/lit/ - Literature

lefties love fascism, they just hate the word

>>11154093
>socialism
>corporatism
Pick one

>>11154107
Corporatism is socialist.
Have you not read the book?
Corporatism for the masses, communism for the aristocracy.

>>11154102
>leftists love nationalism and hierarchy

No shit sherlock

Facism is nothing more than the understanding that people are shaped by their environment, and so if you want ideal people, you must create them in an ideal environment

>>11154129
they sure like hierarchy when theyre the law makers. Also they do like nationalism in a sense.

>>11154131
Hey I'm not arguing against it
I think Plato's "Just Society" is beautiful
A bit idealistic and I'd probably make some changes to make it more practical but the idea is great
I also really like Giovanni Gentile's philosophy

I'm just curious why there's this double standard in academia
This video is a perfect example:
https://youtu.be/VDiyQub6vpw

Complete misrepresentation of Plato's ideas, they flat out lie and leave a ton of info out to make his ideas more palatable I guess?
>Plato didnt support dictatorship
>Except in the part where he told Glaucon society should be ruled by an Autocracy
>O-Oh

>>11154093
fascism is merely the natural immune reaction that kicks in whenever things get too degenerate. I feel like my fascists beliefs are just a rational evolutionary strategy ordained by God.

facism is built upon ideology
ideology which is flawed
philosopher king has no desire for retard ideologies

>>11154155
Now thats an argument!

>>11154093
Because people have been conditioned by democratic educational systems to have a negative knee-jerk reaction to Fascism, but it isn't a particularly deep response. In his soul man knows that there is right and wrong and that some should command and some should obey.

>>11154102
but what if....the libtard leftists....are the real fascists....wow....

>>11154093
>darwinis
>eugenics
>biological racism
shhhhhhhhhhhh retard

>>11154093

Kikes have a hard-on for the Greeks, don't ask me why.

>>11154155
*deep breath*

>guardians share wives, children, can't hold property
sounds pretty gommie to me

>>11154155
His only ideal is to seek the truth and act virtuously, and it is objectively superior to any ideology based conduct

>>11154208
>"And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race isall united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strangeto the barbarians?"

>"And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race."

>>11154102
>Don't believe in God
B-but X isn't morally right!
>Believe in evolution and natural selection
We have to help all those people! They might die! Eugenics is wrong!
>believe in freedom
You shouldn't say that, it might hurt someone's feelings!
The government should give everyone money so people aren't rich or poor!
>tolerance and anti-discrimination
You stupid hick nazi cracker you probably support Trump and fuck your cousin!

Why are liberals such a mess?

>>11154249
The idea is that the guardian class should never be infected by materialism or greed, and view the failures of other Guardians as a failure of their own blood
Communal breeding is a bit idealistic though, he's not taking into account the fact that individuals can fall in love

>>11154265
>race 600 BC = race 2018 AD

>>11154277
>this damage control

Slightly unrelated to the topic, but what's the best translation of the Republic? Is Bloom's good?

>>11154275
>fall in love
idiotic animalistic feeling
virtuous people know how to control its desires for the higher good

>>11154292
Either this one: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1497/1497-h/1497-h.htm
or the Caimbridge Texts "The Republic" by G. R. F. Ferrari and Tom Griffith
There's no "muh human race" in those, they translate it accurately as Hellenic Race.

>if you enjoy reading the Republic and admire Plato as a thinking you also think the cities described should be implemented

>>11154299
>higher good means sacrificing your individuality to the state
good luck getting either the wisest or the smartest people to go along with that conception of virture

>>11154312
Nowhere did I say that
I'm simply asking why do people pretend he didnt advocate these ideas

>So why is it acceptable to admire Plato's ideas but not Fascist ideas in the modern world when they are practically identical?
Plato didn't go around gassing the jews and polaks, or using chemical weapons on innocent people in northern africa.

