The Polis

/ˈpɒlɪs'/

The Polis is translated as "city" in Greek. The ancients knew the "city" as a "city-state," but to think of the Polis as just a city or city-state does a great disservice to the terminology. The city-state symbolizes independent governance, experimentation, innovation, philosophical exploration, and aesthetic variety. The Athenian city-state birthed Western culture and values. In one sense, ancient Athens represents the invention of meta-cognition, the ability to think about thinking.

The Polis resonates with such power because it ultimately manifests collective intelligence. The ancient polis was a place that empowered knowledge brokers and intellectual entrepreneurs. It is an alchemical artifact of enduring value and beauty. In all of ancient Greece, each city-state had the ability to self-govern and to define themselves as autonomous entities. With certainty, these city-states were imperfect and suffered the vagaries of ancient prejudices and barbarism. Nonetheless, the fact that each city-state possessed a degree of political sovereignty allowed for the flourishing of human ingenuity. They were ages ahead of their time.

Polis /ˈpɒlɪs'/ noun

1. a city-state in ancient Greece, especially as considered in its ideal form for philosophical purposes.

As a species, we are vying to return to the Athenian spirit; we are reimagining life in the polis. In other words, we are undergoing a reexamination of governance. We are rethinking the nobility and use of decentralization, miniaturization, and localization in governance. The smaller the scale of human societies and the more political autonomy, the more creativity gets unlocked. In a way, the development of the polis was a watershed moment in human existence.

At Polis Labs, we decided to take the namesake from the Greek city-state as this ideal model for governance and thus our organization's name. However, naysayers quickly note that in some cultures and languages, "polis" means police. We find the semantic coincidence humorous because police can represent anti-governance in totalitarian regimes. They are established authorities that violate individual autonomy and rights. They are antithetical to and discontinuous with the philosophical idea of the liberated city-state. In a paradoxical and contradictory sense, we gladly accept the linguistic faux pas as a badge of honor. We are essentially invoking the intent of the polis to consume the malintent of authoritarianism. Indeed, we are assimilating police into the polis and establishing good governance anew.