On Platonic Guardians

Still my favourite scene in the whole show.

    What does it mean to serve as a protector of the state? In Game of Thrones, they may have referred to the "realm," but the essential meaning remains: the protectors of community are forever invested in the welfare of its constituents—but not for power, self-interest, or pride. If not established by this post's title, I am discussing "protectors of the realm": extra-state actors who rarely hold political office, but prioritize the polis: the police usually unrecognized by the state.

    As some of the folks familiar with this blog may know, I almost dropped out of high school in grade 11. I was fortunate that I discovered a bunch of philosophy books at Chapters that became the basis of much of my future interests, research, and writing. Particularly, I became obsessed with translations of Plato's Republic, reading and rereading sections until I was satisfied and confident in my understanding. I had heard of Platonic guardians prior to reading the Republic itself, but I did not appreciate their exhaustive importance to my context until reading (and rereading) Book VI. This section provided me with the knowledge that shaped much of my future aspirations, particularly to participate in governance when- and wherever possible.

    It's 2024, so the alleged guardians of Classical Athens don't hold as much relevance as they would to a relatively isolated city-state with a stable population. However, it's a critical idea for understanding the tension between any general populace and its persistent aristocracy. Plato's philosopher kings exist with and despite the aristocracy, even when the least educated of his contemporaries could be relegated to "Aristocrat, " a term traditionally referring to a typically wealthy member of a minority-elite in a given community, or its "best citizens" in 1500s French communities. In my experience, it's rarely used in 21st century contexts, but its traditional characteristics persist in neologisms of "elite," "privileged," or the "establishment."

    I was hesitant to write this post because I feel as though discussing this passage from the Republic has been overdone to clichéd parody.  However, it was critical to my own development and motivations.  Much of my decision-making after that tumultuous year could be attributed to my aspiration to service,  toward Platonic guardianship.  

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  Since that time, I have considered myself a civil servant first and an educator or student second.  Following the Socratic tradition, education was always a means to a stronger civil society, which follows from the description and purposes of Plato's "guardian class," AKA "philosopher kings."

    If you Google this passage, you will find innumerable blog posts referencing rough transliterations of the same essential meaning:

"the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired ' d with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries." (Republic, Book VI)

    This custodial role has continued everywhere from Warhammer 40k to Wikipedia Administrators. These often extra-state actors don't always hold political office or enforcement arms of nation-states, but they frequently gravitate to these roles in order to fulfill the broader purpose of "[taking] care of the State."

    Ironically, these would-be protectors often find themselves directly confronting the faces of the aristocracy, those who treat the state as a means and not an end in itself.  This classical conflict will persist long after we're gone; the aristocracy that exists for itself isn't going anywhere.   

    Yet, we must persist.  Anyone committed to the broader welfare of the state (however the "state" manifests in each respective epoch) must confront the excesses of aristocratic power.  Most of the folks predisposed to such advocacy tend to find themselves among the aristocracy, and therefore, they are usually best positioned to police it in each instance.

    Bertrand Russell no doubt encountered this same tension, especially given his obvious and self-consciously privileged origin.  But, we cannot let ourselves become so consumed with doubt that we cease to check the power of a self-serving elite; in keeping with Russell's critique, we need to challenge their certainty.

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    When Varys approached Eddard, he likely did so from the same justification he held to continue to serve as a eunuch for the state; he was merely continuing to act as a custodian for the realm the best way that he knew how under the circumstances. Although Varys's characterization included some deliberate faults of character, he is probably the closest GoT has to a member of Plato's guardian class. He illustrates many of the conflicts and paradoxes referenced earlier, of an advisor who also polices other aristocrats and of an aristocrat consumed with doubt despite their privilege and relative power.

    Hence, Varys's death signaled the final decline of his current system of governance. Once aristocrats who exist purely for the sake of the aristocracy seize power, these protectors of the realm are usually the last barrier to totalitarian control, and therefore the former's primary targets. You know many of their names throughout the ages, but these casualties of established power were all in part chasing the same aspiration. That of personal sacrifice and service.

Drafted, edited, and published live on stream in 2 hours on April 28th, 2024.

On taking truth and justice for granted

No picture can do justice to the original.

I don't watch television or read fiction anymore (unless I've needed to do so in order to teach my students), but the Game of Thrones universe plays with an interesting motif: "to break the wheel."  Daenerys was referring to a wheel of power through which the Iron Throne passed from Targaryen to Targaryen, connoting the wheel's crushing of resistance and of those found unfit to rule.

