Yesterday, Today

First of all, I don’t see the Greeks of the past as something extra-terrestrial. And I believe we are under the control of a Plutocracy. It just became worse and more clear. I see us very connected to the Greek and in a lively way. I don…’t think we did much after them. The questions remain the same, they just grew worse like a cancer. In Canada I can see a lot of Plato’s ideas implemented to the level of minutia. What was created in this country is a society of apathy and conservatism to the nth degree, including the liberals and new democrats automated behaviour. The ideological blinders are for all.
It is ingrained in the mindset, nurtured by the educational system, and the ideology that it propagates carefully. It is cared and maintained under very strict vigilance and the structure of its institutions is basically platonic, including the mechanisms to preserve the status quo and fight any changes, as it is perceived to be a virtuous society. Just death penalty isn’t official here but there are other mechanisms to execute the violators: the nemesis of social sanction is brutal and very intolerant in Canada.
Plato’s attempt to rule ever single thing in society, to punish the violators, and to protect the “city” was taken to the letter. I don’t see the Greek as living in another planet, I see them right here, now. I see them very much here since the beginning of what we are in the Occident. It was the victory of the sophists above all that prevailed over something that was correct in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle’s intuitions, I believe. Their time wasn’t different then today’s world, there is no line of progress since then, we are stagnant since the beginning.
Canadian society is as platonic as it can be, but it is shaped with the cement of hypocrisy brought by the sophists; oh yes, they are well and alive. It is bad in many accounts, including the wealth and the materialism ideology prevalent in most of the population, basically driven by having more and more, under the guidance of a merchants’ elite and an academia as sold to the capital as it can be (not very different from anywhere else, because the rotten base is the same almost everywhere nowadays).
Plato, already of old age, tried to implement his ideas when he was hired by Dionysus, the tyrant of Siracuse. Plato tried three times and at the end his life was badly at risk (he had to leave under dangerous circumstances). He came very burned out from the experience. His intent was to create a virtuous citizen, and virtue would be the shield against all evil (which is true if we consider what virtue can be). Dionysus would propagate the union of the Hellenic Peoples in case the project succeeded, had he behaved well as a good pupil of Plato. His advice to the tyrant was in pursuit of creating virtue, by instilling and imposing it. Of course, a virtue for the few to support the status quo and expand the power of Dionysus along the time.
For not so different reasons than nowadays, his ideas were strongly criticized and fought by those who had something to lose with the new policy and the close relationship Plato had with the tyrant as his direct advisor. The mercenaries supporting Dionysus’ tyranny would lose their prominent role because a monarchy wouldn’t need their services to protect the tyrant and their influence in his decisions would be reduced.
Of course, Plato in his arrogance, knew better than anybody else what to do, because he was, above all, an aristocrat and he never defended democracy, instead, aristocracy was his cup of tea. The “aristocrat” merchants of nowadays learned very well how to use the power that the old holders of power had in the past. Democracy was a better fit for the sophists and political opportunists, which seems to be the case wherever we look at it. They thrive under democracy. José Saramago, btw, has excellent critiques to democracy in YouTube. A different point of view that I like.
Plato hated the merchants and the sophists, and was very suspicious and controlling over the artists because the control of the thoughts of the citizens was essential to maintain a well-behaved society (same as today in capitalist and non-capitalist governments). I think he was right about the sophists and the merchants, because those two groups took over the globe along the centuries (the French Revolution was the highest achievement in consolidating their power). The world is ruled by the merchants, the economic elite who, in Plato’s time, had a secondary role, and I believe a more appropriate one. The sophists are basically the politicians, the hands-on implementors and guardians of the system owned by the merchants, basically speaking. Plato was very aware of the dangers of wealth.
Plato was a good aristocrat, who thought he knew better how to rule and what to do for the common good. It doesn’t matter how honest he was, it has always been a decision made by elites to protect their self interests. It was never an act of love which was as possible in the past as it is today. Love is atemporal and doesn’ include slavery or any form of domination over others. This is the lost virtue still to be pursued. The passage of time doesn’t change this question. It is permanent.
I don’t think that the pursuit of a better human being is negligible, and it is what is missing all the way long, and has always been missing, including Plato’s time. Nevertheless, all attempts made to date seem to me a grotesque and arrogant top down approach, including USSR, and all the pursuit to break through the chains. It has been a succession of failures, or just the plain success of different forms of domination.
There may be no exit after all, but if there is one, I believe it comes from the passions of the soul, the drivers that govern most of our acts, are the same, the core didn’t change. It was redressed, and gained fancy accessories, but at the end of the day, the same thing that happened in Plato’s time is happening today, in fact it got worse because we are more numerous than before and more decadent and cruel in an institutionalized way. We grew more indifferent.

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