What should I read to decide on a political identity?

>decide on a political identity?
You should not do this.

>>9638417
How come?

>>9638413
AD&D rulebook, and follow true-neutral path. It's the only political way to follow. Always swing for the balance.

>>9638429
Because knowledge is a tool, not a fashion accessory. Just be yourself

>>9638429
There is no need to assign yourself a loyalty and limit your intellectual growth. Read authors from all different political perspectives. When you are presented with an opportunity to be a political player, be it a vote or a theoretical revolution, you must decide one way or another, even if you're only choosing nonpartisanship, but outside of that having a political identity is only constricting. Have opinions, do not become enslaved to your opinions.

>>9638413
read philosophy and history first
unless you want to be an angry teen who falls on schematisms and hates on everything either from the left or from the right

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Right here, dumbfuck.

>>9638436
>>9638458
Please listen to these anons.

>>9638475
Don't read the constitution first OP, you won't get the context.


Start with the Greeks like John Adams did.

>>9638458
This right here. Read a variety of political perspectives and form your own opinions. Don't choose an ideology just for the sake of having one. Once your opinions are well-established, expanding them further with certain books is alright

>>9638458
>>9638465
Is there any list having a good outline of all kinds of ideology, good enough to browse around

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>>9638413
>What should I read to decide on a political identity?
Read both from the far-left and far-right and become a radical centrist.

which political ideologies you prescribe to depend on your view of human nature

>>9640274
People from ideology A will select the best for A and the worst for their opponent ideology B; no encyclopedia of "-isms" can be exhaustive enough, for pages are finite, ideas not as much; one day you will even realize that each author has disagreements even with his own fellow ideologues within the same party or movement.

Until then, grow up.

>>9638458
Good post. Don't read or select your readings from a pre-determined point of view, otherwise you'll end up in a community of people who all read the same books and all generally agree with their basic premises, with the only disagreements coming over tiny minutiae that are so trivial as to be non-existent to those outside your small clique. This makes your political views scarcely any different than a fashionable trend, like people arguing over which brand of high-priced designer glasses is better.

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>>9638413
u very spooky boi

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>>9638413
>wanting to be an ideological soldier
Don't. The increasing politicisation of mass democracy will be our own undoing. The mob is already forming that will put the new Caesar into power.

>>9640407
What we're witnessing is just a local high. The overall tendency is towards a de-politication of everday life.

>>9640426
>local high
local to what?
>a de-politication of everday life.
explain

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Follow me

I've read the greatest political and philosophical books of the 21th century and I can outdebate anyone now.

I've always found it sad when people voice their supposed poltical opinions, but in reality they haven't formed them at all since they have not even read and digested real thought-out political theory but instead just watches your average late night political commentary shows for their weekly fix of politics.

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>>9640475
this person exists

>>9640426
>a de-politication of everday life
The digitisation of mass democracy has made any opinion accessible on the internet. Out of a consumerist logic, people are encouraged on a daily basis to voice their opinion on anything. At the same time anybody can criticise anybody's opinion. The concrete issues don't matter. What matters is friction.

As Schmitt said: Politics is the distinction between friend and foe and democracy is enforcing homogeneity. Mass democracy coupled with internet-driven hyper-individualism will lead to bloodshed in the long run. Mark my words.

>>9638413
Guns, Germs, and Steel

>not knowing what you are inherently
I popped out of mommy already knowing I would live my life as an ancap techno-crat

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There, much better now.

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>>9640573

>>9640456
Compared to the general apathy towards politics you see in the western world since '68.

Thanks to the rowing division of labour and bureaucratisation of decision-making processes politics are seen more and more as a specialised business reserved to a caste of professional politicians and not as something in which the average citizen can meaningfully participate.
The same division of labour also leads to an ever higher isolation among individuals and makes them disregard collective political action.

>>9640605
growing*

>>9640573
liberalism ≠ marxism, are you american or something?

>>9640475
that's incredible

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>>9640605
>didn't even account for mass digitisation which massively counteracts any other development
Opinion discarded.

>>9640643
mass digitization helped Trump, he had a stronk Internet presence.

just that retards like Clinton or Bush cant use it doesnt mean it it it it iti tititi ti ti titi depoliticzes people

>>9638429
Political identity is a spook

>>9640475
why is nerds so reactionary?

>>9638413

Focus on the person you are in the real world instead of letting your need to create an ideological identity limit you.