But I tend to interpret this metaphor a bit more broadly, as a representation of the political cycles of dominance and resistance.  My interpretation is inherent to Dany's; however, in the game of thrones, those resisting domination tend to do so only in order to dominate—themselves.

Therefore, I look toward a different breaking of the wheel, or at least toward a more exhaustively representative wheel to be broken.  If resistance is as cyclical as dominance, then the breaking of such a wheel would require an overcoming of both the resistors and the dominators or, in Freire's terms, of both the liberators and the oppressors—a transcendence, or at least a new wheel.

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For the minority who follow this blog consistently, this post could be considered a prequel to "It actually doesn't really matter if you're right."  The problem that I'm exploring predicates Edward Snowden's; stubbornness alone might seal our fate, even despite cowardice.

Snowden presumably broke, or at least exposed, the wheel of state mass surveillance in America.  "Presumably," because as I noted in that post, the status quo wasn't altered all that substantially even after the American public had hard evidence that their government was not to be trusted with their privacy or personal security.  The status quo spins on as the extremists among the governing and the governed continue to try to score points for themselves and their allies; the truth and justice among the relationships between both camps in America were merely adapted.

But those false senses of security and privacy that almost everyone outside of the NSA took for granted were challenged and, as a result, changed.  As with all other man-made constructs of the senses and reason, Snowden merely reminded us of their constructivism.  The truth of this perceived injustice merely altered people's senses of what can be "true" and "just."

In point of fact, our conceptions of truth and justice are artifacts, just like the words that we use to communicate them.  Ultimately, what we believe to be of most importance, even if it corresponds with the importances ascribed by the dominant authorities of our day—religious, political, or otherwise—exist as constructs.  Whether they're good or right doesn't allay their constructivity and therefore their ephemerality.

As a more-or-less life-long indiscriminate agnostic, I've been somewhat sensitive to this impermanency.  The Good and the right are only as good and as righteous as we will them to be.  Inherent goodness or rightness, (and inherence generally), is a dangerous proposition that should be consistently interrogated; as satisfying as it can be for one's world view, the ascription of inherent goodness or rightness to any value anticipates a harder fall when that construct's seams are exposed and sundered.

Moreover, if absolutely everyone you knew were in on an acclaimed lie, that claim would be indistinguishable from the truth.  I.e., if absolutely everyone you knew and trusted were lying to you, how would you know?  Their fallacious claim would be indistinguishable from the truth if your notion of truth were entangled in said claim.

Even fundamentality is constructed.  Our individualized/singular conceptions of the most fundamental elements or categories of our existences are culturally situated.  E.g., some would argue that biology is just applied chemistry, chemistry just applied physics, physics just applied mathematics, mathematics just applied epistemology, epistemology just applied ontology, ontology just applied epistemology, etc.

And not to break the divine wheel (or to reiterate its brokenness), but a classic case study of this trend remains worthy of the attention of the -structors: did God make humanity in His image, or did humanity make God in their image?  I tend to lean on the latter as an empiricist, but it's telling that even the most valued of values can be questioned, challenged, and imputed mortality.

Recently, I've been teaching my senior English students about Elie Wiesel's Night: the Nazis who coerced sonderkommandos to dig up the bodies of Hungarian Jews in Oświęcim in order to burn the evidence of their crimes also may have believed in their commitment to a construct of righteousness.  Trust our professional historians; many of the historical fascists were convinced that they were "right", and many were more than ready to die for the Nazi cause.  The fallaciousness and insecurity of their "rightness" could be identified and judged as false and deceitful only by those with other constructs.

It follows that, for humanity, fascism will always be right around the corner.  Not to beat the dead horse of the cliched cliché of George Santayana's "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and its endlessly compounded mimeses & parodies, but so long as truth and justice remain constructs of and by people, they will always be subject to erosion and potential destruction.

Ultimately, if we aren't willing to defend these constructs when it matters, then they won't be able to defend us when their essential meanings and consequences are all that stand between us and annihilation.  There's a real threat in denying or ignoring the constructivity of truth and justice until it's too late—too late for them to assist in the defense of the truthful and the just.

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A bunch of my white friends and allies tell me to avoid quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. publicly (particularly in UofT graduate student governance spaces), seemingly insinuating that believing and/or attesting that he was right and just can be some form of appropriation.  Nonsensical of course, but we live in the era of woke cancel culture.  

