When do we get to the dragons?
fascinating. great series by Tal.
so Plato and the utopians, in the abstract analyse how to eliminate all that’s wrong with humanity. just looking at the bad effects of what humans do, with no attempt to understand what humans do and why they do it like Aristotle, who uses the scientific method and close observation to form a true description of human agency. humans as individuals and in groups with free choice as they are confronted with the trials of life.
makes it pretty clear how we’ve gotten into the mess we are in. the average American voter has been seduced and indoctrinated into the simplistic and false ways of utopianism. if Plato could fall for it, it’s understandable why so many—especially young—Americans are infected with it too.
Ever since I started teaching philosophical ethics 30 years ago, I have taught that the basic left vs. right division in politics goes back to Plato vs. Aristotle; that the difference between the American and French Revolutions was that ours was based on Locke and Aristotle, and theirs was based on Rousseau and Plato; that the essential flaws in Plato are first his presumption that it is obvious who should be the Guardians, and second that the Guardians are always going to be willing to be self-sacrificing rather than becoming, to use more modern phrases, the nomenklatura, or the deep swamp.
These have been known for over 2000 years in the West, and for nearly as long in the East, with its not-quite-so-exact analog of Confucius vs. Lao Tse. But since they are not taught—just as I was artlessly moved over from ethics to music because I wouldn’t kowtow to the left and the early versions of CRT—our present generations are destined to suffer the difficulties that come from attempting Plato’s Republic rather than Aristotle’s true republic.