* Excerpts from Ch. 7: “The Principle of Leadership”.
* Excerpts from Ch. 8: “The Philosopher King”.
* Excerpts from Ch. 25: “Has History any Meaning?”.
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*“ ”.
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Karl Popper on Authentic Education for Youth… The ‘Global Awakening’?… or “The Great ‘Re-Set’”? (Part 2)
This continues the conversations: “The ‘Global Awakening’?… or “The Great ‘Re-Set’”?” and Staying Focused on Designing A Future… On Not Getting Divided… “Initial thoughts for the September 22, 2013”… and “Unpacking Robert Reich’s Baggage”
(See also: Bentham's Strategic Verities and
You Know How I Know 'Localization'… or 'Democratic Economics'… Is A Con? and Conversation with Joel McIver)
09.26.13:
This page provides a partial transcript, including audio files and some articles discussed, during the October, 2013 Waking Up Radio Show.
Excerpts and audio files follow.
For other audio files visit: Waking Up Radio Audio Conversations Page.
Initial Thoughts for the mid-: * October , 2013 shows.
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* “The Mid-October, 2013 shows”
09.26.13: Sisters and brothers… Please read : “The ‘Global Awakening’?… or “The Great ‘Re-Set’”?”
On this page we will be drawing on Karl Popper’s help in understanding this juncture where we stand… stay tuned….
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October 1, 2013: Sisters and brothers…
During the September 29th show we discussed – and on the October 6th show we will expand on – the hidden agenda of ‘power’s “re-setting ‘progress’” propaganda, which dresses itself up as a ‘society-redesign’ project… an effort to develop “a new economic paradigm and… a paradigm for the world”…
…and noted that youth and their education are particularly being targeted… with an appeal for their participation – especially ‘the creatives’ – in “saving the planet.”
And on the September 22nd show we said that ‘power’ churns the available ‘solutions’ to all the problems caused by its existence…
…and then cranks them out as ‘fresh’ to each new generation…
And these so-called ‘solutions’ are necessarily false because they all are premised on our continued captivity and ‘power’s existence…
…so, since releasing us from captivity is off the table… and ‘power’ is ‘power’ is ‘power’… the available ‘solutions’ …that maintain class in place… in essence haven’t changed since Plato’s day…. In what follows we will be noticing if this is so.
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* Excerpts from Ch. 6: “Totalitarian Justice”
These first quotes are from Chapter 6 (p. 86 – 119 of the Princeton edition) of The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, entitled, “Totalitarian Justice.”
The problem of individualism and collectivism is closely related to that of equality and inequality. Before going on to discuss it, a few terminological remarks seem to be necessary.
[…and here we see again… that ‘the people’s lexicon’ is needed… to create the definitions that support and knit our future freedom. For instance… our word ‘communalism’ is not to be confused with Popper’s ‘collectivism’… which he uses to conscribe the ideology of ‘tribe’… and our ‘communalism’ is essentially… ‘good fellowship’…– PS]
The term ‘individualism’ can be used (according to the Oxford Dictionary) in two different ways: (a) in opposition to collectivism, and (b) in opposition to altruism. There is no other word to express the former meaning, but several synonyms for the latter, for example ‘egoism’ or ‘selfishness’. This is why in what follows I shall use the term ‘individualism’ exclusively in sense (a), using terms like ‘egoism’ or ‘selfishness’ if sense (b) is intended. A little table may be useful:
(a) Individualism… is opposed to (a/) Collectivism
(b) Egoism… is opposed to (b/) Altruism
Now these four terms describe certain attitudes, or demands, necessarily vague, they can, I believe, be easily illustrated by examples and so be used with a precision sufficient for our present purpose. Let us begin with collectivism, since this attitude is already familiar to us from our discussion of Plato’s holism. His demand that the individual should subserve the interests of the whole, whether this be the universe, the city, the tribe, the race, or any other collective body, was illustrated in the last chapter by a few passages [from Plato]. To quote one of these again [from Plato], but more fully:
The part exists for the sake of the whole, but the whole does not exist for the sake of the part… You are created for the sake of the whole and not the whole for the sake of you.
This quotation not only illustrates holism and collectivism, but also conveys its strong emotional appeal of which Plato was conscious… The appeal is to various feelings, e.g. the longing to belong to a group or a tribe; and one factor in it is the moral appeal for altruism and against selfishness, or egoism. Plato suggests that if you cannot sacrifice your interests for the sake of the whole, then you are selfish.
[…he’s describing the feeling that binds… undergirds… the mindset of “‘in’ and ‘out’”: the longing to belong…– PS]
Now a glance at our little table will show that this is not so. Collectivism is not opposed to egoism, nor is it identical with altruism or unselfishness. Collective or group egoism, for instance, class egoism, is a very common thing (Plato knew this very well), and this shows clearly enough that collectivism as such is not opposed to selfishness.
[…in Revealing Division (the pdf is a free download from the Nascence website) we quoted Diana Spearman’s Modern Dictatorship to illustrate the kind of ‘group egoism’ required by dictators that Popper is talking about. The worship… subservience… ‘the many’ feel for… give… ‘great men’ is a form of ‘group egoism. (There’s another excerpt from this book by Diana Spearman in Palmers’ Chat… the html file of which can be found on the ‘blog’ page of the website…) – PS]
Beside individualism conceived as hero worship, both Fascism and National Socialism proclaim their belief in individualism in the ordinary sense. Hitler says: “Our movement must develop by every means personality. One must never forget that all that is valuable in humanity resides in individual value, and that every idea and every action is the fruit of the creative strength of a man.” Mussolini, too, has always insisted on the part the great man plays in the development of culture. He says – frequently – “A hierarchy must culminate in a pin-point.” The means by which the dictators propose to teach men a respect for personality is clearly shown by Hitler’s words: “One must not forget that admiration for the one who is great not only represents a tribute of gratitude to greatness, but also a virtue which binds together and unites all those who experience the gratitude.” He adds: “To renounce the rendering of homage to a great spirit is to deprive oneself of an immense force, that which emanates from the names of men and women who have been great.” Compare Mussolini: “There is a lack of leaders; what we want is to have the few who can guide the many, men strong in faith and in self-sacrifice, who will temper like steel the excited feelings of the multitude.” (Diana Spearman, Modern Dictatorship, p. 143 – 144)
On the other hand, an anti-collectivist, i.e. an individualist, can, at the same time, be an altruist; he can be ready to make sacrifices in order to help other individuals….
Now it is interesting that for Plato, and for most Platonists, an altruistic individualism… cannot exist. According to Plato, the only alternative to collectivism is egoism; he simply identifies all altruism with collectivism, and all individualism with egoism. This is not a matter of terminology, of mere words, for instead of four possibilities, Plato recognized only two. This has created considerable confusion in speculation on ethical matters, even down to our own day.
[…Plato to ‘power’… through Hegel and Bentham…: always, always… control the definitions…– PS]
Plato’s identification of individualism with egoism furnishes him with a powerful weapon for his defence of collectivism as well as for his attack upon individualism. In defending collectivism, he can appeal to our humanitarian feeling of unselfishness; in his attack, he can brand all individualists as selfish, as incapable of devotion to anything but themselves. This attack, although aimed by Plato against individualism in our sense, i.e. against the rights of human individuals, reaches of course only a very different target, egoism. But this difference is constantly ignored by Plato and by most Platonists.