Learn and develop through experience, then read books that reinforce your opinions more eloquently and elaborately so as to anchor your own understanding more firmly.

Some might call this reinforcing a bias, but having convictions is more beneficial than vacillating between two or more viewpoints with every new book you read. You shouldn't live eternally in doubt of yourself.

>>9640475
>those wwe games

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>>9638413

literally start with the greeks

>>9640573
>liberal
>left

Looks like someone needs to read more political philosophy

>>9640475
Unironically kys.

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Plato -> Aristotle -> Thucydides -> Cicero -> Magna Carta -> Machiavelli -> Hobbes -> Locke -> Smith -> Federalist Papers -> Mill -> Kant -> Rousseau -> Hegel -> Marx -> Schmitt -> Rawls

Most basic outline I can think of.

>>9638413
Don't read anything OP, flip a coin heads you are a Republican, tails and you're a Democrat. Or you could do it in extremes, communist vs. fascist.

>>9641237
Schmitt there is pure revisionism. Even Arednt was more influential at the time.

>>9641237
I like this, but there is a 1000+ year gap between Cicero and the Magna Carta (not so much a philosophical document anyways as much as a temporary power-sharing agreement between King John and the barons), and then nearly 300 years between that and Machiavelli. A lot happened during that time, so someone as enormously influential as Aquinas ought to be included. Maybe Grotius too.

>>9641237
for the most basic outline you sure ignored Homer (which was essential for Plato) and Shakespeare.

>>9641291
Yeah but you need Heidegger for Arendt. And Concept of the Political is harmless enough.
For the basic enough outline I just don't feel like
she's necessary.

>>9641293
Eh, I just don't think they're that necessary for OP's purpose, which is basically "how do I into political philosophy"
Aquinas, Augustine, and Grotius-- like Hume and Burke, are massively influential but can probably be saved for later without missing much, IMO.

>>9641297
Is Homer really necessary for understanding Plato's political philosophy?
And why Shakespeare?

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>people still read about politics as the respective writer imagine it should be, instead of about it as it is

Read:

Vilfredo Pareto - The Mind and Society
Gaetano Mosca - The Ruling Class
Robert Michels - Political Parties
James Burnham - The Managerial Revolution
Bertrand de Jouvenel - On Power

This is the basic literature for someone who doesn't want to be illiterate in political science.

You can read the entire Marxist canon and still be illiterate if you never touched above authors.

>>9641316
The fastest way to understand how radical Plato was, is to understand him trying to flip the Homeric world view upside down and revolutionize the Greek polis. Arendt herself makes amazing argument for this in The Human Condition. You don't need Heidegger for THC. Not that much, it's very standalone political book, but sure, you can tell she was influenced by him (especially when she talks about art) and that's not even counting Banality of Evil.

I think Schmitt's popularity is very modern view on him. Not that I mind that.

>why Shakespeare
Isn't he like oen of the biggest canon modifiers? His influence was massive.

>>9641330
That's a fair point for Plato, I hadn't thought of that.
And while Arendt can stand alone, certainly, I just think you miss a lot of the weight-- similar to how you can read Rousseau without Kant and Marx without Hegel.

To be honest, I'm just really not familiar with Shakespeare's influence on political philosophy.

>>9641316
> Eh, I just don't think they're that necessary for OP's purpose, which is basically "how do I into political philosophy"

I've always found the works of Aquinas and Grotius on natural law and international relations to be deeply foundational to Western political thought, even if some of the theological aspects of their arguments may no longer apply. Without them, it seems like Hobbes and Locke just came out of nowhere.

>Burke
Now that you mention him, I would add Burke as well. He's probably *the* core conservative thinker (as opposed to truly right-wing like Hobbes or Schmitt), which is a political doctrine that has remained vital for 200+ years.

I like your inclusion of Schmitt, he's very overlooked, and agree on Rawls, whose thought is probably the most influential doctrine of the past 50 years.

>>9641361
>>9641347
>tfw started my reread of Schmitt
He was pretty far seeing lad desu

>>9640573
those books aren't very liberal senpai

>>9641361
>Without them, it seems like Hobbes and Locke just came out of nowhere.
That's certainty true

Alright, how about this:

Plato -> Aristotle -> Thucydides -> Cicero -> Augustine -> Aquinas -> Machiavelli -> Hobbes -> Locke -> Smith -> Federalist Papers -> Burke -> Mill -> Kant -> Rousseau -> Hegel -> Marx -> Schmitt -> Arendt -> Popper -> Rawls

Unless there's already some pre-existing flow chart, I might just make this on photoshop real quick. There are plenty of political theory lists, but not many flowcharts for its introduction.