>>11154313
>sacrificing your individuality to the state is bad
t. Ayn Rand

I don't think people admire Plato because of his "ideal city" in Republic. They admire him due to his inquiries into epistemology, ethics, metaphysics etc and his literary merit.

Also I'm pretty sure he disowned or retracted a bunch of stuff from the Republic if you try to read his later work like the Laws

>>11154330
Genocide wasnt a part of the fascist political doctrine retard

>>11154271
>Believe in evolution and natural selection
I don't even identify as "right" but I do find it laughable how science has become a completely subjective topic where the meaning of words has become malleable to suit their argument. Climate change is an undeniable fact yet ideas like race and gender are problematic and merely "concepts with no basis in fact"

>>11154333
Not even making a moral judgement. I'm saying that it's untenable. You'd have to use force, and even then it would fall apart eventually.

>>11154344
Just read the wikipedia page for "scientific racism" if you want a good chuckle
Its literally
>i-its real
>but its racist so we dont talk about it

>>11154299
The guardians' only need to be concerned about doing their job correctly in the well-ordered state, which is to defend it. That's not really hindered by having a family or having loving (close) family members they would feel an increased need to protect.

>>11154299
>>11154353
Also, fugging every female guardian is hardly controlling your animal impulses

>>11154299
>>11154353
I think you could still easily educate the Guardians to feel responsibility for their peers
You dont have to have communal breeding just bring them up as if they were brothers/sisters

>>11154344
The difference is that climate change is actually science whereas race and gender are scientifically fraudulent. This has been known to scientists for decades, it's only pseud rightists and other assorted idiots like the Bell curve guy who try to sell falsehoods.

>>11154405
>Race and gender are scientifically fraudulent
Yeah I made the post you're replying to and I'm black, but keep te me how race isn't real it's laughable

>>11154405
>race and gender are scientificall fraudulent
Dude are you fucking stupid? Actually dont answer that you are
Just because you refuse to read scientific papers doesnt mean the evidence doesnt exist.
First of all race or sub-species as its referred to by biologists is simply a taxonomical rank classification.
If you can prove that black kids come out of black wombs and asian kids come out of asian wombs, you have just proven the existence of race. Its really that simple.
If you want further genetic evidence, even though its not required to prove the existence of race, we still have that too. Human genealogy clusters along the racial lines in very clear and distinct patterns. To the point where we can define a French person from a German person. They are different "races".
Gender is absolutley real, we have a thing called chromosomes. If you cant understand the basic concept of having a cock and balls I really cannot help you any further.

>>11154336
It's just different thinkers entirely.

No one in the Republic is in The Laws.

>>11154473
You're mixing up <Race>(biology) with <Race>(essence). The first one is, as you say, a simple name useful for categorization. The second is a positive concept that is supposed to convey specific, important information about its subject.

As for gender, once again, you're mixing up the biological reality of sex with the claim "therefore our divisions of gender are of biological root" which is empirically false.

>>11154473
If you can't understand the basic concept of sex I cannot help you any further (:

>>11154518
Are you saying Laws isn't by Plato or that Plato's works were literary in the sense that the characters weren't vehicles for his views but actual characters with their own views? That Plato wrote different characters saying different things about the same topic because they were different characters, as opposed to his views being different across writings?

>>11154531
Drink bleach you mental invalid

>>11154541
It's both most likely (clearly). And you can see many consistencies between The Republic and The Laws, which were either due to Greek thought at the time, or just Platonic political philosophy, but any sort of major differences (like the huge difference between private property and family in The Republic and The Laws) can be mainly attributed to the different thinkers expressing their views.

I have to say, The Athenian Stranger is just, quite simply, much more mature than Socrates, and comes off as more practical. As it should be, The Laws is not a religious text, although at times it comes close. However, The Republic is most certainly a religious text, through and through, because of its allegorical nature to the human soul.