[It’s startling… once we have Popper’s observations… to see them illustrated around us everywhere… and not just in our current habits of thought – in that ‘statist’ “corporate ‘we’” (yesterday… to pluck one from among the many bloaty mass of daily, almost innumerable, examples… I heard a pundit, commenting on the 16-day ‘government shut-down’… due to the ‘budget impasse’… say, “people elsewhere in the world simply cannot understand why we would jeopardize our economy like that…”) – but even more forcefully in the musings of those earlier ‘sheepdogs of state’, those earlier pundits, who were out-and-out proud, loud and unbowed Platonists (we don’t hear much of that sort today over the airwaves… that raw and unabashed defense of class… today they’ve gone underground….)
But to ‘move on’ to freedom I think we need to start seeing and admitting that our thought is theirs essentially… because we’re all trained the same… just in separate ‘ruler’ and ‘ruled’ varieties.
The wage (or ‘our service’… whatever they decide to call it…) is the way ‘power’ polices our thoughts… the thoughts we get to hear and so to think… and Popper helps us see this… see the building blocks… the premises… of class-bound thought (‘bound’ both in its ‘delimited’ and ‘destination’ senses….) And the fact that these hidden premises are never pointed out to us in school to discuss… and the fact that Popper… who reveals them best is suppressed… tells all of us who care to know that ‘the state’ does not serve our interests… as it’s not in their interests for our thought to grow… or, for that matter, to serve humanity… while it’s precisely our ‘work’ as human beings… to further the evolution of our global humanity… which by mandate of state we cannot do.
If we haven’t incorporated into our society a process of regular, on-going ‘stock-taking’… group ‘time-outs’ to see how we’re doing… on our way to the goal ‘fully-developing-individualities’ (and this is by intent… no accident…) then we are being led to slaughter – the slaughter of our humanity. – PS]
Why did Plato try to attack individualism? I think he knew very well what he was doing when he trained his guns upon this position, for individualism, perhaps even more than equalitarianism, was a stronghold in the defences of the new humanitarian creed. The emancipation of the individual was indeed the great spiritual revolution which had led to the breakdown of tribalism and to the rise of democracy. Plato’s uncanny sociological intuition shows itself in the way in which he invariably discerned the enemy wherever he met him…. (p. 100 – 101)
[Popper… in showing us how we (have been taught to…) think… has given us the tool we need to challenge his assertions… which is what he wants… in true Socratic fashion. And now that he’s shown us this “corporate ‘we’”… he can’t expect us to not see it illustrated around us… see it when it’s presented… via a state that calls itself a ‘democracy’… he can’t expect us to pretend that there really has been a “great spiritual revolution… [that gave rise to…] democracy”…
…that a “great spiritual evolution” is coming, I well believe… but only with the end of class society… for the bloom of true individuality depends… the bloom that opens from the great force of energy within (and as that energy intends…) comes to fruition with the end of the class system.
‘Power’… in telling us that it’s about taming ‘chaos’ is but conning us… it’s our limitless energy it seeks to tame… to fit to harness so we don’t threaten its game… its dreams of realized supremacy… …– PS]
Plato was right when he saw in this doctrine the enemy of his caste state; and he hated it more than any other of the ‘subversive’ doctrines of his time. In order to show this even more clearly, I shall quote two passages from the Laws whose truly astonishing hostility towards the individual is, I think, too little appreciated. The first of them is famous as a reference to the Republic, whose “community of women and children and property,” it discusses. Plato describes here the constitution of the Republic as “the highest form of the state.” In this highest state, he tells us:
…there is common property of wives, of children, and of all chattels. And everything possible has been done to eradicate from our life everywhere and in every way all that is private and individual. So far as it can be done, even those things which nature herself has made private and individual have somehow become the common property of all. Our very eyes and ears and hands seem to see, to hear, and to act, as if they belonged not to individuals but to the community. All men are moulded to be unanimous in the utmost degree in bestowing praise and blame, and they even rejoice and grieve about the same things, and at the same time. And all the laws are perfected for unifying the city to the utmost.
[This sets in relief the profundity of that Sweet Honey In The Rock song… the lyric attributed, I believe, to Khalil Gibran… called “Your Children”…. But it also sets in relieve the degree to which we need each other to see what ‘convention’ – the weight of ‘what-is’ sitting on us – prevents us from seeing… i.e. truth… reflections of authenticity, that which we so critically need. I sang that song (“Your Children”) to my son religiously… and we’ve sung it since to his… but our singing it means next to nothing if… if we-the-people are not broadly discussing it…– PS]
Plato goes on to say that “no man can find a better criterion of the highest excellence of a state than the principles just expounded;” and he describes such a state as ‘divine’, and in the ‘model’ or ‘pattern,’ or ‘original’ of the state, i.e. as its Form or Idea. This is Plato’s own view of the Republic, expressed at a time when he had given up hope of realizing his political ideal in all its glory.
The second passage, also from the Laws, is, if possible, even more outspoken. It should be emphasized that the passage deals primarily with military expeditions and with military discipline, but Plato leaves no doubt that these same militarist principles should be adhered to not only in war, but also “in peace, and from the earliest childhood on.” Like other totalitarian militarists and admirers of Sparta, Plato urges that the all-important requirements of military discipline must be paramount, even in peace, and that they must determine the whole life of all citizens; for not only the full citizens (who are all soldiers) and the children, but also the very beasts must spend their whole life in a state of permanent and total mobilization.
The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should ever be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace – to his leader he shall direct his eye, and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matters he should stand under leadership…. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it. In this way the life of all will be spent in total community. There is no law, nor will there ever be one, which is superior to this, or better and more effective in ensuring salvation and victory in war. And in times of peace, and from the earliest childhood on should it be fostered – this habit of ruling others, and of being ruled by others. And every trace of anarchy should be utterly eradicated from all the life of all the men, and even of the wild beasts which are subject to men.
These are strong words. Never was a man more in earnest in his hostility towards the individual. And this hatred is deeply rooted in the fundamental dualism of Plato’s philosophy; he hated the individual and his freedom just as he hated the varying particular experiences, the variety of the changing world of sensible things. In the field of politics, the individual is to Plato the Evil One himself.
This attitude, anti-humanitarian and anti-Christian as it is, has been consistently idealized. It has been interpreted as humane, as unselfish, and as Christian….
…Plato’s identification of individualism with egoism… had the effect of a successful piece of anti-humanitarian propaganda… that… has confused speculation on ethical matters down to our own time. But we must also realize that those who, deceived by this identification and by high-sounding words, exalt Plato’s reputation as a teacher of morals and announce to the world that his ethics is the nearest approach to Christianity before Christ are preparing the way for totalitarianism and especially for a totalitarian, anti-Christian interpretation of Christianity. And this is a dangerous thing, for there have been times when Christianity was dominated by totalitarian ideas. There was an Inquisition; and, in another form, it may come again.
It may therefore be worth while to mention some further reasons why guileless people have persuaded themselves of the humaneness of Plato’s intentions. One is that when preparing the ground for his collectivist doctrines, Plato usually begins by quoting a maxim or proverb (which seems to be of Pythagorean origin): “Friends have in common all things they possess.” This is, undoubtedly, an unselfish, high-minded and excellent sentiment. Who could suspect that an argument starting from such a commendable assumption would arrive at a wholly anti-humanitarian conclusion? Another and important point is that there are many genuinely humanitarian sentiments expressed in Plato’s dialogues, particularly in those written before the Republic when he was still under the influence of Socrates. I mention especially Socrates’ doctrine, in the Gorgias, that it is worse to do injustice than to suffer it. Clearly, this doctrine is not only altruistic, but also individualistic; for in a collectivist theory of justice like that of the Republic, injustice is an act against the state, not against a particular man, and though a man may commit an act of injustice, only the collective can suffer from it. But in the Gorgias we find nothing of the kind. The theory of justice is a perfectly normal one, and the examples of injustice given by ‘Socrates’ (who has here probably a good deal of the real Socrates in him) are such as boxing a man’s ears, injuring, or killing him. Socrates’ teaching that it is better to suffer such acts than to do them is indeed very similar to Christian teaching, and his doctrine of justice fits in excellently with the spirit of Pericles….
