Aristotle, and the Stoic thinkers as well, refer to civic friendship, and this offers a clue about how to think about the common good. The adage “friends have all things in common” may refer to a community of material property (as in “the commons”), but more fundamentally it refers to the experience of inhabiting a common lifeworld, and the mutual... See more

a post-national ruling class that regards itself as the civilized minority and defines itself against a backward majority. The backwardness of the demos lies precisely in its susceptibility to “love of one’s own,” as against the humanitarian’s principled preference for what is Other.