I think because of the difference of practicability, then, you will also find justification for the differences. One was intended to be a metaphor, one was intended to be a blueprint for a Cretan city.

>>11154093
You must not have read Book III closely
it's all a myth anon

>>11154093
socrates is actually being ironic

>listening to the greeks
>at all
baka
>gay as hell
>wore dresses
>even the most manly would leave and then fuck young boys and helots
>would have women shave heads to get used to it once back home
>left women at home, susceptible to a fabulous cuckening
forget about the greeks, and romans desu
honestly ignore all of literature

>>11154531
>>11154539
Jesus H Christ on a bike
I'm astounded people this stupid can operate a keyboard

>>11154586
Thats a separate part of The Republic. Also the point of the myth of metals isnt that its a myth, he's creates the "noble lie" because its a hypothetical civilisation, hes basically playing god and designing an ideal society from the ground up, race and all.

>>11154093
Yeah, the Greek society was actually a lot more authoritarian than people in the mainstream make it out to be. It was quite dictatorial. Greek democracy was nothing like modern day plutocratic "democracy". The will of the people is not carried out in today's society. The focus of modern day democracies is not the people whatsoever but instead the bidding of a small clique of elite individuals is the priority. Fascism/National Socialism is the only true from of Democracy there is.

>>11154586
myths are supposed to convey truths or ideas
thats the difference between a story and a myth

>>11154271
>You shouldn't say that, it might hurt someone's feelings!
>The government should give everyone money so people aren't rich or poor!
Imagine being this dumb

>>11154271
freedom is a meaningless buzzword
freedom is allocated by those with power its not a natural right
humans are tribal creatures
also caring about the group and wanting to take care of your tribe isnt a bad thing
selective breeding/eugenics doesnt imply you're shooting cripples or leaving people out in the cold to die

>>11154700
Fascism is totalitarian and anti-democratic m8

>>11154727
Freedom is Necessity

>>11154742
That doesnt mean anything
Freedom from what? Freedom to do what?
Why is the freedom to stuff yourself full of shit food and die an early death a freedom worth having?

>>11154093
Utopia is essentially a fascist state.

>>11154742
Also if freedom is necessity then should we all have the freedom to deny others freedom? Or is that not allowed? Where do you draw the line?

>>11154093
Did you forget about the community part which is one of the axiomatic points to the republics hierarchal structure?

>>11154756
>>11154748
Necessity is Freedom

>>11154762
No I don't know what you're referring to
I thought the whole thing was about a community
Explain

>>11154740
You do realize the Nazis were almost unanimously elected by the people democratically right?

>>11154770
so as long as I dont deny you necessities its freedom? fascism should be considered freedom then

>>11154776
They lost the election actually
Hitler got 30% of the vote
He became chancellor when Hindenburg abdicated
They then held a referendum to abolish democracy which passed with a something like a 90% vote for
Hitler hated democracy and has an entire chapter in Mein Kampf dedicated to explaining what a stupid system it is

>>11154771
The chapter on women and the family, they go over how both the family private property has to be abolished to reach a communitarian state to raise children.

>>11154794
Ah yes
He's talking about woman and children in the guardian class not the whole society
Socrates was asked "how do women and children fit into this guardian class"

>>11154405
>t. Neck-down evolutionist

>>11154543
>>11154646
not an argument

>>11154131
>Facism is nothing more than the understanding that people are shaped by their environment, and so if you want ideal people, you must create them in an ideal environment
Holy... wow... at last i... truly... see...

>>11154819
The argument was already made and you lost it.
Your opinion doesnt matter.
Burden of proof is on the accuser, so you need to show some empirical proof if you want to debunk well established science.

>>11154131
lol

>>11154819
No it's not an argument, it's an insult you plebeian

>>11154785
It is a stupid system though. Seriously, who thought allowing the dumb masses to "decide" what's best for them was a good idea?