MLK stood for something that most of us do not.  Make no mistake, MLK was hated and maligned by many of his contemporaries, even as he continued to make extreme personal sacrifices for his cause, as was basically every other person in history whose commitment to a truth and to a justice challenged others' commitments to inferior constructs of both.  Needless to say, the proportions of melanin in your skin do not determine the truthfulness of your words or the content of your character; the fact that this fact can be construed as taboo speaks volumes about the constructs of our day.  To break such a wheel as eloquently and bravely as MLK is something to which anyone and everyone should aspire.

But for us, to break the next cycle of domination and resistance, we need constructs worth preserving.  For me, MLK's righteousness, justice, and truth are worth the effort.

And so for not the first—and almost certainly not the last—time, I'll give MLK the final word, a paraphrasing of the original: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

On empathic projection

From the webcam of the laptop with which I edited most of this post when I should have been writing my comprehensive exam.  FYI, Einstein was defending Bertrand Russell.

What is social justice?  No. Seriously. What IS it?  Thousands of years of philosophizing and insightful reflection have yet to glean a satisfactory response to a simple yet eminently consequential question.

From the pre-Socratics to Socrates himself, the Western tradition passed down an, at best, provisional explication derivable from the first books of Plato's Republic.  Philosophers have long grappled with the gravity of the question and with the associated gravity of a proficient answer.

Lately, scholars of social justice have gravitated toward the discourses of empathic understanding when confronted with the question of the criteria and/or substance of social justice.  The problem in practice, as I've witnessed it, is that the respondents confronted with social injustices apply empathy undemocratically.  Under the guise of equity, these "social justice warriors" exercise a limited form of empathy that privileges empathizing with particular groups as opposed to a consciously and rigorously maintained, indiscriminate empathic disposition.  Almost daily, I encounter new politically selective applications of empathy that violate the presupposed humanistic ethics and morality of empathetic practice.

Just as Henry Giroux argued that a "democracy can never be democratic enough," empathy can never be empathized enough.  The schools of liberal democratic thought taken to their logical extremes necessitate a democratic empathy and an empathetic democracy in which people practice empathy as democratically and exhaustively as possible.

The idealized desire for the practice of democracy and empathy in their extremities echoes the philosopher's restless pursuit of timelessness and universality.  During a heated philosophical discussion that feels like yesterday but actually transpired about 8 years ago, a great friend and I were arguing about the possibility of objective morality: or in other words, a morality that could transcend time and space and that would be applicable for any human context.  The other discussant was a staunch Christian, while I was a less radically agnostic version of myself.  We couldn't agree on anything other than that if such morality were ascertainable, it could be determined only through an application of reason and empiricism and could only be validated through some leap of faith.

Upon that insight, I wrote one of the first Facebook notes that became one of the first posts in this blog; it attempted to begin elucidating a rationalistic morality.  My consistent contemplation of this construct anticipated my attempt to illustrate the highest moral imperative.  Only recently did I realize that these explorations betrayed a deeper goal of uncovering a (read: the) universal morality via what I now refer to as empathic projection.

In order to practice empathy as democratically and exhaustively as possible, arguably, one must embrace empathic projection.  The OED defines "projection" as "an estimate or forecast of a future situation based on a study of present trends" and as "a mental image viewed as reality."  Essentially, "empathic projection" depicts a practice of empathy through which one estimates or forecasts the situations of future human beings in order to generate a mental image of what might comprise these beings' lived realities.  This practice might enable one to "empathize with potentiality."

In other words, empathic projection can enable an inquiry approach with which one extends inferences beyond past and present circumstances.  An indiscriminately empathic democracy necessitates that the thoughts, wills, and actions of its citizens not only consider empathy with those whom exist and will exist within their lifelitimes but with those whom potentially will exist (to be as democratic, equitable, and non-egoistic as possible). It's a narrowly presentist assumption that one need only empathize with those whom exist in one's generation or with those of the immediately succeeding generation.

The most universal ethic would require that moral judgement be situated not only by empathizing with those whom exist and will exist soon, but with those whom will exist who will never interact with you directly: a morality of the substantive Other.  Caring about people exhaustively inevitably anticipates caring about the future because there are infinitely more potential people of the future than there could ever be living today.  Ask yourself what these timelessly succeeding Others would ask of their preceding Others; this abstraction's moral intimations could validate a trans-generational human morality.

