Ethics and the failure of politics, or why ethics is part of the problem. A dispatch from Athens

Disillusionment with politics is probably the most obvious feature of the current mood. This is, in part, because politics has collapsed onto anxiety about material improvement and lost sight of much more. In a secular society in which this facet of wellbeing is increasingly hard to deliver, politics appears therefore to be failing.
So now is a good moment to consider what is sometimes called the pre-political - the more that politics needs.
A second thought reaches back to Aristotle who asked about the relationship between ethics and politics. He agreed that democracy is the best political system but also that it isn't self-justifying. The deeper question of why it is the most "friendly" polity needs to be asked.
But there is a problem with ethics, today. It has been weaponised, used to divide, deploy to stop thinking rather than encourage an engagement with the muddle of life.
Ethics has become part of the disillusionment, I think.
So in this thought, I ask why and what alternatives there might be. Which is where Aristotle can be a guide.

[@vidyakara]

Buddhist ethics is explicitly seen in terms of developing a skill. That orientation helped me drop the 'tricky' attitude to ethics. Indeed, to link to your last message in this series, ethics was revealed as potentially beautiful. The practice of honing a skill is so different to following a rulebook. For me this addresses the point you make in this video about needing to check again what politics is for and Aristotle's ethics coming before his Politics. Perhaps it is only when we have grounded ourselves in the virtues can we be clear on what an inspiring politics that aims beyond economics, might look like.
Thanks Mark

[@PlatosPodcasts]

Well put, yes

[@colingallagher1648]

thanks for all of these

[@natalieanderson308]

Very helpful…I’ve been at sea here with no framework or ‘vision goggles’ to look at politics, ethics, etc. 🤓

[@briefoutlines4505]

Thank you for another helpful video, Mark. On another note, I want to let you know that there is a way of turning off that annoying alarm on your bosch washing machine - youtube has a very good video on how to do it, and it changed our lives. There is no need to live under that kind of machine tyrany!

[@PlatosPodcasts]

Oops. Note made

[@MarmaladeINFP]

This topic looks different from an American perspective. This society and its politics has never been fully secularized. There has never been a moment in American history when there wasn't a looming threat of at least politicized religion and sometimes aspiring theocracy. Moral virtue is precisely what makes American politics so divisive and aggressive. We have a population where not only most conservatives but also most liberals are still religious. The stagnation in the US has less to do with what you're talking about. We are still struggling just to get to secularism. Once we get there, we can worry about going beyond secularism to something even better.

[@thethomasraymond]

I love your take on these issues Mark. It’s surprising that more people aren’t taking this approach when critiquing either major western ideologies. I find when I frame it in this way people become so perplexed, I have just ripped the ground out beneath them, as though to question the assumptions pushes one into a nihilistic vacuum, this does help me understand why they are clinging so strongly to the “answers” to the deep complex issues of our age. It’s always strange to me that the narrative embedded in how these topics are framed goes unseen and unpicked and instead doubled down on or used to attack the moral character of the opponent. I find your therapeutic analysis here is the only way to step into these waters without becoming trapped, paranoid or cynical.