>>11154093
wtf are you talking about?
Then entire book on the tyrant was to show how fascism wouldn't work and that the only remedy for the republic would be to have a philosopher king who was absolutely just.
It's not supposed to be immediately attainable but a state to tend towards

>>11155078
>republic
>king
pick one

>>11155080
The king isn't a monarch in Plato's Republic
He's basically elected through the education and worker roll process to weed out everyone who doesn't want to philosophize. He doesn't want to rule and hence wouldn't set rules to exploit or favor one portion of society. All he want to do is philosophize.
I'm only providing what Plato says in the Republic; not espousing any certain view.

>>11155097
Socrates also says that society should be ruled by either a single man who proves himself above all others or a group of great men as a council if no one individual stands out.
So you're kind of losing me here, I dont remember him making this distinction in the book.
If his Philosopher King is just a Philosopher and not a King why even make the distinction? I recall him saying that the leaders should be Philosopher Kings but I dont recall him saying anything like what you're saying.

>>11154937
"What struck me first and gave me the most food for thought was the obvious lack of any individual responsibility. No matter how disastrous the result, no one is responsible or accountable for the passage of a Parliamentary resolution. Is all responsibility nullified when Parliament retires for the evening after making a catastrophic decision? Or perhaps responsibility is dissolved with the election of a new Parliament or formation of a new coalition?
Can any majority which is unable to make a decision ever be held responsible? Isn’t the very idea of responsibility not firmly connected with people? Can anyone make the head of a government accountable if he acts based on the decision made by a crowd of people? Instead of developing constructive ideas and plans, is the business of a statesman actually the art of making a flock of sheep understand his plan? Is it his job to explain and coach them on common sense so that they will grant him their generous approval, or is his job instead to improve the nation? Should a statesman possess a gift of persuasion greater than the statesman’s ability to conceive great political measures and make them happen? Is a statesman incompetent if he fails to win over a majority of votes to support his policy in an assembly, which has been called together as the chance result of an electoral system that is not always honestly administered? Has this parliamentary crowd ever understood any idea before it was a success?

Part (1/2)

>>11155123
Isn’t every accomplishment of genius in this world the result of the one genius going against the inertia of the masses? What is the statesman supposed to do if flattery fails to win the crowd’s approval for his plans? Is he supposed to accept it? Is he supposed to abandon the tasks which he knows are vital to the people and go home or retire? Does he quit even if he knows failure resulted from the stupidity of his fellow citizens? Or is he to stay regardless? In a case like this, doesn’t a man of real character fall into hopeless conflict between his insight and his honorable intentions? Where is the dividing line between duty to the community and duty to one’s personal honor? Shouldn’t every true leader refuse to be degraded by acting as a political juggler? On the other hand, shouldn’t every juggler feel a call to go into politics since the ultimate responsibility falls on some undefined mob and not him? Must our parliamentary majority lead to the total destruction of the leader concept? Can anyone believe that this world comes from the brain of majorities and not from the heads of individuals? Or does anyone believe that we can someday do without this essential aspect of human civilization, the individual? Can we not say that today more than ever before, the creative brain of the individual is indispensable? By rejecting personal authority and substituting the mass of the crowd, the parliamentary principle of majority-rule sins against the basic aristocratic idea of Nature. However, we must admit that Nature’s idea of nobility is not necessarily represented in the present decadence of our upper ten-thousand government and community leaders."

Part (2/2)

>>11155115
He's a philosopher king once he's deemed by the rest of the philosophers as being the most wise
He talks an ranking process among the youth with the craftsmen being first, then the soldiers, then the philosophers in book III or IV. Can't remember exactly

>>11155155
Yeah I understood that, he didnt mention not ruling the country though
He just said the rulers should be wise and practice philosophy, since he believes philosophers are the only people who could understand the society he was envisioning

>>11155163
>he didnt mention not ruling the country
I never claimed that
>He doesn't want to rule and hence wouldn't set rules to exploit or favor one portion of society
So instead he philosophizes and creates the most just rules he can imagine. Not wanting to rule is a criteria for a just philosopher because he wouldn't desire to force another man to live a certain way. He would persuade him through argument.