Now the Republic develops a new doctrine of justice which is not merely incompatible with such an individualism, but utterly hostile to it. But a reader may easily believe that Plato is still holding fast to the doctrine of the Gorgias. For in the Republic, Plato frequently alludes to the doctrine that it is better to suffer than to commit injustice, in spite of the fact that this is simply nonsense from the point of view of the collectivist theory of justice proffered in this work. Furthermore, we hear in the Republic the opponents of ‘Socrates’ giving voice to the opposite theory, that it is good and pleasant to inflict injustice, and bad to suffer it. Of course, every humanitarian is repelled by such cynicism, and when Plato formulates his aims through the mouth of Socrates: “I fear to commit a sin if I permit such evil talk about Justice in my presence, without doing my utmost to defend her,” then the trusting reader is convinced of Plato’s good intentions, and ready to follow him wherever he goes.
The effect of this assurance of Plato’s is much enhanced by the fact that it follows, and is contrasted with, the cynical and selfish speeches of Thrasymachus, who is depicted as a political desperado of the worst kind. At the same time, the reader is led to identify individualism with the views of Thrasymachus, and to think that Plato, in his fight against it, is fighting against all the subversive and nihilistic tendencies of his time. But we should not allow ourselves to be frightened by an individualist bogy such as Thrasymachus (there is a great similarity between his portrait and the modern collectivist bogy of ‘bolshevism’) into accepting another more real and more dangerous because less obvious form of barbarism. For Plato replaces Thrasymachus’ doctrine that the individual’s might is right by the equally barbaric doctrine that right is everything that furthers the stability and the might of the state.
[…i.e. the locus of ‘rule’ (‘might’…) changes… but ‘rule’ remains to chain us…– PS]
To sum up. Because of his radical collectivism, Plato is not even interested in those problems which men usually call the problems of justice, that is to say in the impartial weighing of the contesting claims of individuals. Nor is he interested in adjusting the individual’s claims to those of the state. For the individual is altogether inferior.
I legislate with a view to what is best for the whole state, for I justly place the interests of the individual on an inferior level of value. (Laws, 923b)
He is concerned solely with the collective whole as such, and justice, to him, is nothing but the health, unity, and stability of the collective body.
VI.
So far, we have seen that humanitarian ethics demands an equalitarian and individualistic interpretation of justice; but we have not yet outlined the humanitarian view of the state as such. On the other hand, we have seen that Plato’s theory of the state is totalitarian; but we have not yet explained the application of this theory to the ethics of the individual. Both these tasks will be undertaken now, the second first; and I shall begin by analyzing the third of Plato’s arguments in his ‘discovery’ of justice, an argument which has so far been sketched only very roughly. Here is Plato’s third argument:
“Now see whether you agree with me,” says Socrates. “Do you think it would do much harm to the city if a carpenter started making shoes and a shoemaker carpentering?” – “Not very much.” – “But should one who is by nature a worker, or a member of the money-earning class… manage to get into the warrior class; or should a warrior get into the guardians’ class without being worthy of it; then this kind of change and of underhand plotting would mean the downfall of the city?” – “Most definitely it would.” – “We have three classes in our city, and I take it that any such plotting or changing from one class to another is a great crime against the city, and may rightly be denounced as the utmost wickedness?” – “Assuredly.” – “but you will certainly declare that utmost wickedness towards one’s own city is injustice?” – “Certainly.” – “Then this is injustice. And conversely, we shall say that when each class in the city attends to its own business, the money-earning class as well as the auxiliaries and the guardians, then this will be justice.” (Plato, Republic, 434a-c)
[…what’s also interesting about this passage is the clear objective to arrest thought… which is suggestive of the fact… that to arrest change… you must arrest thought… – PS]
Now if we look at this argument, we find (a) the sociological assumption that any relaxing of the rigid caste system must lead to the downfall of the city; (b) the constant reiteration of the one argument that what harms the city is injustice; and (c) the inference that the opposite is justice. Now we may grant here the sociological assumption (a) since it is Plato’s ideal to arrest social change, and since he means by ‘harm’ anything that may lead to change; and it is probably quite true that social change can be arrested only by a rigid caste system. And we may further grant the inference (c) that the opposite of injustice is justice. Of greater interest, however, is (b); a glance at Plato’s argument will show that his whole trend of thought is dominated by the question: does this thing harm the city? Does it do much harm or little harm? He constantly reiterates that what threatens to harm the city is morally wicked and unjust.
We see here that Plato recognizes only one ultimate standard, the interest of the state. Everything that furthers it is good and virtuous and just; everything that threatens it is bad and wicked and unjust. Actions that serve it are moral; actions that endanger it, immoral. In other words, Plato’s moral code is strictly utilitarian; it is a code of collectivist or political utilitarianism. The criterion of morality is the interest of the state. Morality is nothing but political hygiene.
[…‘strictly utilitarian’… or some would say… narcissistic… – PS]
This is the collectivist, the tribal, the totalitarian theory of morality: “Good is what is in the interest of my group; or my tribe; or my state.” It is easy to see what this morality implied for international relations: that the state itself can never be wrong in any of its actions, as long as it is strong: that the state has the right, not only to do violence to its citizens, should that lead to an increase of strength, but also to attack other states, provided it does so without weakening itself. (This inference, the explicit recognition of the amorality of the state, and consequently the defence of moral nihilism in international relations was drawn by Hegel.)
From the point of view of totalitarian ethics, from the point of view of collective utility, Plato’s theory of justice is perfectly correct. To keep one’s place is a virtue. It is that civil virtue which corresponds exactly to the military virtue of discipline. And this virtue plays exactly that role which ‘justice’ plays in Plato’s system of virtues. For the cogs in the great clockwork of the state can show ‘virtue’ in two ways. First, they must be fit for their task, by virtue of their size, shape, strength, etc.; and secondly, they must be fitted each into its right place and must retain that place…. But the virtue of keeping to one’s place… will… be a virtue of the whole: that of being properly fitted together – of being in harmony. To this universal virtue Plato gives the name ‘justice’. This procedure is perfectly consistent and it is fully justified from the point of view of totalitarian morality. If the individual is nothing but a cog, then ethics is nothing but the study of how to fit him into the whole.
I wish to make it clear that I believe in the sincerity of Plato’s totalitarianism. His demand for the unchallenged domination of one class over the rest was uncompromising, but his ideal was not the maximum exploitation of the working classes by the upper class; it was the stability of the whole. The reason, however, is again purely utilitarian. It is the interest of stabilizing the class rule. Should the guardians try to get too much, he argues, then they will in the end have nothing at all.
“If they are not satisfied with a life of stability and security,… and are tempted, by their power, to appropriate for themselves all the wealth of the city, then surely they are bound to find out how wise Hesiod was when he said, ‘the half is more than the whole.’” (Plato, Republic, 466b/c)
But we must realize that even this tendency to restrict the exploitation of class privileges is a fairly common ingredient of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is not simply amoral. It is the morality of the closed society – of the group, or of the tribe; it is not individual selfishness, but it is collective selfishness.
