namis”—efficacy or quality—that makes a polis great, andrnthis depends not on the number of men but on the number ofrnsolid citizens. How strong was a large state, if it were filled withrnaliens, slaves, and base men pursuing nothing but their ownrnprivate gain? A certain size was necessary, if a city was going tornbe able to provide for its own necessities, but if it were toornlarge, the citizens would not be able to assign political officesrnon the basis of an individual’s merit, because they would notrnhave direct knowledge of his character. In large communities,rnhe warned, even aliens will usurp the rights of citizens.rnOur concept of the political has been molded all too well byrnAristotle, who took it for granted that the members of a politicalrncommunity did, or at least could, know each other. AsrnPeter Laslett observes, “the whole of Greek political thoughtrnwas conditioned by the fact that the polis was a political societyrnwhich was also a face-to-face society.” A modern state, hernargues, is by contrast a “territorial society,” which—if it is tornreach collective decisions—”must discover from within itselfrn. . . a group of critical size which can act, and act continuously,rnas a face-to-face society: which is capable, that is, of proceedingrnby means of conversation between its members, permittingrnmutual response in terms of the whole personalities ofrnthose who compose it.”rnThe House of Commons, the Royal Family, the U. S. Senate,rnand until recently the Supreme Soviet, are all examples ofrnface-to-face societies that are able to make collective determinationsrnthat, in principle, represent the will of millions ofrnpeople. Laslett is aware that such representation has workedrnbest when it was personal and religious, citing “the sacramentalrncharacter of Medieval European Kingship,” and he concedesrnthat a mystical notion of the body politic is more difficultrnto sustain in “the so-called rational political organizationrnof the contemporary world.”rnLaslett, if I am reading him correctly, sought the answerrnto his dilemma in political psychology, but the problem ofrnmodern states is not simply that we, as citizens, do not necessarilyrnidentify very strongly with those little cliques that layrndown the law as that to do so would be a very serious mistake.rnIt is not psychological alienation that is the problemrnbut political alienation. To return to the example of Americanrnpolitics, no one, for all practical purposes, knows either thernPresident or his senators; very few of us have even shakenrnhands with our congressman, and yet we are regularly calledrnupon to choose from column A or column B the set of Twecdledumsrnor Tweedledccs that collectively hold something likernabsolute power over our lives. What little personal liberty wernhave left is the result of competing jurisdictions. Is this, I oftenrnwonder, why we so often elect a Republican President andrna Democratic Congress? If the jackals are kept busy fightingrneach other, perhaps they will not be able to devour the entirerncorpse of the Constitution.rnWc are, most of us, laboring under a fundamental delusionrnabout the nature of the system set up by thernFounders of the republic. The Constitution was not designedrnto set up a regime of majority rule that empowered the peoplerncollectively to rule the nation. On the contrary, the fundamentalrnpoint was to allow states, communities, businesses,rnfamilies, and individuals to pursue their interests without interferencern—benign or malevolent—from higher powers pretendingrnto know what is best for us. The great safeguard inrnthis system was the division of powers, not just between thernbranches of the federal government but between the statesrnand the nation. All of the outmoded or superseded eccentricitiesrnof the Constitution were designed with this object inrnmind.rnBut of equal importance was the Constitution’s provision forrna series of face-to-face societies that would serve as buffersrnbetween the small-scale communities of family and villagernand the resplendent power of central government. Before thernCivil War, it was no trouble for a politically minded farmer orrnshopkeeper to know his congressmen, his state legislators, andrnthe gentlemen who wished to be presidential electors. By reputation,rnhe knew which had been honest in their profession,rnhonorable in their private life, attentive to their legislative duties.rnIn small American towns, we still can form a fair idea ofrnthe qualities of the aldermen and school board members—notrnthat it does us much good, since regulators and judges canrnoverturn any decision made by local government—and I amrncontinually being surprised by how much political dirt thernRockford natives seem to know, although little of it is everrnreported in the newspapers.rnBut the tide of progressive reform throughout this centuryrnhas been, to repeat Calhoun’s warning, to “substitute the willrnof the majority” for “the beautiful and profound system establishedrnby the Constitution.” The 17th Amendment (passedrnin 1913) established the popular election of senators; the federalrncourts have stripped the states of their right to apportionrntheir legislatures on any basis but numbers, thus tossing overboardrnthe rural ballast in the farm states and making themrnthe prey of government contractors, urban degenerates, andrncourthouse politicians. The final symbolic step will be thernelimination of the electoral college, whose spectral existencerndepends entirely on its usefulness to the corrupt Democrato-rnRcpublican party.rnThe task is probably impossible, but it is worth consideringrnwhat steps wc could take that would regress us to somethingrnlike the constitutional order established by our ancestors. Thernsimplest measures would include: repeal of the 17th Amendment;rnelimination, state by state, of the general ticket; smallerrnand more numerous congressional districts based on realrncommunities as opposed to the gerrymandered amoebas concoctedrnby the parties; and reapportionment of the state legislaturesrnto represent, in a fair and balanced manner, the diversityrnof interests and communities that exist in the states.rnAlthough they hardly go far enough, these would be productivernsteps toward restoration of republican government,rnbut when I brought them up recently to a well-informed conservative,rnhe dismissed them as too radical and unnecessary. Ifrnindirect elections were designed to insure that important politicalrnchoices were being made by an informed electorate, wernhave newspapers and “that thing,” he said, pointing to therncombination television and VCR.rnHere in a nutshell is the problem, the confusion betweenrnreal knowledge and the various knowledge-substitutes—usuallyrnNOVEMBER 1992/13rnrnrn