>>9641380
Damn straight. Concept of the Political is amazing, although I wish he defended his dualism.

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>>9641401

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>>9641432
oh wow THATS the 2nd picture fukin 4chan X

This is the 1st pic

>>9641401
I really like your list now, but I would ditch Popper. He is a shallow thinker when it comes to political philosophy, The Open Society feels like a series of misinterpretations and ad hominems against Plato, Hegel and Marx, his totalitarian thesis and muh paradox of tolerance are lazy. He's obviously much more competent in his primary fields, philosophy of science and epistemology. Arendt is a much better post-war thinker when it comes to politics.

A lot of people would say Nozick should be in there as a response to Rawls, but my opinion is that he's not that influential outside of libertarians. I think Leo Strauss is also very important, but he's probably too arcane for the kind of list you're trying to make.

What's your opinion on including Clausewitz?

>>9641361
Neither Hobbes nor Schmitt were "truly righ-wing".

>>9641435
Those first three tiers aren't too bad for something that came out of /pol/.

>>9641401
Your list also lacks Weber.

>>9641435
Hey, this isn't so bad
>>9641432
Jesus christ make it stop

>>9641447
My thought is just to make a basic flowchart, then an additional section for "I was interested in this, and I want more". That's where Strauss, Clausewitz, Hume, Weber, Zizek, Paine, Montesqieu, Heidegger, Frankfurt School, etc can come in if need be.

I haven't read Nozick, so I can't say much on him

>>9641449
Weber is trash

>>9641462
Montesqieu, Weber, Hume, Paine are the most essential out of those.

>>9638413
https://thejosias.com

if anyone still cares, here's the first draft

>>9641940
>File deleted
?

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>>9641952
Noticed some typos

>>9640475
>In Trump We Trust
She literally replaced God with Trump...

>>9640475
>all of Halo
Godly taste.

>WWE
>Trumpshit
>Lauren Southern
You had to go and ruin it.

>>9638413
Don't listen to them; study economics; base your political ideology on more important matters.

I always wonder who puts these lists together and how many of the book they've actually read.

>>9641996
I've read many, and used spark notes for the rest. The list is complete, kiddo. How many have you read, Mr. buzzkill?

>>9641996
I haven't read The Rights of Man, Weber, and I never finished Hegel. But everything else I've read / skimmed through.

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>>9638413
Read books on economics, philosophy, law, theology and science. Ignore everything which is trying to sway you on the political binary. Then take a political compass test. If you are strongly swayed anything greater then 2 or -2 on either axis you havent been subjected to enough intellectualy diverse material.

>>9641432
why the fuck is Cioran there?

>>9641968
This is pretty good I would also recommend the life of solon by Plutarch or just Plutarch in general

>>9642187
>quotations around Greens
What did they mean by this?

>>9640475
i was gonna call it 3/10 but you caught some stupid fish so it's a 7/10. not too bad, sonny

>>9640475
I've seen this image posted before but I'm only just now completely repulsed by it

>>9640628
Of course he's American, 4chan is an American website. You fuckin foreign faggoy.

>>9641237
>stopping at Rawls
>reading Rawls without following up with Nozick

Nice try Alinskyite

After Rawls:
Nozick - Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Sandel - Liberalism and the Limits of Justice
MacIntyre- Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Pettit - Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government
Foucault - Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings
Agamben - Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life
Rorty - Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America

>>9641447
But in his critique of Marx in The Open Society, his isolation of Marx's descriptive sociology from his historicism exactly makes it possible to reactualize the marxist capitalist critique without succumbing to the flawed enlightenment-era progress thinking. That's at least how I see Popper as useful.

But Frankfurt School guys surely did efforts in the same direction.

>>9642975
Sorry, I just haven't read him.
If thread's still up tomorrow I could update it, given that a couple people have mentioned him now

>>9643114
I wanted to add:
Habermas - The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Debord - Society of the Spectacle + Comments on the Society of the Spectacle
Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent
Klein - No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies
Baudrillard - The Spirit of Terrorism
Alinsky - Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals

Hayek - The Road to Serfdom
Kolakowski - Main Currents of Marxism
Voegelin - Modernity Without Restraint: The Political Religions, The New Science of Politics, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Volume 5)
Scruton - How to Be a Conservative
Kirk - The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
Robert D. Putnam - Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

>>9643420
>Bowling Alone

lmfao cmon

>>9641968
Why recommend pol phil without starting in phil altogether? It's, to me, the most unmotivating thing once you realize most of what you read is going to pass over you because you have zero context into anything that's being written. You might as well watch top 10 philosopher videos for ten hours.

