Being citizens of a functioning democracy, one of our most important responsibilities is to understand the functioning of the government in our country, how it impacts the lives of its citizens and what role we play in the political system. But for that, first we need to understand where it is that our political system originates from. Throughout history there have been multiple philosophers who have, in varying degrees, impacted the laws of society we live by today. It is important for us to understand the history of political philosophies so that we are well informed about the great ideas which have inspired our laws and also what mistakes were made in our past so as not to repeat them in the future.
UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY AND HIERARCHY
Across different levels of the broad swath of evolution, there exist different levels of complexity of social structure in organisms. Organisms with complex social structures have awareness of one another, live together and often have long childhoods, which accommodates them to the social norms. Organisms organise themselves in different hierarchical structures to enable proper division of labour to survive. Human beings arguably have the most complex social structure of all. Throughout history, humans have lived in societies and fulfilled different roles in the society to enable progress. This division of labour of human beings is based on the individual’s physical capabilities, intelligence, sexuality, and competence among other things.
However one of the issues with human hierarchies is that they produce inequalities and often tend to get tyrannical. And the people who are at the bottom of the hierarchy are vulnerable to exploitation from those who are above them. Multiple philosophers throughout history have had different ideas and interpretations of what a functioning political system should be like, so as to prevent misuse of authority and to maintain peace and harmony in human societies.
With thousands of years of development, modern form of democracy, despite all its flaws, is the epitome of political ideologies, by forming a constitution that functions as the main framework of the rules and regulations to be followed not only by the citizens, but also by the government of the republic. This makes it such that the all the people of the republic have the same laws to live by and government also has to function based on the laws laid down by the constitution.
“The constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests” – Patrick Henry
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