of legitimacy. Tradition, religion and prejudice were necessary social glue stabilizing society. The longevity of institutions was a test of their merit. History was the great laboratory. For those living in a corrupt or authortarian society Burke admonition was patience. The effort to bring about rapid would upset the delicate balance that held society together

• Civic Humanism Civic Humanism or Republicanism is a political philosophy that can be traced from Machiavelli in the Discourses (though many of its component can be traced back to Aristotle and Cicero) up until to the later part of the nineteenth century. J.G.A. Pocock in a now classic work The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975) is probably the central figure in convincing the academic community of the importance of this movement. He reads much of the seventeenth century and beyond as an exhchange between the two schools of Civic Humanism and Liberalism. The Civic Humanist stresses such values as citizenship, political participation, political education, community and public spiritedness. In the debate between Republicanism and Liberalism both sides have been given to carricature in their account of the other. The Republican sees the individual as a citizen and participant and characterizes the liberal individual as withdrawn living a private life and attending to the acquisiton of material things.

• Community

• Conservatism-- This is a term that is almost impossible to define. Classical conservatism as set forth by Burke stresses continuity and a preservation of our present institutions for fear that change could awaken the tempests and undermine the fragile social order. Contemporay conservatism, in the U.S., is often distinguished by talk of radical change if not revolution. While much of the language here is rhetorical there is clearly a deep and abiding critique of our present institutions variously described as welfare state liberalism, saecular humanism elitist social engineering. European conservatism tends to frequently have a class and elitist underpinning that is frequently comfortable with genetic and racial aguments a la The Bell Curve. Figures like Rush Limbaugh, William Buckley and most conservative legislators have kept this work of Herrnstein and Murray at arms length.

• Counter Reformation Large scale social movements almost invariably instigate a counter reaction. Luther and Calvin's criticism and challenge to the Catholic church led to an effort to reform the church and to fight back the tide of Protestantism. The Counter-Refomation took many forms from intellectual responses with the Jesuit leading the way, to the Inquisition, to physical combat. While the church was quite successful in responding to Protesantism after the sixteenth there would no longer be one holy, and apostalic church dominating Western Euorpe. The Reformation also unleashed or intensified a process of secularizaion that would achieve a kind of fruition in the seventeenth Scientific Revolution.

• Democracy

• Enlightenment

  It is frequently labelled the Age of Enlightenment. As with the classification of Ancient or Modern it is difficult to give precise dates for this period, but it is usually associated with the Eighteenth century and identified particularly with France and such figures as Voltaire, Diderot and the German philosopher, Kant. Perhaps the distinctive element in this philsophical tradition is the belief in human reasoning and the ability to alter and change social and political institutions in the name of progess. The Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth century pointed to laws of nature that seemed able to explain a diverse range of phenomena. Why not apply the same scientic method garned from the natural science to the study of human behavior. The Enligtenment is seen by Kant as the coming of age of human nature. Humankind for the first time has broken away from traditional values as proclaimed by the church, government or family. Humans have achieved a kind of adulthood in which they now rely on their powers of human reasoning. Many of the figures identified as Enlightenment thinkers in France were not really democrats. They were quite willing to work with enlightened sovereigns, such as Catherine the Great, to effect change.

• Equality

• Feudalism

• Freedom

• Great Chain of Being--Christian cosmology dominant throughout much of the Middle Ages and holding an important in social and political thought until the more saecular eithteenth century. The paradigm postulates a hierachy from the lowliest of creatures and things up to the God head. In this hierarchy there are relations of superior to inferior, master to servant, elite to masses. All creatures exist in a relation of superioriy to subordination to all creatures above and below. Paternalistic relations of father to mother, mother to children reinforce and reflect the power of the King at the political level. The hierarchy is basically stagnant with a clear message to accept one's station in life or the "cards that one has been dealt'"

• Hobbesian-- ( 1588-1679). The stress in common parlance is on a strong government, preferably a monarch. Underlying this preference for a monarchy was an image of human nature as "mean, nasty, brutish and short." with social order resulting from the fear of the sovereign. While there is more than a grain of truth in this image of Hobbes' theory it is also too schematic. Hobbes recognized that fear was inadequate as a social glue and wrote extensively about the need to win, even if through deceit, the legitimacy of the populace. While recognizing the need for a choice and free will in his social psychology of "bodies in motion" he undermines the necessary foundation for choice and freedom of the will.