>>9642187
Return that image from where you got it

>>9638458
>>9638436
i love you lit, this is the stuff i come to this board for

>>9638413
Someone should make a better version of this desu. Like 3 adornos and no 18th brumaire.

Reading about politics is a waste of time. The world we live in today is a different world from the time these books are written. You should pay attention to what happens in the real world. Gather information from every single source you can, left wing and right wing. Establish a truth by distilling the accurate information from all sources. Then attempt to evaluate the consequences of these truths using your own judgment.

>>9642515
Donnu. In Sweden and Germany the greens are more "fuck our shit up"-SJWs rather than environmentalists. Maybe that.

>>9643591
Except alll of the great political books improve your imagination and mind with regards to politics which helps you to recognize ideas and even generate your own. The "modern politics" composed of people didn't just randomly think what they will do. They had an idea.

>>9643492
lone bowler detected

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>>9638413
Skip the meme books and read the best general introduction.

>>9643591
Information and data doesn't really mean a lot if you don't have any models to use them in. "Truth" in itself can't necessarily guide you politically.

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v.2.

It's only supposed to be a bare introductory guide, guys.

>>9643614
>skip the primary sources and read secondary lit
what the fuck, anon?

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>>9638413

>leftist literature

This board is 18+. Maybe /co/mblr 2ould be more to your tastes

>>9644653
Fedora should be bottom left

>>9640475
even if it's for trolling, you actually gave money to these people

>>9638413
>Sadie Plant
holy...

>>9641263
Hagel meme speaks truth.

>>9640475

>Trump-books
>SJWs always Lie
>cuckervatives
>greates philosophical and political theory

gr8 b8 m8

>>9638413
Back in my day we used words to describe ourselves, not to subscribe to

The concept of "having political views" is a tool (((they))) use to divide us.
Just read as much as you can in the proper order, with an open mind. Most suggestions in this thread are perfectly valid.

>>9645039
>unironically using ((()))
10/10 ideology filtering

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>>9645660
>stopping at the outermost layer of irony

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>>9640475
>he has 3 Vox Day books

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>>9646887
>he probably thinks stefan molyneux is the most enlightened political thinker of our time.

Just drag me to hell already

>>9641432
I can't imagine that if Step 1 involves Hobbes, Step 2 involves St. Augustine's City of God, you're suddenly going to "evolve" as a reader and turn into one of those sallow Julian Assange-looking creeps that reads Atlas Shrugged and the unibomber. Whoever made these flowcharts looks like a redpilled 13 year old who browsed lit in it's heyday of theological and marxist discussions, lifted the 3 books /pol/ reads and then shoved them after 2000 years of western thought. This is proof /pol/ doesn't read. /lit/ doesnt either, but at least /lit/ doesnt pretend to.

>>9647176
Chill the fuck down and stop taking charts so seriously.

>>9643591
Actually, reading about politics will make you realize that the past was not so different from the present.

>>9647428
exactly, pretty much everything after the french revolution is "the same"

>>9647294
He's correct though

>>9640628
Liberalism has a different meaning in America as opposed to Europe. We differentiate the two as,

Liberal = sjw, big government, controlled market
Classical liberal = live and let live, small government, free market

>>9647429
TFR was when the power was taken from the people.

>>9644395
it's a hell of a lot better than baseless pet theories from hundreds of years ago, spawning other baseless pet theories and fanatical ideology.

>>9647510
Only someone with a sinister agenda would be this opposed to teaching the mind.

>>9647514
>he thinks intentional language loops/traps and self-serving concepts, almost entirely removed from reality are """"teaching the mind""""
also, that's a bold claim to make from one post

>>9638413
Obviously nothing in that image.

>>9638429
Because then it becomes "my team vs. their team" and you will support retarded shit just because it is done by your side.

>>9647663
No, that only happens when you are indoctrinated, see for example the leftist and liberals in U.S. who simply cannot co-exist, co-operate and have discourse with the current administration of Donald Trump. They're only means of conducting "politics" is just obstructing or inciting civil unrest (protests, murder attempts at this point).