>>11155184
>I never claimed that
I misunderstood then my bad
I think we're kind of arguing semantics here, overall what he's talking about is pretty fascistic, even though i hate to label bronze age Plato by a modern political label (which i think is pretty unfair, i really dislike how many people have used and abused Nietzsche for their own interests for example), i have to admit there are a lot of parallels. The things he seems to take for granted are looked down on today as evil or backward and I thought that was interesting, that's why I made the thread.

>>11155196
You have to understand that for the philosopher king to become the philosopher king he must be impeccably just which would make him anything but fascist

>>11155225
What do you define as a fascist?

>>11154102
this comment is hella redpilled...

>>11154281
Look up "anachronism," frog poster.

>>11154299

>>11154827
Given the vast majority of scientists reject racism, you've got quite the job ahead of you.

>>11155239
Race still exists friend. He clearly makes the distinction between the Hellenic Race and Northern Barbarians (referring to the German Race). "Anachronism" doesn't apply here.

>>11155246
>the vast majority of scientists reject racism
I..
I cant..
Where the fuck are you getting this from?
Show some proof you fucking spoon

>>11155230
I guess I can see how you see it as fascist
Fascism to me is the use of force to keep the status quo of an authoritarian regime

>>11154093
The athenians despised fascism so much they hated socrates just for not leaving the city in protest during the Spartan occupation.

Also who the fuck advocates Platonism?

>>11155259
To me fascism is corporatism/meritocracy, wanting your brothers and sisters to be the best they can be to best serve the collective.
I believe man on his own left to his own devices can be misled by his lower self, but man united is uplifted and supported by his brothers to be the best he can be. Sometimes tough love is required to put people on the right path. Fascism is totalitarian because the fascist state is all encompassing, it is the manifestation of the will of the people. Outside of the fascist state nothing else matters. If fascism harms the nation it represents then it stops being fascist and becomes a tyranny.
Thats how Giovanni Gentile described it and thats what I believe too.
I dont think the way it was applied in the 20's-40's was done correctly. Especially in Germany's case for obvious reasons.

What if Plato was 'x' even though 'x' didn't exist, and he was the one who actually influenced it.... woah

>>11154131
>people this dumb exist and think they're really, really smart

>>11155273
To me... fascism is literally any definition in a book, not something you use to slander political Others.

Any historian or political scientist will tell you it's about a war economy lol

>>11155286
They're wrong then
War economy has nothing to do with it
Germany was gearing up for war with Russia for "Lebensraum" but having a militaristic society doesnt mean its a war economy
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace." - George Washington

>>11155297
Yes, a war economy is something that occurs after the war. Fascist Germany wasn't even fascist until WWII - before it functioned quite reasonably, as most of the global community thought they were just preserving their interests. This means they weren't any different to any other "liberal" nation state.

>>11155273
>corporatism/meritocracy, wanting your brothers and sisters to be the best they can be to best serve the collective
That's just a society though, doesn't necessarily need to be fascist.
America is a meritocracy but not fascist because the police don't go around forcing people to think a certain way, only that they act in accordance to the law. That's why separation of powers is essential for a free state.

>>11155303
Not true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FUZFy9Nd9s
A long watch but its worth it, peace time germany was pretty revolutionary

>>11155305
America is a meritocracy of money
Its not a true meritocracy
The people who make the most money are usually cutthroats and swindlers, they have no merit but they have all the power
Democracy also has politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator like a salesman
When I say corporatism/meritocracy I mean something very different from America
Something like Plato's myth of metals

>>11154336
In Laws, he basically went to a more traditional reactionary view. Property is now private and public(as opposed to just public) and the woman aren't shared and also there are the police(nights watch) instead of the Guardians.