(102 – 108)
It should be mentioned that, from the protectionist point of view, the existing democratic states, though far from perfect, represent a very considerable achievement in social engineering of the right kind. Many forms of crime, of attack on the rights of human individuals by other individuals, have been practically suppressed or very considerably reduced, and courts of law administer justice fairly successfully in difficult conflicts of interest. (p. 113)
…[T]he protectionist theory of the state was first proffered by the Sophist Lycophron, a pupil of Gorgias. It has already been mentioned that he was (like Alcidamas, also a pupil of Gorgias) one of the first to attack the theory of natural privilege. That he held the theory which I have called ‘protectionism’ is recorded by Aristotle, who speaks about him in a manner which makes it very likely that he originated it. From the same source we learn that he formulated it with a clarity which has hardly been attained by any of his successors.
Aristotle tells us that Lycophron considered the law of the state as a ‘covenant by which men assure one another of justice’ (and that it has not the power to make citizens good or just). He tells us furthermore that Lycophron looked upon the state as an instrument for the protection of its citizens against acts of injustice (and for permitting them peaceful intercourse, especially exchange), demanding that the state should be a ‘co-operative association for the prevention of crime’. It is interesting that there is no indication in Aristotle’s account that Lycophron expressed his theory in historicist form, i.e., as a theory concerning the historical origin of the state in a social contract. On the contrary, it emerges clearly from Aristotle’s context that Lycophron’s theory was solely concerned with the end of the state; for Aristotle argues that Lycophron has not seen that the essential end of the state is to make its citizens virtuous. This indicates that Lycophron interpreted this end rationally, from a technological point of view, adopting the demands of equalitarianism, individualism, and protectionism….
The fundamental idea of protectionism is: protect the weak from being bullied by the strong. This demand has been raised not only by the weak, but often by the strong also. It is, to say the least of it, misleading to suggest [as Plato did] that it is a selfish or an immoral demand.
Lycophron’s protectionism is, I think, free of all these objections. It is the most fitting expression of the humanitarian and equalitarian movement of the Periclean age. And yet, we have been robbed of it. It has been handed down to later generations only in a distorted form; as the historicist theory of the origin of the state in a social contract; or as an essentialist theory claiming that the true nature of the state is that of a convention; and as a theory of selfishness, based on the assumption of the fundamentally immoral nature of man. All this is due to the overwhelming influence of Plato’s authority….
Now it must be realized that the elaboration of its allegedly selfish basis is the whole of Plato’s argument against protectionism; and considering the space taken up by this elaboration, we may safely assume that it was not his reticence which made him proffer no better argument, but the fact that he had none. Thus protectionism had to be dismissed by an appeal to our moral sentiments – as an affront against the idea of justice, and against our feelings of decency.
This is Plato’s method of dealing with a theory which was not only a dangerous rival of his own doctrine, but also representative of the new humanitarian and individualistic creed, i.e., the arch-enemy of everything that was dear to Plato. The method is clever; its astonishing success proves it. But I should not be fair if I did not frankly admit that Plato’s method appears to me dishonest….
Summing up, we can say that Plato’s theory of justice, as presented in the Republic and later works, is a conscious attempt to get the better of the equalitarian, individualistic, and protectionist tendencies of his time, and to re-establish the claims of tribalism ** by developing a totalitarian moral theory. At the same time, he was strongly impressed by the new humanitarian morality; but instead of combating equalitarianism with arguments, he avoided even discussing it. And he successfully enlisted the humanitarian sentiments, whose strength he knew so well, in the cause of the totalitarian class rule of a naturally superior master race.
These class prerogatives, he claimed, are necessary for upholding the stability of the state. They constitute therefore the essence of justice. Ultimately, this claim is based upon the argument that justice is useful to the might, health, and stability of the state; an argument which is only too similar to the modern totalitarian definition: right is whatever is useful to the might of my nation, or my class, or my party.
But this is not yet the whole story. By its emphasis on class prerogative, Plato’s theory of justice puts the problem ‘Who should rule?’ in the centre of political theory. His reply to this question was that the wisest, and the best, should rule. Does not this excellent reply modify the character of his theory? (p. 114 – 119)
* [This note is from Palmers’ Chat:] A quote from Aristotle describes the sense in which Popper uses the word ‘tribalism.’ Popper writes: “Aristotle’s objections [to protectionism] are all intended to show that the protectionist theory is unable to account for the local as well as the internal unity of the state. It overlooks, he holds (III, 9, 12), the fact that the state exists for the sake of the good life in which neither slaves nor beasts [“workers”] can have a share (i.e. for the good life of the virtuous landed proprietor, for everybody who earns money is by his ‘banausic’ [‘mundane’] occupation prevented from citizenship). It also overlooks the tribal unity of the ‘true’ state which is (III, 9, 12) ‘a community of well-being in families, and an aggregation of families, for the sake of a complete and self-sufficient life… established among men who live in the same place and who intermarry.’”(p. 261)
* Excerpts from Ch. 7: “The Principle of Leadership”
These quotes that now follow are from Chapter 7 (p. 120 – 137 of the Princeton edition) of The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, entitled, “The Principle of Leadership.”
“The wise shall lead and rule, and the ignorant shall follow.” Plato
[…so we see the mindset of class has no innovations… little has changed in it over the centuries… from Plato to Hegel… Aristotle to Bentham – all glorify the divide ‘citizen’ – ‘barbarian’… deny our fundamental unity as human beings… this is the dank legacy we must now consciously shed… to move on to a future in which no one is led…– PS]
(p. 120 – 2)
Certain objections to our interpretation of Plato’s political programme have forced us into an investigation of the part played within this programme, by such moral ideas as Justice, Goodness, Beauty, Wisdom, Truth, and Happiness. The present and the two following chapters are to continue this analysis, and the part played by the idea of Wisdom in Plato’s political philosophy will occupy us next.
We have seen that Plato’s idea of justice demands, fundamentally, that the natural rulers should rule and the natural slaves should slave. It is part of the historicist demand that the state, in order to arrest all change, should be a copy of its Idea, or of its true ‘nature’. This theory of justice indicates very clearly that Plato saw the fundamental problem of politics in the question: Who shall rule the state?
I.
It is my conviction that by expressing the problem of politics in the form ‘Who should rule?’ or ‘Whose will should be supreme?’, etc., Plato created a lasting confusion in political philosophy.
[But are we not now living in a moment when ‘rule’ itself can be dethroned? Are we not living in a moment when it must be dethroned… for human beings to grow up as a species… or, rather, return to wholeness?– PS]
It is indeed analogous to the confusion he created in the field of moral philosophy by his identification, discussed in the last chapter, of collectivism and altruism. It is clear that once the question ‘Who should rule?’ is asked, it is hard to avoid some such reply as ‘the best’ or ‘the wisest’ or ‘the born ruler’ or ‘he who masters the art of ruling’ (or, perhaps, ‘The General Will’ or ‘The Master Race’ or ‘The Industrial Workers’ or ‘The People’). But such a reply, convincing as it may sound – for who would advocate the rule of ‘the worst’ or ‘the greatest fool’ or ‘the born slave’? – is, as I shall try to show, quite useless.
