Aristotle famously writes at the beginning of his Politics that “man is by nature a political animal.” This is because “man alone of the animals has speech [logos].” Logos is typically translated as “reason.” But it is also accurately translated in different contexts as—among other possibilities—speech, word, argument, or account. The King James Version of the gospel of John memorably opens:

In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word [logos] was with God, and the Word [logos] was God.

The Greek text could reasonably be translated:

In the beginning was Reason, and Reason was with God, and God was Reason.

As speech, logos is not just an uttered sound, but a sound carrying thought—speech with reason. And not just incidentally reasonable or thoughtful speech, but chosen or selected thoughtful speech, carrying the meaning of the Greek verb lego, to which logos is related. Our English words “select” and “elect” and “collect” are all etymologically related to this word. So logos was intrinsic to the recent election and is intrinsic to all elections.

The logos that makes man a political animal is not just an utterance expressing pain or pleasure, or even merely asserting advantage or disadvantage, but an utterance indicating in some way what is right and wrong, just or unjust—ultimately, an utterance indicating what is good. The political community is the community of those beings exercising this faculty together to determine the justice by which they will live together and the good at which together they will aim—a good for the sake of which we do all the things we do, alone and together.