What Does Music Have to do with Politics?

JOSEPH GRIFFITH, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY & POLITICAL SCIENCE
March 10, 2026 • 1 min. read

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What does music have to do with politics?

For Aristotle, political science is not simply the study of power or policy. It is the search for the best regime in light of particular circumstances. It asks a deeper question: What form of government and way of life most fully supports human flourishing?

To make that question more concrete, Aristotle turns to music.

A song can be played in a major key or a minor key. The notes may be the same, but the arrangement changes the character of the whole. Structure determines tone.

Political communities work in a similar way. Citizens are the notes. Laws, institutions and governing principles form the arrangement. Political science is not merely about who governs, but how a society is ordered and toward what end.

In Griffith’s classroom, students read primary sources closely, beginning with Aristotle and moving through other foundational thinkers. The aim is not memorization, but discernment. What makes a regime just? What conditions allow people to flourish?

Like music, politics expresses a key. It reveals what a community values and how it understands the good life. By studying the arrangements of the past, students learn to listen more carefully to the one they inhabit now.

Political science becomes an exercise in judgment. Not simply choosing sides, but asking whether the structure of a society directs its citizens toward flourishing or away from it.

Joseph Griffith is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashland University, where he also serves as the William Blackstone Professor of Law & Society and director of the Classical Learning Program at the Ashbrook Center. Dr. Griffith studies American political thought, constitutional law and political philosophy, with a focus on the rights of parents in education and the role of the state in forming educated citizens.

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