[…but I believe Popper is… apparently unconsciously… carrying forward this erroneous conflation of collectivism and altruism when he limits our future to changing institutions… as institutions are manifestations of the collectivity ‘the state’… and ‘the job’… both of which promulgate Plato’s propaganda that collectivism and altruism are one… – PS]
First of all, such a reply is liable to persuade us that some fundamental problem of political theory has been solved. But if we approach political theory from a different angle, then we find that far from solving any fundamental problems, we have merely skipped over them, by assuming that the question ‘Who should rule?’ is fundamental. For event hose who share this assumption of Plato’s admit that political rulers are not always sufficiently ‘good’ or ‘wise’ (we need not worry about the precise meaning of these terms), and that it is not at all easy to get a government on whose goodness and wisdom one can implicitly rely. If that is granted, then we must ask whether political thought should not face from the beginning the possibility of bad government; whether we should not prepare for the worst leader, and hope for the best. But this leads to a new approach to the problem of politics, for it forces us to replace the question: Who should rule? by the new question: How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?
[…which begs the question of ‘rule’ itself…– PS]
Those who believe that the older question is fundamental, tacitly assume that political power is ‘essentially’ unchecked. They assume that someone has the power – either an individual or a collective body, such as a class. And they assume that he who has the power can, very nearly, do what he wills, and especially that he can strengthen his power, and thereby approximate it further to an unlimited or unchecked power. They assume that political power is, essentially, sovereign. If this assumption is made, then, indeed, the question ‘Who is to be the sovereign?’ is the only important question left.
I shall call this assumption the theory of (unchecked) sovereignty, using this expression not for any particular one of the various theories of sovereignty, proffered more especially by such writers as Bodin, Rousseau, or Hegel, but for the more general assumption that political power is practically unchecked, or for the demand that it ought to be so; together with the implication that the main question left is to get this power into the best hands. This theory of sovereignty is tacitly assumed in Plato’s approach, and has played its role ever since. It is also implicitly assumed, for instance, by those modern writers who believe that the main problem is: Who should dictate? The capitalists or the workers?
Without entering into a detailed criticism, I wish to point out that there are serious objections against a rash and implicit acceptance of this theory. Whatever its speculative merits may appear to be, it is certainly a very unrealistic assumption. No political power has ever been unchecked, and as long as men remain human (as long as the ‘Brave New World’ has not materialized), there can be no absolute and unrestrained political power. So long as one man cannot accumulate enough physical power in his hands to dominate all others, just so long must he depend upon his helpers. Even the most powerful tyrant depends upon his secret police, his henchmen and his hangmen. This dependence means that his power, great as it may be is not unchecked, and that he has to make concessions, playing one group off against another. It means that there are other political forces, other powers besides his own, and that he can exert his rule only by utilizing and pacifying them. This shows that even the extreme cases of sovereignty are never cases of pure sovereignty. They are never cases in which the will or the interests of one man (or, if there were such a thing, the will or the interest of one group) can achieve his aim directly, without giving up some of it in order to enlist powers which he cannot conquer. And in an overwhelming number of cases, the limitations of political power go much further than this.
[But that doesn’t mean that ‘supremacy’ is nonetheless the goal driving ‘power’.
I wonder… Popper… whether… if in your life you had seen, not just the spread of fascism across Europe in the twentieth century… but also seen (your life extended to the present…) the progressive worsening of human health globally… and overall planetary health… if you had witnessed the rise and acceptance of the surveillance state across the globe… no less in so-called ‘democracies’ than in any other form of ‘government’…
In the August 11th show, we said that ‘power’…
…the power of ‘intended but unrealized effects’ (i.e. a vision)… let’s get us a new destination… please…
…In harnessing us to its vision… with the weight supplied by us given… the world was distorted by that weight… and the biased minds keep biasing the means… exponentially… so the purse grows… continuously… as into its coffers our stolen lives go… exponentially. This is what Hirschman was duly noting… how wishes are, in this case, indeed horses… and these horses have been pounding our backside… for quite some time.
The basic theme of this work also connects with a common interest in self-knowledge: how exactly have we ended up where we now are?…
…there is much general interest in the relationship between expectations that support and sustain powerful and profound changes without actually leading to the realization of those expectations. In contrast with Smith’s and Menger’s interest in, and Hayek’s fascination with, “unintended but realized effects,” Hirschman shows the power and influence of “intended but unrealized effects.” [i.e., a vision…] The latter may be less observable than the former (since unrealized effects are not there to be observed), but the influence of those unrealized expectations survives powerfully today. (Amartya Sen, in his “Forward” to Albert O. Hirschman’s The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph, p. xvii
“How ’bout it Doctor, why don’t you focus some of that high-powered insight on yourself?… or maybe you’re afraid to?” (That’s from Silence of the Lambs.)
Brakenbury [regarding the sleeping Clarence (the imprisoned brother of the Duke of Gloucester), who’d just described a horrible nightmare in which he was tormented by his guilt and betrayal]:
Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,
They often feel a world of restless cares:
So that, between their titles and low name,
There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.
(Richard III, I. iv)
But… I would add: “and the capacity to do harm.”
The note at the bottom tells us that ‘unfelt imaginations’ means: “what they imagine they might do but are unable to realize.”
I.e. the power of a vision is also the curse of a vision… if you can’t do it… if it’s opposed to life… if it’s against the earth… because earth… life… will rise.
And even though that ‘for-the-few-exclusive-goal’ be unattainable… O the damage it can do… the damage that this tiny few can do… in their continuous strivingness… to fill that bottomless hole. – PS]
(p. 122)
I have stressed these empirical points, not because I wish to use them as an argument, but merely in order to avoid objections. My claim is that every theory of sovereignty omits to face a more fundamental question – the question, namely, whether we should not strive towards institutional control of the rulers by balancing their powers against other powers. This theory of checks and balances can at least claim careful consideration. The only objections to this claim, as far as I can see, are (a) that such a control is practically impossible, or (b) that it is essentially inconceivable since political power is essentially sovereign. Both of these dogmatic objections are, I believe, refuted by the facts; and with them fall a number of other influential views (for instance, the theory that the only alternative to the dictatorship of one class is that of another class).
[And this is where the global nature of ‘power’ comes into the discussion – with the awareness that ‘only from the perspective of the whole can the truth be known… and while Popper teaches this himself… the ideology of ‘progress’ is planted deep in our ‘unawareness’… via our training – begun by our parents and therefore generally awarded our full if unconscious allegiance – and with that ideology of ‘progress’ a longing to believe that it may be so… a predisposal to think that it is indeed ‘evolution’ we’re seeing when in actuality we’re but seeing the privileged end of the ‘class’ ‘spectrum’… and we’re seeing an expression of that dynamic Popper himself pointed out – almost exclusively since Plato first exploited it – the unconscious belief that some among us… those who represent ‘reason’… do see through the cons and manipulations of ‘power’… and that ‘reason’ will triumph over ‘power’s irrational historicism.
So, for instance, your sense of ‘progress’… or the possibilities inherent in ‘democracy’… will likely be very different if you live in Denmark… versus Egypt… or Bahrain… or the vast majority of places where we live on the planet. Because, as we’ve said, ‘hierarchy’ depends on creating both winners and losers… and the view is more sanguine from above. (This is discussed in “Unpacking Robert Reich’s Baggage”) – PS]
In order to raise the question of institutional control of the rulers, we need not assume more than that governments are not always good or wise. But since I have said something about historical facts, I think I should confess that I feel inclined to go a little beyond this assumption. I am inclined to think that rulers have rarely been above the average, either morally or intellectually, and often below it. And I think that it is reasonable to adopt, in politics, the principle of preparing for the worst, as well as we can, though we should, of course, at the same time try to obtain the best. (p. 122)
…We have seen that Plato’s idea of justice demands, fundamentally, that the natural rulers should rule and the natural slaves should slave. It is part of the historicist demand that the state, in order to arrest all change, should be a copy of its Idea, or of its true ‘nature’. This theory of justice indicates very clearly that Plato saw the fundamental problem of politics in the question: Who shall rule the state?
