Here's something happy. :) P.S. I am by no means a Plato scholar. This is just something to think about.
"We've found our meaning in a bottle of beer,
Diluted what's true to escape our fears,
And lost sight of the present using lens-less glasses.
Replaced our lives with a fantasy,
Because life isn't what we'd like it to be.
It's steadily becoming a brand-new opiate for the masses.
It's soma for our brave new world."
excerpt from "Opiate"
- Looking for Atlantis
Well, on my quest to be a "good" Torrey student, I've just finished book 5 of Plato's Republic, and after about two hours of intense reading and thinking, my brain has never been so enthralled and--for lack of a better term--so mushy. My brain literally (and I do mean LITERALLY) hurts from the pounding Plato just gave it, and every fiber of me that is still capable of coherent contemplation is frightened, again, out of its wits. I suppose it's not ironic that what sanity one has that Plato doesn't at least give a hard "tweaking" to from his depth of thought is completely driven away by the brevity of the actual content of his thought.
The Republic (at least through book 5) does exactly what Socrates sets out to do, at least on the surface level (I'm not willing to speculate any deeper, mostly because I don't think I have sufficient knowledge to concretely go any deeper than that); it describes the perfect city, a utopian society. Now, there is really nothing wrong with a utopia (irony intended), except for the fact that they do not exist, and this not because no one has ever tried, far from it. I think this brings up a situation where I could honestly say, "Many are called, but few are chosen," but what might be more appropriate is this: "No one was called, and those who actually try are stupid and fail miserably." :) Utopias do not and CANNOT exist on this earth because humans have been corrupted by sin and so cannot act out the laws put forth by Socrates and Co. in the Republic with the desired effect. This perfect society discounts the individuals living in it of just that: their individuality, and along with it, their individual free will (that will most likely seek what IT wants). This is probably the most problematic part of human nature for a utilitarian state.
The most frightening thing for me about all of this (for the moment anyway) is that, in this system, our problematic and self-seeking free wills would combine with Socrates' "laws" and the communitarian lifestyle of the city, creating a whole new Sodom, full of self-seeking individuals who, because of their communitarian lifestyle, will have every opportunity to take every advantage of the others in their community. Debauchery would run rampant as the sense of family and love for the individual soul is destroyed; this destruction of the love of the individual along with the repressed emotions he suffers under Socrates' laws will lend to a selfish search of the individual to find this love that he lacks, causing physical and emotional whoring of the worst kinds. This, again, would cycle around and further the lack of the sense of love for one's individual soul and, in turn, the selfish seeking to fill these deficits. It sounds altogether too much like Brave New World meets Equilibrium, for undoubtedly, Aldous Huxley and Kurt Wimmer found similarities SOMEWHERE, right? This vicious cycle--just as the Charing-T Tower and the Tetra Grammaton really would build EACH OTHER--would congruently build gratuitous immorality and emotional callousness, destroying the society in a maelstrom of self-service, self-pity, and SELF-destruction, instead of leading upward toward Grace.
In all honesty, I think I'm beginning to understand what Dr. Reynolds means when he says that this document is probably one of the most dangerous that has ever been written in the history of the human race. Pray that our rulers do not become philosophers a la Plato (or if Plato himself doesn't believe anything that Socrates is saying, pray our rulers do not read Plato and miss what he is really saying), else WE become worthy of perishing in a rain of fire and brimstone.
In short, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Please.
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4 comments:
Garrett, that gave me chills... but the kind that happen first in your thoughts—and slowly—and then in your gut, before it gives you goose bumps on your skin. I think that that was, for me, because you didn't rely on stylistic gimmicks to communicate the intended effect to your reader. Instead you let your words guide my thoughts to come to a conclusion for myself...then you expanded upon that conclusion with just enough original language that I had to work to sort through your description; I couldn’t just and get it, but was forced to build it up for myself in my thoughts (like Kierkegaard’s writing did for me… do you remember that?) Anyway, all that to say that, thus, the conclusion--not the presentation--was the first thing that communicated the fear you exhort.
Which was cool. And more powerful.
Your thoughts pushed mine past the seeming, to consider the unseen consequence of acting out a personal (or inherited) vision of a Heaven on Earth. Indeed, after following your argument, the thought of striving for my own preferred version of "Utopia" (often craftily cloaked by titles like “righteousness” and “upright life” and “Lindsey’s understanding of good Christian”… but probably informed just as much by the Bible as by the images in BNW, et al.) is, at this moment, pretty much repulsive.
Which is good. And needed.
I appreciated that particularly in this subject because most of my highschool humanities was discussion on the impossibility of utopia, and it became easy to think I fully know what I think I knew. More, it is easy for what I do think to become cliché/stale and thus, weak to effect any part of me… but your words brought me to those thoughts fresh, and again they impacted my gut conviction—and deeper this time. ("Jesus loves me this I know", right? *wink*) You definitely gave me new thoughts to mull over, too: the conclusion about human nature (“a utopia CANNOT exist…”) drawn from the prolific literary depictions of “utopias-that-really-are-far-more-creepy-than-perfect-and-play-out-poorly-for-character-X” (not that Republic is an example of that, necessarily, I wouldn’t know); that hit me like “DUH” why did I never put that together so clearly in my understanding. It’s was like “Oh. All the literature I read throughout my time at ICS was an argument for ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ that we need” *smile* Duh. Thanks for helping that click for me, Garrett. :)
Oh… and I like the way you use subtitling. It makes me happy. *grin*
So… questions: this kind of fear, the “be afraid of what powerful ideas can do wrongly understood”… is that kind of fear biblical? "Righteous fear"? It is if it is fear of God, obviously. So, is it? Does it NEED to be? ... curious to know your thoughts. :)
... or just pray that we cease to have rulers other then ourselves. Anarcho-capitalism anyone?
Or what about moderate libertarianism? :)
sorry buddy. didn't even read the whole thing. just wanted to say this.
Plato...sucker/lucky. It's so rad dude.
Plus you better your soul in the process(at least that's what I hear).
Love.
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