At the very least, logically, these succeeding Others would desire the same degree of opportunity (potentiality) as those whom preceded them since anything less than at least that potentiality would constitute a perfect injustice.  Thinking historically, this justified continuancy of opportunity followed a timeless trend of taken-for-granted equivalency of potentiality which, until the past ~50 years, had remained more-or-less uncontested.

Thus, empathic projection might reveal semblances of an ultimate universal "moral high ground" through the application of empirical reasoning and logic.  If this form exists at all—a morality and/or value system that exists in spite of and simultaneously among and within us, timelessly—then it might be revealable through empathic projection.

In sum, if there is a social justice to be realized, then empathic projection could be pivotal.  These intellectual gymnastics might be essential to cobbling together the political will to do what is necessary to preserve the sentience and sapience of this planet.  Without it, we will undoubtedly continue to elect those antithetical to the future.

On the privilege of sacrifice

Earn this...

I suppose that it's inevitable that blogs contain autobiographical elements.
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Unbeknownst to most, I am actually a musician.  And I'm not just a musician but a song writer.  At least, I was.

Music still comprises the greater part of my life.  If I remember correctly, I was taking piano lessons when I was as young as 10 years old.  I didn't love it initially, but it grew on me.  I was extremely fortunate that my family could also put me through voice lessons.  By grade 11, I was writing songs monthly for the coffee houses held by the music program at my high school.  I always had to one-up myself, technically, melodically, rhythmically, and/or by refining my overall performance.  I became absolutely obsessed with writing music.  At one point in my life, I would spend over half of my waking hours trying to find underused chord formulas and rehashing traditional constructs.  I know that many people would kill to have my talent (at least that's what my mother always says).

And then I stopped.

It's a bit like ripping my own heart out, tossing it to the side, and knowing that it's still beating.

There has always been a part of me that just wanted to drop everything, join another band, write music, and perform live shows for the rest of my life.

But to this day, I have never regretted sacrificing that privilege.

The rest of this blog post will attempt to unpack that ^^^ statement.
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How was/is my capacity for music a privilege you might ask?

We usually talk about privilege in terms of skin colour, gender, class, wealth, and/or ability.  I'm referring to privilege in a much more wholistic and abstract sense.  I think that I would describe privilege as a certain kind of un/known capacity.

First, many, if not most, families cannot afford to put their kids through piano and voice lessons.  I am ever indebted to my parents for pushing me to attend lessons with an expert from the Royal Conservatory, let alone fund my classes.

Secondly, I know that I can contribute at least 10 fold more to others through schooling, research, and politics than I could ever contribute through a career in music.

Finally, and most importantly, it's possible that in sacrificing my capacity for music that I can bring myself closer to living a Good life.  Not everyone will have the chance to do that which Socrates and his pupils exalted within the Ancient Greek dialogues.

Although one of my greatest sacrifices, writing and playing music is now just one drop in the sacrificial bucket that has been my life.  And I'm not alone in this regard.  Some of my closest allies have forgone child bearing and even intimate relationships in order to treat others as they would have others treat them.  This lifestyle is not for everyone.  But I believe that for me, it is absolutely necessary.  Because my definition of "others" stretches off into the infinite.  My definition includes all potential sentient, feeling, life: all of those potential lives who might have acted differently if they were in my position with my known capacity.

If this capacity is privy to the agent wielding it,  then there are consequences.  For example, I have empirical evidence that I can work almost non-stop in the service of others; therefore, if I know that, then I have a responsibility to do it.  Put another way, someone in the future experiencing the brink of the total destruction of this planet would admonish me if he/she could.  It's a logical projection of our circumstances given the empirical evidence available.

Moreover, our individual responsibility for the future scales with our known capacity.  In this sense, known capacity refers to our knowledge of the causality that might impact the future combined with our knowledge of our ability to do something about it.

I don't expect everyone to adopt my moral universe and, to be honest, I never did.  I don't want my students to end up like me.  I don't want them to have to let go of parts of themselves in order to make this world decent.

But our context has no precedent in human history.  And if we empathize with potentiality, all of those potential lives, it's not an tremendous leap of faith to conclude that they would want, at least, the same chances that we had.  We have this responsibility as an extension of our awareness.  We have an obligation inherent in the universal values of the human species that have transcended time.

I'm only requesting that we try to be reasonable given the circumstances.  We have enormous power over the future of this planet.  And as the inevitable cliche suggests "With great power comes great responsibility."

