17.5.13

El poder de los iguales (and "the joy that springs from it")

Aprueba el Senado un "proyecto histórico". Bravo y de acuerdo con los principios correctos, los de la igualdad. Esta sí es una verdad. Y ya tocaba.

"The laws of a republic are based on equality and love of equality is the source from which the actions of citizens spring. Monarchical laws are based on distinctions so that love of distinctions inspire the public actions of the citizenry....Equality in so far as it is a political experience as distinguished from equality before God- ... has always meant that, regardless of existing differences, everyone is of equal value because each one received by nature and equal amount of strength.

The fundamental experience upon which republican  laws are founded and from which the action of citizens spring is the experience of living together with, and being members of, a group of equally powerful men. Laws in a republic therefore, are not laws of distinctions but laws of restrictions; they are designed to restrict the strength of each citizen so that room may be left for the strength of his fellow citizen. The common ground of republican law and action within it is the insight that human strength is not primarily limited by some superior power --God or nature-- but by the power of equals, and the joy that springs from it. Virtue as love of equality springs from this experience of equality of power that alone guards men against the dread of loneliness".

Arendt en 'The Great Tradition: Law and Power' (explica los principios fundamentales en Montesquieu).

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