Nobody is forcing you to agree with Plato. In fact there is this thing called the entire history of western philosophy that is actually about responding to Plato and responding to those responses. Turns out there are some pretty good political philosophies that differ from The Republic, except they could only have been made as a counterpoint.

>>11154131
Nah

>>11155693
he never advocated that in the republic
there was always public and private property
he said the guardian class would have no private property, not the other classes

>>11154275
>love
>females

>>11155840
how dare you post based steve mgtowlet

>>11154740
*blocks your path*

>>11155847
Fraternal and paternal love are the only forms of love. Erotic "love" is inherently corrupt and maternal love is selfish.

>>11155855
All great men in history felt love. What a meme.
Achilles had his Briseis and Caesar had his Cleopatra.

>>11155891
meant for
>>11155865

>>11154093
wtf I love Plato now

>>11154093

Nice more-shallow-than-surface level reading there Popper. There are at the very least two major aporias in the just state as presented by Socrates, probably more. It takes just the slightest bit of attention on the part of the reader to identify them. The Republic is Plato's shitpost. He meant for you to identify the aporias and counterargue. Why do you think Socrates starts half his sentences with variations on the question "Now tell me if there really is something to what I am saying"? How do you reconcile the seemingly positive doctrine of justice presented in the Republic with Plato's own critique of positively written philosophical doctrines in the second and seventh letter as well as Phaedrus? How do you reconcile the fact that mimesis is critiqued at the end of the work, while the work is itself explicitly mimetic?

I'll tell you how - It's a shitpost, through and through. The greatest aporia in the republic is as follows: justice is defined by Socrates in book IV in this way:

>Listen then,” said I, “and learn if there is anything in what I say. For what we laid down in the beginning as a universal requirement when we were founding our city, this I think, or some form of this, is justice. And what we did lay down, and often said, you recall, was that each one man must perform one social service in the state for which his nature is best adapted.” “Yes, we said that.” “And again that to do one's own business and not to be a busybody is justice, (433a)

What is the end result of this justice? The philosopher-kings have not one social service, but many. They tend not to their own business (thinking of the ideas) but to everyone else's, in everything from education to war to marriage. They're busybodies - consider the ironic force of this statement when read alongside the apology. It's the form of the most classical socratic aporias - the definition of justice entails it's own contradiction.

Now, the intellectually lazy way to read this is to think that Plato is a retard and is contradicting himself. The intellectually honest way to read this is to realize that Plato would never present a sophistic doctrine of justice in the manner of the Republic (this is, again, corroborated by his thoughts on written philosophy in the second and seventh letters), and, if he seems to do so, it's because this widely accepted master of irony, is, in fact, being ironic. What is the purpose of this irony? To engage the reader, to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Republic is Plato's litmus test. In the seventh letter he criticizes the sophists who write philosophical manifests and says that the writers and readers of manifests (i.e. written philosophical texts with positive doctrines) are intellectually lazy and will never become true philosophers. Reading the Republic at face value, like a manifest, is actually what an intellectually lazy sophist would do. (cont.)

>>11155916

(cont.) Reading it dialectically, which is what Plato thinks is the only value writing can have (again, confer with the seventh letter and Phaedrus) is what Plato intended you to do. Plato wrote dialogues - not manifestos. Consider the significance of this.

Socrates is not a teacher, he is a partner in the dialogue. He contradicts himself purposefully in the Republic. His interlocutors are made extraordinarily idiotic (honestly, the interlocutors of the Republic are impossible to picture as anything but mouthbreathers - Polemarchos in the very beginning blindly accepts Socrates' completely and explicitly contradictory style of argument) in order to make it crystal clear that the reader is supposed to take their place. The tragedy of Plato is that people read him as if he is writing a Cartesian manifesto and is a Hegelian system-builder. It is anachronistic as fuck and annihilates any possibility of understanding what Plato actually has to offer. The clearest example of this is in Platonism - roughly speaking the idea of a two-world metaphysics and the orthodox "theory" of the ideas - nowhere is this found in Plato - it is found solely in his commentators.

