Democracy, according to Plato
28 Jul 2007, 8:33 pm
One of the earliest cynical write-ups of democracy occurs in the writings of the ancient Greek Plato. Disgusted at how democracy was being manipulated to launch disastrous pre-emptive military campaigns by twisting the opinions of those uneducated citizens who could vote, he argued that any uneducated society's attempts at democracy must eventually become totalitarian rule by those who could control the attitudes of the masses, and that only a highly educated nation could have a sustainable democracy.
2,500 years on, we are in the grips of a not entirely dissimilar situation. For all that I may fault education in America and Britain (the US spends a total of $50 per person per year on education, and that's before you subtract overheads, earmarks that aren't actually educational, etc) the current state of both nations is far, far beyond anything Plato could have imagined in his time.
He also advocated specialization - something that generally didn't happen back then, when people could become skilled in everything and usually ended up doing exactly that. These days, people complain about too much specialization and dream of times when generalization was more in fashion.
So was he right, wrong or somewhere in between? Is education enough? Is specialization enough? And if he was right, how advanced must a society be, or how evenly educated, before his objections are countered?
Or have we reached that point already? Is the modern-day situation so different that Plato's complaints don't really apply at all? Is the similarity real or all just an illusion?
31 Jul 2007, 8:41 am
2,500 years on, we are in the grips of a not entirely dissimilar situation. For all that I may fault education in America and Britain (the US spends a total of $50 per person per year on education, and that's before you subtract overheads, earmarks that aren't actually educational, etc) the current state of both nations is far, far beyond anything Plato could have imagined in his time.
He also advocated specialization - something that generally didn't happen back then, when people could become skilled in everything and usually ended up doing exactly that. These days, people complain about too much specialization and dream of times when generalization was more in fashion.
So was he right, wrong or somewhere in between? Is education enough? Is specialization enough? And if he was right, how advanced must a society be, or how evenly educated, before his objections are countered?
Or have we reached that point already? Is the modern-day situation so different that Plato's complaints don't really apply at all? Is the similarity real or all just an illusion?
The real problem is religious people breed too much and the smart people don't breed as much or at all, and so the population dies off. Next is dumb people breed more people and faster then smart people.
It's ultimately a eugenic thing. America in my estimation has more crazy people per then Japan and China combined.
They may be nice folks but they are utterly BAT-SHIT insane.
01 Aug 2007, 5:22 pm
In the ideal world of the eugenicists, we'd all be deemed "contaminants in the gene pool" and sterilized. And if I recall my reading of Republic, right, Plato had nothing but contempt and loathing for the mentally and physically handicapped (and that would undoubtedly include most of us as far as he was concerned). Additionally, your claim that the US has more crazy people (sounds like someone forgot their neurodiversity pin) falls kind of flat when you consider people like Mao Zedong and Issei Sagawa (who despite murdering and eating a Belgian woman has become a popular celebrity in some circles in Japan). Also, just take one look at Japanese tentacle porn and tell me with a straight face that the US is some kind of loony bin in comparison.
01 Aug 2007, 7:01 pm
It has, I agree with everything Mordy said. Yes, humans are a disease, genetically little more than shaved apes, because this is where we came from as a species. Just because someone believes in genetics doesn't mean they believe in eugenics. Genetics are scientific facts, eugenics is a proccess of using those facts for ignorance and elitism.
America is battshit, listen to the constant bickering between "liberals" and "conservatives". Theyr insane, both sides. And almost every single american follows one of those labels out of herd mentality, to the point of lacking common since. America is currently a nation that values ignorance, dishonesty, elitism, and selfishness. And if doing the right thing means challenging one's impulses, most americans quit caring about doing right and defend biggotry as morality. Wake up America.
08 Aug 2007, 2:25 am
In the ideal world of the eugenicists, we'd all be deemed "contaminants in the gene pool" and sterilized. And if I recall my reading of Republic, right, Plato had nothing but contempt and loathing for the mentally and physically handicapped (and that would undoubtedly include most of us as far as he was concerned).
On the question of mental conditions, you should read the Phaedrus, especially the first section, where Socrates describes the four kinds of divine mania - the poetic, the prophetic, the healing and the philosophical. He says that without the appropriate mania one cannot be a real poet, prophet, healer, or philosopher. Aspergians are often described as having truth as a supreme value and being dedicated to justice. Well, lo and behold, these are precisely some of the qualities required of a true philosopher as described in the Republic (the others being high intelligence, and mathematical abilities - mathematics in the widest sense, so, including music, and good character). I think AS is not uncommon amongst philosophers (the real ones, that is) and I think that this is what Plato may be describing when he has Socrates talk about the philosophical mania in the Phaedrus.
