Talk:Politics

First Rewrite

I took the first stab at revising a WP mess.

In short:

Definition and Lead

I thought the definition was absolutely ludicrous and in conflict with every definition of the word I could find. I combined and paraphrased several definitions from the OED, Random House, Webster, American Heritage, and Wordnet. It gives the main usage of the word along with explanations some alternative current usage ("office politics") and usage that has fallen out of favor ("political science" displacing "politics" when referring to academia).

I couldn't believe the Greek origin of the word and Aristotle were totally passed over, that is now prominent and expanded.

Sections from further down on Hobbes and Childe were moved up as I felt them very important to the concept of politics.

Alternative Definitions, Etc

Most of these were really quotations, I labeled them as such and moved them down. Some of the definitions were actually concepts within politics so I renamed that "Political Concepts" and there are links to the articles which expand on those concepts.

Political Power

For whatever reason there was a huge section on the debate concerning political power, which is already in the article political power which I think either merits its own article or can be incorporated back here. I left it as its own article for now.

Weber

I felt Weber's section was important and left it although I think it can probably be condensed. I don't feel very comfortable having one section so large dedicated to one theory in the article.

Politics Template

There is a "Politics Series" infobox which, in typical infobox fashion, could be considered a bit of overkill. The infobox CSS is not currently implemented correctly so I boiled down the infobox and moved it to the "See Also" section. Most of the infobox was already duplicating that section anyway (gotta love WP). I eliminated a lot of what I felt was trivial junk (food politics, politics and music) which have their own articles (which can probably be deleted but I'll leave that for another time).

--W Guy Finley 12:56, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Suggestions

Definition

I'd prefer to use Harold Lasswell's famous definition of politics: "Politics is who gets what, when, where, and how." It is not limited to "government" -- an anachronism held over in some "Government Departments." ExxonMobil has far more influence on the course of US and world events than do most elected or appointed officials.

Aristotle

Aristotle seems to imply more than just the functioning of the polis (city-state), in describing man as a polis-animal: "That man is much more a political animal than any kind of bee or any herd animal is clear. For, as we assert, nature does nothing in vain, and man alone among the animals has speech....[S]peech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful and hence also the just and unjust. For it is peculiar to man as compared to the other animals that he alone has a perception of good and bad and just and unjust and other things of this sort; and partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city" (1253a8).

--Dale Murphy 12:21, 1 December 2006 (CST)