>>11155891
Achilles viewed Briseis as property more than anything else. If he loved someone, it was Patrokolos.

>>11154093

>dictatorship
Why shouldn't the wise man, who knows what is best, guid the man who doesn't know what is best? Isn't that what your parents did to you? Isn't this why you vote for people - because you assume they are better than other and could

>aristocracy
Why is it wrong that the best man rules over the worse one? Isn't this, again, what you wish for, when you go to vote - that the best man or woman wins over the worst? Don't you want to be govern be the best people (oi aristoi)?

>heirarchy
Why would it be wrong, again, for the best to have more in terms of power? Isn't this what meritocracy should be about? Also, does not introducing a notion of value in society automatically establish a hierarchy of who is best and worst at obtaining/producing/distributing such value?

>natural laws (darwinism)
Again, why is it wrong that the best man has more than others?

>eugenics (selective breeding)
Why is this wrong? Don't you desire for the best offspring possible? Don't you yourself think "I would like to have a child from this person rather than that", or "this person would be a good father/mother and this other would not"? And if there was a truly wise man, who knew infallibly who is the best partner for you, why wouldn't you listen to him?

>biological racism
Where is race mentioned anywhere in the Republic?

>nationalism
Is a Greek polis the same of a modern state? Also, is it wrong wanting to defend your city and make it best? The citizens of the Republic would engage in war only to defend themselves or to help allies: what exactly is nationalistic in this?

>socialism
What is wrong with the idea that the state should care for its citizens and provide services and protection for them? Isn't this why human societies are established in the first place - not to be alone and to receive help from others, because none of us is self-sufficient?

>corporatism
Again, why would this be a bad way to organize society?


If it was possible, as Plato claims, to become wise, why shouldn't you have an authoritarian government of wise men? Many memorable kings and emperors with philosophical leanings, despite having absolute or near-absolute power improved the conditions of the people under them.
If (and only if) you found a wise, enlightened man, why wouldn't you let him guide you?

>>11155916
>>11155919
I think you might have read a bit far into my post if you assumed so much.
I dont buy the entire book is one giant shitpost not meant to be taken seriously.
Parts of it are supposed to provoke thought I understood that. His interlocutors ARE braindead retards who fall for the very same tricks they accused Socrates of using in the beginning, thats obvious. Socrates was a contrarian faggot who liked to play devils advocate, I understand that too. But plenty of the Just Society is completely coherent and the arguments are valid.
If it was a giant shitpost not meant to be taken seriously he wouldnt have prefaced his Just Society with "this is just a hypothetical bro idk if it'd work irl lol"
And he especially wouldnt have advocated similar systems in his later works if it was all irony.
Plato was a Spartaboo thats pretty well known.

>>11155976
For sure he loved Patroclus, although I believe he loved them both.
Either way, love isnt a bad or corrupt emotion. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning though

>>11155891
Napoleon had Joséphine. Catherine had, er, chairs. (Jk, I know how many times this has been debunked)

>>11155992
My reasoning for what? I didn’t say love is bad.

>>11154344
Whenever a leftist tells me that gender or race are social constructs, I just reply: „So is equality and the rule of law.“ They then usually shut the fuck up or call me a racist.

>>11156034
I thought you were
>>11155865

my bad

>>11154655
Oh, wow, it's almost like he's expressing his capacity to do so for a reason...you niggas aren't aware of the most basic major critical interpretations and it never ceases to amaze me.

>>11155123
>>11155130
He's not wrong, but is all of Mein Kampf written as non-stop rhetorical questions?

>>11155978

>But plenty of the Just Society is completely coherent and the arguments are valid.

Such as?