…[W]e may distinguish two main types of government. The first type consists of governments of which we can get rid without bloodshed – for example, by way of general elections; that is to say, the social institutions provide means by which the rulers may be dismissed by the ruled, and the social traditions ensure that these institutions will not easily be destroyed by those who are in power. The second type consists of governments which the ruled cannot get rid of except by way of a successful revolution – that is to say, in most cases, not at all. I suggest the term ‘democracy’ as a short-hand label for a government of the first type, and the term ‘tyranny’ or ‘dictatorship’ for the second. This, I believe, corresponds closely to traditional usage. But I wish to make clear that no part of my argument depends of the choice of these labels; and should anybody reverse this usage (as is frequently done nowadays), then I should simply say that I am in favour of what he calls ‘tyranny,’ and object to what he calls ‘democracy’; and I should reject as irrelevant any attempt to discover what ‘democracy’ ‘really’ or ‘essentially’ means, for example, by translating the term into ‘the rule of the people’. (For although ‘the people’ may influence the actions of their rulers by the threat of dismissal, they never rule themselves in any concrete, practical sense.) (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell Of Plato, selections from pgs. 122 – 125)
(p. 127):
Those who criticize democracy on any ‘moral’ grounds fail to distinguish between personal and institutional problems. It rests with us to improve matters. The democratic institutions cannot improve themselves. The problem of improving them is always a problem for persons rather than for institutions. But if we want improvements, we must make clear which institutions we want to improve.
There is another distinction within the field of political problems corresponding to that between persons and institutions. It is the one between the problems of the day and the problems of the future. While the problems of the day are largely personal, the building of the future must necessarily be institutional. If the political problem is approached by asking, “Who should rule,” and if Plato’s principle of leadership is adopted – that is to say, the principle that the best should rule – then the problem of the future must take the form of designing institutions for the selection of future leaders.
This is one of the most important problems in Plato’s theory of education. In approaching it I do not hesitate to say that Plato utterly corrupted and confused the theory and practice of education by linking it up with his theory of leadership. The damage done is, if possible, even greater than that inflicted upon ethics by the identification of collectivism with altruism, and upon political theory by the introduction of the principle of sovereignty. Plato’s assumption that it should be the task of education (or more precisely, of the educational institutions) to select the future leaders, and to train them for leadership, is still largely taken for granted. By burdening these institutions with a task which must go beyond the scope of any institution, Plato is partly responsible for their deplorable state.
[He’s acknowledging implicitly the existence… the hidden presence… of Plato’s tribe… who do the bidding of their master… as the living-dead their Dracula… gone but not-gone… for millennia. – PS]
But before entering into a general discussion of his view of the task of education, I wish to develop, in more detail, his theory of leadership, the leadership of the wise.
…
I think it most likely that this theory of Plato’s owes a number of its elements to the influence of Socrates. One of the fundamental tenets of Socrates was, I believe, his moral intellectualism. By this I understand (a) his identification of goodness and wisdom, his theory that nobody acts against his better knowledge, and that lack of knowledge is responsible for all moral mistakes; (b) his theory that moral excellence can be taught, and that it does not require any particular moral faculties, apart from the universal human intelligence.
[In upcoming WUR shows we will be discussing not just Popper’s insights on ‘authentic education’… and the fostering of ‘leadership’… but also whether, or to what degree, these insights bear on the possibilities for ‘authentic governance’… i.e. we will be challenging this seeming sacrosanct notion of ‘rule’ We have to challenge the notion of ‘rule’ because that’s the only way out… as our global ‘intercourse’ must be effectuated somehow… – PS]
Socrates was a moralist and an enthusiast. He was the type of man who would criticize any form of government for its shortcomings (and indeed, such criticism would be necessary and useful for any government, although it is possible only under a democracy) but he recognized the importance of being loyal to the laws of the state.
[But ‘the state’ in Socrates’ sense is just ‘the collective body’… which could perhaps be the functional equivalent of Hugo’s notion of ‘community’… and my notion of ‘fellowship’… (discussed during the June 30, 2013 show) both of which to be fully realized require openness… and, to my mind: non-coercion.
Because I agree with Socrates that “lack of knowledge is responsible for all moral mistakes…” and that the critical ‘lack of knowledge’ for the question of ‘morality’ is lack of knowledge of each other… of the challenges that we’re facing… and of the unique gifts we possess… because we see… whenever atomization is overcome in emergency situations… that we want to further each other… and that this longing is inextricably inter-woven in us.
(…‘knowledge’ is not about acquiring and accumulating ‘facts’… but rather revealing the motive force behind ‘facts’. For instance, recently I listened to financial reporter Matt Taibi describe how his odyssey to find the cause of oil price manipulation put him on the trail of financial industry actors… which led to his discovery that the George W. Bush administration had kicked the firm Arthur Anderson to the curb… and as to why, this he apparently declined his interest. Because the motive… reveals destination… goal… ‘facts’ can be endlessly manipulated and massaged… and tell us nothing on their own. Whereas… once motive is known… the need for ‘facts’ dissolves before the pressing need to work with our brothers and sisters to begin designing something new…. We can unearth ‘facts’ ad infinitum and not be any closer to our freedom… whereas ‘knowledge’… is another matter…)
…and I agree with George Eliot that: “it seems to me it’s the same with love and happiness as with sorrow – the more we know of it the better we can feel what other people’s lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to ’em, and wishful to help ’em. The more knowledge a man has, the better he’ll do’s work, and feeling’s a sort o’ knowledge.” [This is from her novel Adam Bede]…
And I agree with Nikola Tesla that distance – emotional and physical – has been the chief impediment to our unity (globally…) and that we are now poised to span… bridge… fill… that gap… and that all that’s needed is a plan – or, rather, before we can develop a plan, and the courage to bring it to fruition… we must… through myriad conversations…become certain… that we’re done with ‘hierarchy’… competition… ‘the race’ – develop the certainty that ‘the state’ must be replaced… with good fellowship. – PS]
As it happened, he spent his life largely under a democratic form of government, and as a good democrat he found it his duty to expose the incompetence and windbaggery of some of the democratic leaders of his time. At the same time, he opposed any form of tyranny; and if we consider his courageous behaviour under the Thirty Tyrants then we have no reason to assume that his criticism of the democratic leaders was inspired by anything like anti-democratic leanings. It is not unlikely that he demanded (like Plato) that the best should rule, which would have meant, in his view, the wisest, or those who knew something about justice. But we must remember that by ‘justice’ he meant equalitarian justice… and that he was not only an equalitarian but also an individualist – perhaps the greatest apostle of an individualistic ethics of all time.
[…individual freedom being the necessary underlying premise of generalized human freedom (discussed both in Waking Up and Beginning Again.) – PS]
And we should realize that, if he demanded that the wisest men should rule, he clearly stressed that he did not mean the learned men; in fact, he was skeptical of all professional learnedness, whether it was that of the philosophers of the past or of the learned men of his own generation, the Sophists. The wisdom he meant was of a different kind. It was simply the realization: how little do I know! Those who did not know this, he taught, knew nothing at all….