Therefore, we can have the choice of whether to sacrifice our privileges for the sake of others.
I would earnestly request from my reader that, at the very least, we do that which we think would be reasonable.
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I didn't watch the entire movie, 'Saving Private Ryan,' until I was in China about a year ago.  The first time I watched the ending, I balled my eyes out.  I don't think I've ever cried that much in my entire life.  I want the people of the future to have Ryan's degree of appreciation for what we did.  (Un)fortunately, that means that we may need to sacrifice some of our privileges so that they might have, at least, the same opportunities that we had.
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My students once asked me "How do you define success?"  After some thought, I responded "If I can achieve a measure of decency, then that's enough.  If I can treat others the same way that I would have them treat me, then I've succeeded."

On appreciation

Christmas Truce of 1914

As the first round of holy-days draw to a close, I'm reminded of all those who could not for diverse trials and tribulations celebrate them with the same warmth and comfort as myself. 

I treasure holidays as an opportunity for reflection: an opportunity to reflect, yet again, on all that I, and my community, take for granted.  Just as consciousness is always becoming, growing, and fostering, so is our understanding of our privileges.  So many of us take for granted the reality that we'll never realize just how much we take for granted.  The wisdom that we know next to nothing will ironically never cease to serve as an impetus and agent in the fostering of new knowledge.

My reflection intensified as some members of my friends and family exchanged racist and homophobic remarks and jokes during one of our gatherings, as I'm sure some of my colleagues and peers may have witnessed with their own friends and families.  My siblings and I were fortunate enough to be gifted with a liberal education that inculcated a relatively greater respect for all human beings regardless of skin colour, ethnicity, gender, and sexual affinity.  An education that itself is often underestimated; one that often contributes to the formation of impossible expectations for those without such an education such as of those making the racist and homophobic comments.  I found myself in a situation where I had ample opportunity to unleash an indignant inclusivist self-righteous fury.  But I didn't.

Because an "indignant inclusivist self-righteous fury" is an oxymoron.  Militancy with regards to inclusivity can be both thoughtless and careless.  As I stated in the forerunner to this blog post

"just as it's easy for the conservative to turn inwards, it's easy for the liberal to turn their back on the conservative.  All you accomplish by turning your back on conservatives is to alienate, victimize, and thus, feed their conservatism even more.  It's easy to mock Tea Partiers, but much more difficult to empathize with them - to invite them to come together for the benefit of all."

All I would have fostered by going on an inclusive offensive was greater defensiveness, more justifications for feelings of victimization, more walls, and ultimately more exclusion.

I find myself cautioning my former classmates and all those involved in the movement for sustainable self-actualization.  We won't win converts to our cause by oppressing them, even if they are in fact ultimately in the wrong.  We'll win converts by fostering their appreciation. 

In one of my more abstract series of posts on this blog, I argued that unity is the way.  In the context of the current post, it's unity between the racists, the homophobes, and those they prejudge and fear, that is the good life for all.  Even the most oppressive human beings on the planet were, and still are, human beings.  Paulo Freire once argued that the oppressed must liberate their oppressors.  I can't imagine a situation in which unleashing a self-righteous fury could be liberating, unless it was truly directed towards unity. 

Education more often than not is simply a call to appreciation.  Whether it's an appreciation of processes, identities, events, ideas, or wisdom, one of our roles as learners and educators is to create appreciation where there was none before.  Just as we'll never realize just how much we take for granted, we'll never appreciate just how much we will never appreciate.  I embrace holidays as an opportunity to grow in appreciation and to slowly foster appreciation in others.

To quote the wisdom of Confucius a second time in this blog, “It is not the failure of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you, but rather your failure to appreciate theirs.”

On Democracy

"At the earnest instigation of Plato and others of his friends [the judge] offered a fine which they would pay, but Socrates would give no undertaking to cease his 'corrupting' activities, on the grounds that to him they were more important than life itself" - W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle

As I find myself growing more and more political as of late, especially through my participation in democratic governance, I find myself growing more and more critical of democracy.

Basically anyone born in North America in the last half century has been raised as if democracy is the greatest, most benign and benevolent, political framework to ever have existed.  And many people accept it as such or lack the capacities and consciousness to even think otherwise.

For the TL;DR, the goodness of a democracy depends on the goodness of its majority.  Contrary to populist opinion, democracy is not rule by the people for the people.  It's actually rule by the majority of people for the people.

