Plato’s Bizarre Wisdom
I once watched a documentary on Plato and his 5 guiding principles. One of these principles is ‘reform society’. By this, he meant a shift from focusing on the rich, sport celebrities and making heroes of these people who are themselves flawed. According to him, who we admire matters because they influence our outlook, ideas, and conduct. Consequently when we make flawed people into heroes, they make a glamour of flawed character. He went ahead to propose a new breed of heroes who would be distinguished by their record of public service, their modesty and simple habits, their dislike for the limelight and their wide and deep experience.
In a world where there is emphasis on everything but modesty, this sounds like horse shit. However, if you reflect on this a little bit deeper, without the bias of pleasure, you will see how much the society has broken down because we have made heroes of broken and flawed men. Of course, everybody has their flaws and imperfection and this is not an attempt to advocate for pretence. However, we do not need to make a glamour of these flaws and imperfections. More often than not, what you get from such people is just the glamour and nothing that can help you be a better and responsible member of the society.
However, Plato failed to realize that celebrities are celebrated so much because they have been able to achieve things humans enjoy and mostly wish they could do. Therefore, this builds admiration which then leads to people making them into heroes. It is nearly impossible to take the glamour in this away because then people will look for the next thing they love but cannot do and make heroes of these people. Let’s not forget that humans can pretend to have the attribute that Plato highlighted as the ‘celebrity guide’
A second part of this principle is to end democracy in Athens. I can hear the wheels in your brain going wild because we have come to believe that anyone who stands against democracy is a follower of Adolf Hitler. However, the reason he had this stance was because he observed how few people think before they vote. This consequently makes us have substandard rulers. His goal was not to replace democracy with dictatorship. His goal was to prevent people from voting until they have started to think rationally, which to him means until they have become some sort of philosophers. Plato’s ultimate goal was that politicians become philosophers. He said “The world will not be right until kings become philosophers and philosophers king”.
As brilliant as this argument is, Plato failed to consider the fact that philosophers do not necessarily hold the greatest ideas. Secondly, how do you determine that someone has started to think rationally especially as rationality is subject to each individual? It is both true and disheartening that the world is in such a sad place because of a lot of irrational voters. However, the focus should be on educating and enlightening people. Taking democracy away is akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I will like to hear your thoughts on these views.