It is important to see that this Socratic intellectualism is decidedly equalitarian. Socrates believed that everyone can be taught; in the Meno, we see him teaching a young slave a version of the now so-called theorem of Pythagoras, in an attempt to prove that any uneducated slave has the capacity to grasp even abstract matters. And his intellectualism is also anti-authoritarian. A technique, for instance rhetoric, may perhaps be dogmatically taught by an expert, according to Socrates; but real knowledge, wisdom, and also virtue, can be taught only by a method which he describes as a form of midwifery. Those eager to learn may be helped to free themselves from their prejudice; thus they may learn self-criticism, and that truth is not easily attained. But they may also learn to make up their minds, and to rely, critically, on their decisions, and on their insight. In view of such teaching, it is clear how much the Socratic demand (if he ever raised this demand) that the best, i.e. the intellectually honest, should rule, differs from the authoritarian demand that the most learned, or from the aristocratic demand that the best, i.e. the most noble, should rule. (Socrates’ belief that even courage is wisdom can, I think, be interpreted as a direct criticism of the aristocratic doctrine of the nobly born hero.)
“Socrates’ Dilemma”… points to the illegitimacy of ‘rule’…
But this moral intellectualism of Socrates is a two-edged sword. It has its equalitarian and democratic aspect, which was later developed by Antithenes. But it has also an aspect which may give rise to strongly anti-democratic tendencies. Its stress upon the need for enlightenment, for education, might easily be misinterpreted as a demand for authoritarianism. This is connected with a question which seems to have puzzled Socrates a great deal: that those who are not sufficiently educated, and thus not wise enough to know their deficiencies, are just those who are in the greatest need of education. Readiness to learn in itself proves the possession of wisdom, in fact all the wisdom claimed by Socrates for himself; for he who is ready to learn knows how little he knows. The uneducated seems thus to be in need of any authority to wake him up, since he cannot be expected to be self-critical….
[I think the way out of this seeming dilemma of the ‘need – or not – for authority’… is to recognize, and to trust, the authority of the earth… its power to recapture mis-taught souls. The ‘force’ upon our minds of that which feeds us is profound… and authentic judgment rests… on being self-sufficient. – PS.]
…But this one element of authoritarianism was wonderfully balanced in Socrates’ teaching by the emphasis that the authority must not claim more than that. The true teacher can prove himself only by exhibiting that self-criticism which the uneducated lacks. “Whatever authority I may have rests solely upon my knowing how little I know”: this is the way in which Socrates might have justified his mission to stir up the people from their dogmatic slumber. This educational mission he believed to be also a political mission. He felt that the way to improve the political life of the city was to educate the citizens to self-criticism. In this sense he claimed to be “the only politician of his day,” in opposition to those others who flatter the people [the ‘political class’] instead of furthering their true interests.
[What slaveholders or ‘citizens’ mean by the words ‘the people’ excludes, of course, the vast majority of people.
We can see this element of ‘self-flattery’ today in the punditry… the official spokespersons who are both flattered by ‘power’ – in being selected… via the wage system… to be official spokespersons – and whose official speech flatters their listeners by inviting them to participate in its service to ‘the state’ of providing it with needed analysis. Together… the implicit message is… they are ‘the learned ones’ (as opposed to the beasts and barbarians…) the ones who have a handle on matters of state’. – PS]
This Socratic identification of his educational and political activity could easily be distorted into the Platonic and Aristotelian demand that the state would look after the moral life of its citizens. And it can easily be used for a dangerously convincing proof that all democratic control is vicious…
[Recall the woman who said to me, “Why shouldn’t the philosopher-kings rule? What do you want? Rule of the stupid?”– PS]
…For how can those whose task it is to educate be judged by the uneducated? How can the better be controlled by the less good? But this argument is, of course, entirely un-Socratic. It assumes an authority of the wise and learned man, and goes far beyond Socrates’ modest idea of the teacher’s authority as founded solely on his consciousness of his own limitations. State-authority in these matters is liable to achieve, in fact, the exact opposite of Socrates’ aim. It is liable to produce dogmatic self-satisfaction and massive intellectual complacency, instead of critical dissatisfaction and eagerness for improvement. I do not think that it is unnecessary to stress this danger which is seldom clearly realized…. (p. 127 – 130)
…
(p. 127 – 136)
–––
* Excerpts from Ch. 8: “The Philosopher King”
These next quotes are from Chapter 8 (p. 138 – 156 of the Princeton edition) of The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, entitled, “The Philosopher King.”
And the state will erect monuments… to commemorate them. And sacrifices will be offered to tehm as demigods,… as men who are blessed by grace, and godlike. (Plato)
The contrast between the Platonic and the Socratic creed is even greater than I have shown so far. Plato, I have said, followed Socrates in his definition of the philosopher. “Whom do you call true philosophers? Those who love truth,” we read in the Republic. But he himself is not quite truthful when he makes this statement. He does not really believe in it, for he bluntly declares in other places that it is one of the royal privileges of the sovereign to make full use of lies and deceit:
It is the business of the rulers of the city, if it is anybody’s, to tell lies, deceiving both its enemies and its own citizens for the benefit of the city; and no one else must touch this privilege. (Republic, 389b, f)
“For the benefit of the city,” says Plato. Again we find that the appeal to the principle of collective utility is the ultimate ethical consideration. Totalitarian morality overrules everything, even the definition, the Idea, of the philosopher. It need hardly be mentioned that, by the same principle of political expediency, the ruled are to be forced to tell the truth. “If the ruler catches anyone else in a lie… then he will punish him for introducing a practice which injures and endangers the city…” Only in this slightly unexpected sense are the Platonic rulers – the philosopher kings – lovers of truth….
What kind of lies has Plato in mind when he exhorts his rulers to use strong medicine? [R. H. S.] Crossman [in 1937] rightly emphasizes that Plato means “propaganda, the technique of controlling the behavior of… the bulk of the ruled majority.” Certainly, Plato had these first in his mind; but when Crossman suggests that the propaganda lies were only intended for the consumption of the ruled, while the rulers should be a fully enlightened intelligentsia, then I cannot agree. I think, rather, that Plato’s complete break with anything resembling Socrates’ intellectualism is nowhere more obvious than in the place where he twice expresses his hope that even the rulers themselves, at least after a few generations, might be induced to believe his greatest propaganda lie; I mean his racialism, his Myth of Blood and Soil, known as the Myth of the Metals in Man and of the Earthborn. Here we see that Plato’s utilitarian and totalitarian principles overrule everything, even the ruler’s privilege of knowing, and of demanding to be told, the truth. The motive of Plato’s wish that the rulers themselves should believe in the propaganda lie is his hope of increasing its wholesome effect, i.e. of strengthening the rule of the master race, and ultimately, of arresting all political change.