To illustrate, all motions in democratic governance delivered to deliberative assemblies are passed or rejected based on a majority of votes.  Sometimes a motion requires what's colloquially referred to in governance circles as a "simple majority."  A simple majority consists of 50% of the vote + 1.  In extraordinary circumstances, such as an addition to an agenda or a constitutional amendment, a motion may require a greater majority such as a 2/3s, 90%, or even unanimous consent.

Here's the problem.  The goodness of a decision of the deliberative body in the previous illustration depends entirely on the goodness of those who compose the majority of the vote.  In other words, if your majority is wrong, or worse: evil, you have a big problem.

Here's a couple examples of the former.  Hitler was elected.  Socrates's execution was determined by a democratic vote.  And this happened. 

Given the potential and actual problems of concentrating governmental power in the hands of the few, democracy is a kind of last best hope that the majority of a society will govern in the best interests of everyone.  There are many assumptions laid when one would argue that the majority of a society will govern well.  First, you're assuming the majority of that society is rational.  Secondly, you're assuming that the majority actually realizes what's in their best interest.  Finally, you're assuming that the majority has equal access to, and participation with, governance.

I don't know about you, but I've never in the whole history of humanity encountered a society in which the majority of people are rational, live good, and access and participate with governance equally and sufficiently.  Maybe that's too idealistic to ever become a reality.

Such was Plato's general opinion when he late in life wrote The Laws.  If you get the chance to wade through the book, you'll find an author completely disgusted and distrustful of democracy.  After all, his own democracy forced the suicide of his mentor and friend Socrates. 

Plato's solution to the potential problems of majority governance was the rule of law through a nearly unalterable set of laws shaped by the Nocturnal Council.  As the linked article demonstrates, there's a great deal of controversy surrounding the authority and actual function of the council.  However, it's almost certain that this council harbored the greatest quantities and qualities of wisdom.  They may not have been the philosopher kings of Plato's Republic, but they were to be the wisest: those with the greatest study and understanding of the good life.

In other words, Plato's solution to the potential threats of democratic rule was basically an oligarchy: rule by the few.  Lately I've become more and more attracted to this idea.

My attraction to oligarchy is based on the assumptions laid on the majority in a good democracy.  For an ideal, good, and effective democracy the majority needs to be rational.  Secondly, the majority has to have an informed understanding of what it means to live well; the qualities and virtues that compose a good life.  Finally, in order to have equal access to, and participation with, governance everyone must share and sustain procedural justice. 

In order to create such a majority of people in a society there needs to be systems in place that provide educations necessary to foster these qualities in its citizens.  North American societies today are well schooled, but hardly educated, especially when held to the standard of reason, goodness, and access to, and participation in, governance.

I'm of the opinion that the ultimate form of human governance is in fact a horizontal consensus democracy, vertically representative if only because of practical necessity.  Anarchists tend to forget that one of the main functions of the state is bureaucratic.  States first came into existence because there were a lot of people and a lot of resources to distribute.  Large groups of similar individuals came together to create institutions to handle large quantities of resources-both human and material.  Horizontal democracy is made a pipe dream by the practical realities of everyday life: the sheer number of people on the planet and the vast quantities of resources to distribute.

Although horizontal consensus governance remains the ideal form of human government, I believe oligarchy is a necessary, temporary, evil.  I believe that in order to create a sufficiently  educated, effective, good democracy, there needs to be a temporary rule by philosopher kings and queens.  A temporary oligarchy of philosophers because people can't grasp the value of an education that fosters reason, happiness, justice, and fairness, until they've actually got it. 

The question is, how could that ever possibly happen?

Oh wait... China.

(Admittedly China is not the ideal example but it's probably one of the best ones currently available)

On accountability: The importance of honesty

It's a kind of cosmic irony that one of the greatest systemic problems facing humanity today is our incapacity to take accountability for our own actions.  Many of us go great lengths to salvage and protect our pride, often to self- and community-destructive ends.  Even more ironic is the availability of the solution, the degree of ease in simply enacting accountability; to be honest.

This dishonesty contributes to a range of social problems and inequalities ranging from war to poverty.  It has enormous ramifications for conflict resolution, everywhere from intimate relationship, to international, violence. 

As a co-facilitator at Changing Ways, I've witnessed how a lack of accountability can destroy relationships.  As a student of history, I've witnessed how dishonesty has tarnished, and even lead to the conquering of, nations.