• Thomas Hobbes--(1588-1679) He was born in Malmesbury, England in 1588. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman. His family was of rather limited means, but a relative saw Hobbes' potentality and he was sent to Oxford. For all of his concern about order and obedience he was an early critic of the traditional Aristotelian teaching methods that still dominated education in England. Upon graduation, he became a tutor of the Cavendish family. He accompanied his tutor in travels throughout Europe and was deeply influenced by the scientific investigations of Harvey on the circulation of blood and Galileo laws of motion. Hobbes became a profoundly dirsruptive force while on the one hand a defender of monarchial government his defense of the institution was on secular, non-paternalistic grounds. He was similiarly critical of the Anglican church. On the other he was unsympathetic to the voice of the masses and "lower orders" that were just acquiring their voice. Displeasing both camps he was compelled to flee England on two occasions. For all of his talk of violence and disorder he died at the age of ninety-one in 1679.

• Human Nature-- Conceptions of human nature are a fundamental category in the analysis of a political theorist. Discussions of the real or true nature of human beings vary greatly. On christian interpretations, derived from the Old Testament, human beings are described as fallen creatures, locked in a cycle of degredation only to be saved by the grace of god. On a Marxist interpretaion human nature is the sum of the social realations which have shaped and impacted upon us. On some readings human beings are described as violent, self-serving and materialistic; on other readings human beings are described as co-operative and trusting. It is also quite common to differentiate between people on the basis of gender, race and ethnicity: On some accounts, women are described as maternal, caring and emotional, while men are supposedly more rational, self-centered and calculating. Italians are more hot headed, and English more prudish and circumspect.

  Accounts of human nature have real implications for our images of human possibility and change. For example, the Englightenment period is described as having great faith in rationality and the possiblity of social planning. Our own period is sometimes described as having lost the Englightenment faith in human reasoning. Efforts to reform povert;y and welfare during the Great Society of LBJ are viewed by many as a failure and suggestive of bad grace to have even tried. It is vital in our examination of the various political theorists throughout the course that we continually ask what is the conception of human nature explicit or implicit in the discussion. One nice discussion of the concept is Leslie Stevenson, Seven Theories of Human Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974).

• Human Rights

• Individualism

• Jeffersonian

• Justice

• Martin Luther King, Jr.-- Martin Luther King (1929-1968) was the leading figure in the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. His southern baptist background lent great passion and force to his ideas and speeches. King made America uncomfortable with itself by calling on us to live by the principles of equality, justice and the fair treatment of all. He led a revolution but a revolution that harkened back to our deepest social and political values. He came from a family of ordained ministers. He received a PhD. in theology from Boston University in 1955. The year prior to receiving his degree he became a minister in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. King led the city's black community in a boycott of segregated municipal busses. He was in the forefront of the movement throughout the fifties and early sixties. In 1963 in Washington, D.C. he gave one of the great speeches in our history, "I Have a Dream. In 1964 he received the Noble prize for his efforts to achieve peaceful change through non-violence. In the mid-Sixties the Civil Rights movement focussed on voter registration, equality and increasingly looked to improve lifving conditions in the north. Towards the later part of the sixties King's non-violent tactics were increasingly questioned as to their effectiveness. Militant blacks felt that the corruptions of the system and the nature of the problems which they now faced in the distribution of wealth and the ending of the Vietnam war were not given to non-violent protest. In March of 1968 while heading the Poor People's Campaign he was assassinated while standing on his motel balcony. His death resulted in some of the most violent protests ever seen in our large cities. With his death a certain degree of hope in the future also died.

Lockean

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