Plato introduces his Myth of Blood and Soil with the blunt admission that it is a fraud. “Well then,” says the Socrates of the Republic, “could we perhaps fabricate one of those very handy lies which indeed we mentioned just recently? With the help of one single lordly lie we may, if we are lucky, persuade even the rulers themselves – but at any rate the rest of the city.” (414b, c) It is interesting to note the use of the term ‘persuade’. To persuade somebody to believe a lie means, more precisely, to mislead or to hoax him; and it would be more in tune with the frank cynicism of the passage to translate “we, may if we are lucky, hoax even the rulers themselves.” But Plato uses the term ‘persuasion’ very frequently, and its occurrence here throws some light on other passages. It may be taken as a warning that in similar passages he may have propaganda lies in his mind; more especially where he advocates that the statesman should rule “by means of both persuasion and force.” (p. 138 – 140)
After announcing his ‘lordly lie’, Plato, instead of proceeding directly to the narration of his Myth, first develops a lengthy preface, somewhat similar to the lengthy preface which precedes his discovery of justice; an indication, I think, of his uneasiness. It seems that he did not expect the proposal which follows to find much favour with his readers. The Myth itself introduces two ideas. The first is to strengthen the defence of the mother country; it is the idea that the warriors of his city are autochthonous,…
[‘autochthonous’: (…of an inhabitant of a place) indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists; (…of a deposit or formation – in geology) formed in its present position. – PS]
…“born of the earth of their country”, and ready to defend their country which is their mother. This old and well-known idea is certainly not the reason for Plato’s hesitation (although the wording of the dialogue cleverly suggests it). The second idea, however, “the rest of the story,” is the myth of racialism: “God… has put gold into those who are capable of ruling, silver into the auxiliaries, and iron and copper into the peasants and the other producing classes.” These metals are hereditary, they are racial characteristics. In this passage, in which Plato, hesitatingly, first introduces his racialism, he allows for the possibility that children may be born with an admixture of another metal than those of their parents… The possibility of admixtures and corresponding changes in status therefore only means that nobly born but degenerate children may be pushed down, and not that any of the base born may be lifted up. The way in which any mixing of metals must lead to destruction is described in the concluding passage of the story of the Fall of Man: “Iron will mingle with silver and bronze with gold, ad from this mixture variation will be born and absurd irregularity; and whenever these are born they will beget struggle and hostility. And this is how we must describe the ancestry and birth of Dissension, wherever she arises.” [Republic, 547a] Plato’s reluctance to proffer his racialism at once in its more radical form indicates, I suppose, that he knew how much it was opposed to the democratic and humanitarian tendencies of his time….
(p. 140 – 141)
…
(p. 144)
III.
So much for the role played by the Idea of Truth in Plato’s best state. But apart from Justice and Truth, we have still to consider some further Ideas, such as Goodness, Beauty, and Happiness, if we wish to remove the objections, raised in chapter 6, against our interpretation of Plato’s political programme as purely totalitarian, and as based on historicism. An approach to the discussion of these Ideas, and also to that of Wisdom, which has been partly discussed in the last chapter, can be made by considering the somewhat negative result reached by our discussion of the Idea of Truth. For this result raises a new problem: Why does Plato demand that the philosophers should be kings or the kings philosophers, if he defines the philosopher as a lover of truth, insisting, on the other hand, that the king must be “more courageous,” and use lies?
The only reply to this question is, of course, that Plato has, in fact, something very different in mind when he sues the term ‘philosopher.’…
(p. 147)
For a full justification of the demand that the philosophers should rule, we must therefore proceed to analyse the tasks connected with the city’s preservation.
We know from Plato’s sociological theories that the state, once established, will continue to be stable as long as there is no split in the unity of the master class. The bringing up of that class is, therefore, the great preserving function of the sovereign, and a function which must continue as long as the state exists. How far does it justify the demand that a philosopher must rule?… The great importance which Plato attaches to a philosophical education of the rulers must be explained by… reasons…purely political.
The main reason I can see is the need for increasing to the utmost the authority of the rulers….
Thus Plato’s philosophical education has a definite political function. It puts a mark on the rulers, and it establishes a barrier between the rulers and the ruled.
[So there’s no mystery that almost all of us under ‘class’ feel that we’re ‘not smart enough’… that’s by design… that’s intended. – PS]
It puts a mark on the rulers, and it establishes a barrier between the rulers and the ruled. (This has remained a major function of ‘higher’ education down to our own time.) Platonic wisdom is acquired largely for the sake of establishing a permanent class rule. It can be described as political ‘medicine’, giving mystic powers to its possessors, the medicine-men. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, p. 147 – 8)
–––
* Excerpts from Ch. 25: “Has History any Meaning?”
These next quotes are from Chapter 25 (p. 259 – 280 of the Princeton edition) of The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, entitled, “Has History any Meaning?”
And, indeed, our intellectual as well as our ethical education is corrupt. It is perverted by the admiration of brilliance, of the way things are said, which takes the place of a critical appreciation of the things that are said (and the things that are done). It is perverted by the romantic idea of the splendour of the stage of History on which we are the actors. We are educated to act with an eye to the gallery.
The whole problem of educating man to a sane appreciation of his own importance relative to that of other individuals is thoroughly muddled by these ethics of fame and fate, by a morality which perpetuates an educational system that is still based upon the classics with their romantic view of the history of power and their romantic tribal morality which goes back to Heraclitus; a system whose ultimate basis is the worship of power. Instead of a sober combination of individualism and altruism (to use these labels again) – that is to say, instead of a position like “What really matters are human individuals, but I do not take this to mean that it is I who matter very much” – a romantic combination of egoism and collectivism is taken for granted. That is to say, the importance of the self, of its emotional life and its ‘self-expression’, is romantically exaggerated; and with it, the tension between the ‘personality’ and the group, the collective. This takes the place of the other individuals, the other men, but does not admit of reasonable personal relations. ‘Dominate or submit’ is, by implication, the device of this attitude; either be a Great Man, a Hero wrestling with fate and earning fame (“the greater the fall, the greater the fame”, says Heraclitus), or belong to ‘the masses’ and submit yourself to leadership and sacrifice yourself to the higher cause of your collective. There is a neurotic, and hysterical element in this exaggerated stress on the importance of the tension between the self and the collective, and I do not doubt that this hysteria, this reaction to the strain of civilization, is the secret of the strong emotional appeal of the ethics of her-worship, of the ethics of domination and submission….
‘Do no harm’ (and, therefore, ‘give the young what they most urgently need, in order to become independent of us, and to be able to choose for themselves’) would be a very worthy aim for our educational system, and one whose realization is somewhat remote, even though it sounds modest. Instead, ‘higher’ aims are the fashion, aims which are typically romantic and indeed nonsensical, such as ‘the full development of the personality.’
It is under the influence of such romantic ideas that individualism is still identified with egoism, as it was by Plato, and altruism with collectivism (i.e. with the substitution of group egoism for the individualist egoism). But this bars the way even to a clear formulation of the main problem, the problem of how to obtain a sane appreciation of one’s own importance in relation to other individuals. Since it is felt, and rightly so, that we have to aim at something beyond our own selves, something to which we can devote ourselves, and for which we may make sacrifices, it is concluded that this must be the collective, with its ‘historical mission’. Thus we are told to make sacrifices, and, at the same time, assured that we shall make an excellent bargain by doing so. We shall make sacrifices, it is said, but we shall thereby obtain honour and fame. We shall become ‘leading actors’, heroes on the Stage of History; for a small risk we shall gain great rewards. This is the dubious morality of a period in which only a tiny minority counted, and in which nobody cared for the common people. It is the morality of those who, being political or intellectual aristocrats, have a chance of getting into the textbooks of history. It cannot possibly be the morality of those who favour justice and equalitarianism; for historical fame cannot be just, and it can be attained only by a very few. The countless number of men who are just as worthy, or worthier, will always be forgotten.
It should perhaps be admitted that the Heraclitean ethics, the doctrine that the higher the reward is that which only posterity can offer, may in some way perhaps be slightly superior to an ethical doctrine which teaches us to look out for reward now. But it is not what we need. We need an ethics which defies success and reward. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx and the Aftermath, p. 275 – 277)
(Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx and the Aftermath, p. 275 – 277)
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(Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 2: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath, p.
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