>>9647672
I see the same shit coming from the american right, though to a lesser degree and less blood thirsty. Same team sport mentality with double standards and apologetics for 'their guys'.

>>9647687
Republicans are co-operative and try to have a discourse in U.S. politics. I do not talk about mysterious American right or American left that exists outside of this sphere. I referred to the administration, government and opposition, state of their nature currently.

>team sport mentality
Nothing bad with that, just remember to shake hands after a match and have a beer (which the democrats cannot currently do).

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>just bee urself, don't get tied down to narrowminded firm beliefs xD
This is the most standard, liberal opinion you can have, the fact that you don't realize it shows how much you have assimilated of the dominant ideology.

"The ultimate postmodern irony of today is the strange exchange between Europe and Asia: at the very moment when "European" technology and capitalism are
triumphing worldwide at the level of the "economic infrastructure, the Judeo-
Christian legacy is threatened at the level of "ideological superstructure" in the
European space itself by New Age "Asiatic" thought, which, in its different guises
ranging from "Western Buddhism" to different "Taos," is establishing itself as
the hegemonic ideology of global capitalism. Therein resides the highest
speculative identity of opposites in today's global civilization: although "Western
Buddhism" presents itself as the remedy against the stressful tension of capitalist
dynamics, allowing us to uncouple and retain inner peace and Gelassenheit, it
actually functions as its perfect ideological supplement. One should mention here
the well-known concept of "future shock" that describes how people are no
longer psychologically able to cope with the dazzling rhythm of technological
development and the social changes that accompany it. Things simply move too
fast, and before one can accustom oneself to an invention, it has already been
supplanted by a new one, so that one more and more lacks the most elementary
"cognitive mapping." The recourse to Taoism or Buddhism offers a way out of
this predicament that definitely works better than the desperate escape into old
traditions. Instead of trying to cope with the accelerating rhythm of techno-
logical progress and social changes, one should rather renounce the very
endeavor to retain control over what goes on, rejecting it as the expression of
the modern logic of domination. One should, instead, "let oneself go," drift
along, while retaining an inner distance and indifference toward the mad dance
of accelerated process, a distance based on the insight that all this social and
technological upheaval is ultimately just a non-substantial proliferation of
semblances that do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being. One is
almost tempted to resuscitate the old infamous Marxist cliché of religion as the
"opium of the people," as the imaginary supplement to terrestrial misery. The
"Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way for us
to fully participate in capitalist dynamics while retaining the appearance of mental
sanity. If Max Weber were alive today, he would definitely write a second,
supplementary, volume to his Protestant Ethic , entitled The Taoist Ethic and the
Spirit of Global Capitalism."

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>>9640475

>>9647699
>>just bee urself, don't get tied down to narrowminded firm beliefs xD
>This is the most standard, liberal opinion you can have, the fact that you don't realize it shows how much you have assimilated of the dominant ideology.
That is probably the most important thing you can read in this thread OP. Forgive me I'm not very good at putting things into words. Liberalism, absolutely for its adherents, has become meta-ideological. Western enlightenment values have become meta-cultural. Remember that the subject of liberalism is the individual. Distill liberalism into one sentence and you get
>Just be yourself

Better for me just to quote Dugin
>liberalism ceases to be the first political theory
and becomes the only post-political practice. Fukuyama’s ‘end of
history’ arrives, economics in the form of the global
capitalist market, replaces politics, and states and nations are
dissolved in the melting pot of world globalisation.
Having triumphed, liberalism disappears and turns into a
different entity — into postliberalism. It no longer has political
dimensions, nor does it represent free choice, but instead
becomes a kind of historically deterministic ‘destiny’. This is the
source of the thesis about post-industrial society: ‘economics as
destiny’.

>>9644609
Other philosophy newbie here, I appreciate this list. As a note, there's another Hackett Plato paperback called "Five Dialogues" that I'm reading, which includes Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo.

>>9640426
But who owns the post political? The French election was basically between competing claims to the ownership of politics that transcend the political

>>9641330
>I think Schmitt's popularity is very modern view on him. Not that I mind that.
Depends. He was very popular in interwar and early nazi Germany. After WW2 he refused denazification and the opportunity of becoming a law professor. He then went on to correspond with the German cultural and philosophical elite (Heidegger, Jünger, etc) from the village to which he had retired. His philosophy was even back then widely discussed but his reach did not go beyond Germany.