[ztiworoh]

I actually disagree, Plato's Republic offers much valued advice for the American people. Like it or not America is not a true democracy, it's an oligarchy with input from the citizenry, however, the oligarchy is not based only on money or lineage (though these still hold sway to some degree), the ruling class is based on a combination of cunning and inteligence.

Plato realized that although there are equal rights inherent to people, that does not mean all men are endowed with an equal chance. He resolved that some people are meant to be workers and some are meant to be thinkers. The workers maintain the economic level of the country while the intellectuals maintain policy, strategy, and law. Although Plato's ideal country does not mesh completely with American values, it does have much to offer in that it maintains the opportunity created in a freemarket economy while providing a structure which is missing in many libertarian/anarchist views of the nature of the state.

[Reeses]

the ruling class is based on a combination of cunning and inteligence. Plato realized that although there are equal rights inherent to people, that does not mean all men are endowed with an equal chance. He resolved that some people are meant to be workers and some are meant to be thinkers. The workers maintain the economic level of the country while the intellectuals maintain policy, strategy, and law.

This is leftist thought. I’m convinced the root of this flawed thinking is narcissism. People who believe this are elitist. They reach out to help the “little people beneath them” as an ongoing process of proving their superiority to themselves and others thereby justifying their love. The Clintons are textbook examples of this mental disorder.

Conservatives believe people are smart enough to decide for themselves how best to spend their hard earned money. They know their own situation better than any self-loving intellectual a thousand miles away in Washington. They can decide best how to live and do not need or want meddling from big government politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers.

ztiworoh, you just may be a liberal.

[x]

I guess a lot depends on whether you read Plato as a political philosopher or as a more general philosopher (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics). For people today, political philosophy tends to become the all-in-all of philosophy. If I recall correctly, this wasn't the case for Aristotle. It was a practical or applied, and hence lesser, branch of philosophy.

The Republic is always worth reading as an allegory illustrating Plato's ideas of truth, justice and the good. It shouldn't simply be vilified, since it has much to teach us about those concepts. And a conservative thinker like Richard Weaver learned much from Plato's emphasis on the eternal values. There was an interesting recent thread on ten great books.

As you note, though, Plato's ideal country "does not mesh completely with American values." Indeed, there's much in the Republic that, taken as purely practical advice, would rightly repel us. I don't think we can or should simply throw out Plato. He's a vital link in the chain of Western ideas. But I do think Aristotle and other thinkers have more to teach us about practical political questions. I would to some extent agree that Plato can show us a vision of the common good, not found in many modern libertarians, but it's a vision that's already entered into our culture and found other theorists closer to us in their sentiments and loyalties.

What I notice in American conservatism is a recent movement away from the transcendent to the more practical. I don't think one can identify the transcendent wholly with Plato, but it would be a good idea to keep reading him so we don't lose touch with that side of our existence. It's not good to think that one can realize dreams, but also not so good for people to think they can stop dreaming or live wholly in the practical sphere.