My last note ended on a cliffhanger, so I'll wrap up those ideas in this one.
I just started reading Plato's The Laws to kick off my summer reading. It's my next major Platonic dialogue on the list of known Greek classics I have left to read. And it has as it's subject, like many of the known dialogues, the question of what a virtuous society would look like. How it would run, power structures, roles and classes etc. From the introduction of the Penguin Classics version, Plato's The Laws explores a small Athenian agrarian utopia governed by a set of almost unchangeable laws. (I may have to update this note after I finish reading it)
I've always been fascinated with utopia, and by default, its antithesis: dystopia. They're intimately related. My interest derives from my continuous personal struggle to live a "good life," as all those participating in a utopia would be said to be living such lives.
"Utopia" was used to describe a world governed by Plato's "Ideas" or "Forms." The "Form" was the best, or more specifically, the most virtuous quality. Plato argued that a society that embodied the forms could never exist. As such, he believed that philosophers should be given the authority to rule because they are the most capable of shaping society towards the forms the most.
For me, it's always been about achieving utopia, or rather, a society in which everyone lives a "good life."
Of course by the very nature of the word "utopia," achieving it is impossible. Utopia is Greek for "no place."
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Achieving utopia wasn't always my motivation. In fact, in high school, as some of my closest friends and old acquaintances could attest, I actually desired the destruction of society. I perceived signs everywhere of decline and ultimately inevitable cataclysm. From overpopulation, to antibiotic resistance, to environmental degradation, I could see an inevitable global conflict emerging from systemic despair that would consume much of the life on the planet. My idea was to essentially restart the world, by throwing all societies back to just before/just after the dawn of the agricultural revolution - in order to save it. I presented this idea - and how I planned to achieve it - to my "gifted" class in grade 11. It would have been a last ditched attempt at ensuring the continued existence of life on the planet.
It didn't take me long to abandon this idea. Upon reflection of the successful outcome of the plan, I concluded, as I do to this day, that even if I succeeded in restarting human civilization, I would have just postponed the cataclysm, because based on my anthropological understanding, civilization would have re-evolved in almost the exact same way, with some minor differences based on alternate resources available and other geographic and biotic nuances (extinctions etc.). In fact, based on our influence to the environment, the cataclysm would have likely occurred even faster in a second civilization.
My conclusion therefore, was/and is to do everything in my power to prevent the cataclysm from happening in this civilization.
To summarize, The Laws, from my current understanding, is also a last ditched attempt at creating a self-actualized society. In the progression of Plato's thought, he first believed that society should be governed by philosopher kings, which was outlined in The Republic. However, after the democratically elected authority of Athens facilitated the execution of Socrates, he became extremely disgusted with democracy. As such, late in life, he thought the best way to achieve the forms was through a nearly unalterable code of laws that superseded human ineptitude. These laws would be administered by a small philosopher clique known as the Nocturnal Council.
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Fast forward roughly 2300 years, and one struggles to accept or believe Plato's prescription. We live in societies governed by nearly unalterable laws, and few would claim that we have achieved anything even close to Plato's forms.
Here's my current prescription, which I touched on in my last note. I believe the best society is communist and established through an intellectual revolution. My solution simply builds on Socrates's and Plato's. They prescribed the ruling of philosopher kings, but who would ever authorize the power of a philosopher king if they are not a philosopher king themselves? One cannot grasp the value of philosophic principles unless they are a philosopher. As such, my solution is simple: just make everyone philosopher kings through education.
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