HYPOTHESIS

Lowi's theory of government is that a people must first gain dominion over the land and then the population. The foundation of government must then change from power to authority, and be legitimized by the reduction of both the principles and the mechanisms of policy making to known documents. Changes in these basic documents are usually made through custom and practice, and only very rarely through formal amendment. The government maintains the right to govern through consent and accommodation. Consent is reflective of the political culture.

I have added two details to Lowi's theory. First is the adoption of a "generalized other" by the population. These principles and standards are probably adopted before the conquest begins. The subsequent detail is the identification of a social compact under which a people come together, establish a government among themselves, and attempt to implement their aspirations. The generalized other is consistent with the first part of the larger social compact.

Lowi's theory works perfectly in the Hellenic-Western and in the Confucian-Chinese examples. A people adopted a generalized other, conquered the land, converted the population, reduced their principles to a tangible form, and disposed both leaders and societies who became "insincere".⁽²²³⁾ In these examples the generalized other, and the elements of the social compact, came from among the people and were crystallized into a workable form. It was an agnostic epistemology even when the axiology and the satoriology were gnostic. The Chinese had to discover the tao much as Westerners had to discover the four-fold test.

That is not what happened to the Jews. Their generalized other - and then their social compact - was revealed to them as a covenant. It was a gnostic epistemology. The Chinese and the West have had restructuring - or renaissance - in both form and substance. The Jews have only modified their form because of events in their environment. The Jews are a complete conquest.