Zoon Politikón

Is politics a necessary evil?

Rather than embracing this cynical framing, we might reconsider the very nature of political life through different philosophical traditions.

Aristotle famously described humans as “zoon politikon”—political animals by nature. This wasn’t a reluctant admission but a celebration of our fundamental character. For Aristotle, participation in the polis (the city-state) wasn’t some burdensome obligation but the fulfillment of our highest potential. To be fully human meant engaging with others in deliberation about shared concerns and collective flourishing. Our political nature isn’t something we must grudgingly accept but rather something that defines our very humanity. We are beings who naturally form communities and must therefore make decisions together about how to live well within them.

Perhaps our modern disillusionment stems partly from the word “politics” itself, which now carries centuries of accumulated negative associations. The term conjures images of manipulation, corruption, and endless partisan conflict. What if we substituted this loaded terminology with the simpler concept of “public life”? This reframing helps us recognize that what we’re really discussing is how we organize ourselves to live together peacefully and productively. Public life encompasses the necessary conversations, compromises, and collective decisions that make shared existence possible. Viewed this way, political engagement isn’t an evil to be tolerated but the essential work of creating communities where all can thrive.

The Confucian tradition offers additional insight, emphasizing that harmonious community life begins with self-cultivation and ripples outward through family and social relationships. For Confucius, good governance wasn’t primarily about institutions or procedures but about virtue. The exemplary person (junzi) developed personal integrity that naturally influenced others. Social order emerged not through coercive power but through ritual, propriety, and reciprocal obligations freely embraced. The Confucian vision reminds us that public life at its best isn’t primarily about power struggles but about creating relationships of mutual respect and responsibility that sustain community well-being.

Politics becomes “evil” only when we reduce it to a cynical game of domination. When we return to the ancient wisdom that sees our political nature as fundamental to our humanity, when we reframe politics as simply our shared public life, and when we ground our approach in the cultivation of virtue and relationship, we can recognize political engagement as not just necessary but potentially noble. The question isn’t whether we can avoid politics but whether we can transform it into an authentic expression of our deepest human capacity for living together in peace and justice.