Accountability affects every context of our lives, and yet it's barely discussed in common conversation.  In fact, discussions of accountability are most often prompted by some sort of accusation of dishonesty; rarely is it discussed as a virtue, ideal, or something intrinsically worth enacting.

So just what is accountability?

Well, Wikipedia currently provides several context specific definitions supplying little assistance in this instance.  But the webpage demonstrates that definitions of concepts can have as many nuances as there are contexts in which these concepts can be identified.

I've been confronted with defining accountability several times, especially at Changing Ways where men were "coerced" into writing accountability statements: to take accountability for the behavior that landed them at the institution.  As such, I've encountered a plethora of definitions from which to draw my own.

In this instance, I'm referring to accountability in its primary essence, its basic values: honesty, integrity (consistency), and reason.  I developed my definition logically, as it consists of honesty, integrity, and reason, because if just one of those values is absent, one cannot be genuinely accountable.  

Without a complete commitment to honesty, dishonest behavior could be justified by reason and enacted with integrity.  I.e. left to reason and integrity, one could justify disingenuity.  I've encountered many situations where people rationalize disingenuous actions in which one behaves as though they know less than they actually do.  To spare you the list of reasons as to why such justifications can fail, I'll leave you with this: how would you feel if you were the one who suffered as a result of that disingenuous behavior?  And what's the point if you'd find out eventually, regardless?

Along with honesty, without a complete commitment to integrity, one can fail to be genuinely accountable.  I placed "consistency" in parentheses to highlight this element of integrity, but I didn't just write 'consistency' because that term alone fails to capture the range of areas within which one must be consistent to maintain their integrity.  Integrity is more than just consistent action; it's an consistent orientation to life: consistent values, beliefs, reasoning, honesty, self-criticism, etc.  Without integrity, one could pick and choose rationally and honestly where and when to be consistent instrumentally.  Integrity's not as vital as honesty and reason, but it's an essential element of persistent, life-long, genuine accountability.

Along with honesty and integrity, without a complete commitment to reason, one cannot achieve the ideal accountability so described.  I know it may sound abstract or obtuse to include reason in my definition and criteria, but bear with me.  Imagine an irrational individual claiming to be accountable based on their honesty and integrity.  In my own mind I'd picture a domestic abuser who consistently and honestly denies their culpability in an instance of domestic abuse.  By the exclusive standards of honesty and integrity, this man or woman could be described as accountable.  However, if that same situation is subjected to rational criticism and reason, that individual may be found to be otherwise.  For example, in the case suggested, the indicted might have done something they don't believe, or understand, to have affected something else.  Reason is the acknowledgement and understanding of relationships like cause and effect, consequences for behaviors, and emotional literacy.  Even if one maintains the greatest honesty and integrity, if they do not acknowledge or even deny rational deductive and inductive logic, the feelings of other individuals, or the full consequences of their actions, they cannot be genuinely accountable.

In sum, my perspective of accountability consists of honesty, integrity, and reason.

That said, why do we struggle to take accountability?

No one likes to be wrong.  In fact, as I've cited previously, in Eckhart Tolle's words, "to be wrong is to die."  Following suite, everyone likes to be right.  No one ever has trouble taking accountability for good, right, actions, unless they're prepared to confront their own pride.

As such, to take accountability is to confront our own hedonist consciousnesses: to confront our desires for pleasure and abhorrence of pain.  It's hard: very hard.  Almost, and arguably actually currently, impossible for some, depending on the context.  As it was at Changing Ways in the men's groups I helped facilitate and participated with, accountability is a process: a gradual process. And the pivotal vehicle of this process is honesty.

I'm awed and inspired by the solution.  The simple, yet revolutionary, power of honesty.  Honesty, in the sense that I use it, is simply an absolute openness, to yourself, everyone, and everything.

Meanwhile, dishonesty is dissonance.  It's a closing or alienation of ideas and people. Dishonesty is a form of conservatism; it's an act of conserving one's pride, feelings, beliefs, understandings, or principles.

As such, honesty is absolutely liberal, it's a kind of liberation: an exercise of personal liberty.  To be honest is to liberate oneself from pride, doctrines, and prejudices.

Many of us are slaves to our selves: to our own pride and hedonist values.  We exercise dishonesty, and fear accountability, because we fear the wrath of our masters: the realization and acknowledgment of who we truly are, and what we've actually done. 

Allow me to consolidate this argument with an example.  Why do we desire "privacy"?

Why?

What's the reasoning?  What's at the root of that desire?

It's because we have something worth hiding.  Whether it be worth hiding because of the consequences of its discovery, or to preserve its worth: this is the nature of any secret.  Simply put, we desire privacy because we feel we can't or shouldn't be honest; there's forces and structures preventing us from being ourselves, honestly and accountably.  We seek out and go great lengths to maintain privacy, because our society has become such that to be completely and absolutely honest about ourselves: our wants, needs, beliefs, and values, often has negative consequences.

My perspective?  Be honest anyway.  Be accountable, even if it hurts. 
Because most often the consequences of dishonesty and running from the truth far outweigh the costs of being honest and accountable.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."  You want honesty?  Accountability?  Transparency? Be honest, accountable, and transparent.

EDIT: I ironically had to delete a link linked to the words "be accountable, even if it hurts."  That link connected to a post that I had to pull from this blog given my new status as a public servant.  That post may be reposted again, but given its controversy and probable incomprehensibility to most people, it will require reworking, or at least a lot more explanation on my part.  So in eating my own words, be accountable, even if it hurts, only when such accountability will allow you to continue to realize your self and your world.

"Unity is the Way" Part 3: Unity through Discourse; Discourse through Unity

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - MLK Jr.

I continuously learn while writing these posts; they, and I, constantly grow.  To demonstrate, this marks the second time I've rewritten this post from scratch, because I've refuted myself a second time as to the main impetus for unity.
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I discovered the greatest justification, yet, while reading Tasos Kazepides's Education as dialogue: Its prerequisites and its enemies, a book I stumbled upon while reading towards my Master's thesis. 

Like my proposed concept analysis, Kazepides sifts through the various potential requisites and obstacles to effective dialogue.  Although, as of what I've read so far, he has yet to mention the importance of unity.
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Succinctly, "unity is the way" because unity develops through discourse, and discourse develops through unity.

I've highlighted the importance of dialogue before, twice.  However, when I wrote those posts, I hadn't yet thought systematically about the criteria for effective dialogue.  While reading Kazepides, I had a small eureka when I considered the relationship between discourse and unity.

Simply stated, dialogue is a vehicle to unity, and unity: a vehicle to dialogue.   Unity develops as a result of the mutuality established in effective discourse, like that which I described in "OnMethods: How Dialogue will Change the World, Part 2." I provided an example in the former post of a dialogue on values in which participants develop and utilize empathy to understand and grasp the values of other participants.  I pragmatically labeled this development, and use, of empathy as "mutuality;" in quotations because I'm sure others have already used the term for such transactions or terms like it.  Mutuality consists of a harmony in which two or more individuals become more conscious of the degree to which their values shape their actions.  Mutuality terminates in a greater group consciousness: in collective insight and understanding.  In sum, the development of mutuality coincides with a greater harmony of the part(icipant)s.

Further, unity is a criteria for such dialogues.  As described in Part 2, unity is "the harmony of the parts that compose the whole."  Without the harmony of the parts, i.e. the absence of respect; active listening; and engagement of the the participants, dialogue will be ineffective.  As such, there is a requisite unity, or harmony, in order to create or establish a greater unity.  For example, effective dialogues have rules, conscious and unconscious, possibly including, but not limited to: respect, dignity, symbol systems, organizers, etc., all of which must be shared by participants for effective discourse.

Therefore, unity is both the means to, and ends of, an effective dialogue.  In order to tap into the transformative power of effective dialogue, unity must be the way.  And in order to create unity, there must be effective discourse.  The logic buttressing my argument is self-evidently circular.  But this circularity consists of a causal relationship.  To demonstrate, if you remove either, the other is limited: without effective discourse, unity is constrained. 

But importantly, as a causal circular relationship, unity and discourse function in a positive feed back loop.  (I.e., the more effective the discourse, the greater the unity and the greater the unity, the more effective the discourse.)

To consolidate and conclude several recent posts, to bring about real change and transformation of society: especially the good life for all, there must be discourse, and as such, there must be unity.  Neither is effective, or genuine, without the other.  Further, they are the vehicles to one another.  As such, one could equally argue that "discourse is the way," when arguing for the way of unity.  However, in general, in our society people are already discoursing: discussing, debating, deciding, etc., although most often ineffectively.  Because, in general, North American society has yet to do so truly, and genuinely, united.  At this juncture, most of us could benefit from unity more than discourse.  Ultimately, unity through discourse; discourse through unity; til my last breadth, "unity is the way."