The aporia I already pointed out is catastrophic for the entire project. Even worse, consider the role of eros. Eros is admonished throughout the Republic - from Cephalos being happy that he is old and no longer suffers from lust, to the identification of eros as the cause of tyranny, to the extreme restrictions that will be placed on eros in the Republic, vis-a-vis the control of marriage and eugenics program.

Reading the Symposion, we learn that eros is the precondition for philosophy. Reading the Republic, we learn that philosophy is the precondition for justice. But this justice culls eros, thereby culling philosophy, thereby undermining justice itself.

>If it was a giant shitpost not meant to be taken seriously he wouldnt have prefaced his Just Society with "this is just a hypothetical bro idk if it'd work irl lol"

Why? As I take it that is EXACTLY what he would have done.

>>11155916
For that statement to be contradictory you're assuming that being a philosopher king isnt a social service that an individual can be best suited for.

>>11156382
Maybe Plato is an all seeing omnipotent god of wisdom who knew all back in 400 bc and everyone who came after him was a bumbling fool, or maybe he's just a man who happens to contradict himself from time to time. Like practically every other philosopher in the history of mankind. Including his peers Socrates and Aristotle.
I find it too hard to believe this entire work is just one brilliantly written waste of time, that the entire point is intellectual masturbation and not to actually lay down any definitions or convey any ideas.
Regardless, even if it was just a purely thought provoking work, I still take away from it what I interpreted. I might consider re-reading it with your interpretation in mind. But for now, the just society is pretty much a perfect society. Impractical and it wouldnt last, but he solved the issues of electing incorruptible leaders, how heirarchy and meritocracy would manifest, how to make people happy, ect. I think he's on to something.
You have a particular interpretation of The Republic and you aren't the first.
However that doesnt give you the right to talk down to me as if I missed the point. The "irony" of Plato isn't as widely accepted as you're pretending it is. Plato was not like Socrates. He did lean more towards authoritarianism than his teacher. At the end of the day only Plato knows what Plato really thinks.

>>11156418

I understand your critique, but I think it falls short. Even granting that the role of a philosopher king is somehow acceptable as a singular social service (notice: "one man must perform one social service" - one man one job) despite being marked by an extremely strong plurality of roles (educator, overseer, strategist, general, judge, land measurer etc. etc. etc.), - which I do not think we should - how are they not busybodies? Their job is to control all minutiae of everyone's lives. If that is not being a busybody, being a busybody is a meaningless and empty term. Surely, Plato didn't think so.

There are further problems with your idea. For one, Plato writes that the role of the philosopher is minding his own business and pondering the ideas. This is the one job of the philosopher. It is in direct contradiction to the notion of philosopher-kings.

>>11156512

Honestly, I apologize for the acerbic tone. It wasn't warranted. I get caught up in the 4chan mindset.

To be clear, I do not believe that Plato is a brilliantly written waste of time - I've just been trying very hard to make sense of his writings in light of his own critique of written philosophy in the letters and Phaedrus. A critique that seems to especially apply to the Republic.

>>11156520
In my eyes its just a difference of degree. The role of a King is to do many things true but thats still a single social service in my opinion. Whether you have a dictator or a council of philosopher kings I think that profession qualifies as a single social service.
What I think he meant by busybodies was people who try to apply themselves at a profession to which they aren't suited. I believe he actually says that to Glaucon at one point about a Carpenter who also works as a Doctor (or something similar).
We established that the leaders of the society would have to have all of the qualities of a just individual, all the qualities that would make them suitable to their role as a governing member of society.
So I dont find it contradictory. But I can understand how it could be seen that way.

>>11156551
All good man I'm enjoying the discussion. You're definitley a well read guy.
I havent read as much Plato as you have by the sound of it so for all I know you're probably right and I have missed the point.

>>11154333
>too much freedom is bad, so you should shackle yourself to the whims of the state without regard to ensure your freedom never becomes a burden
How odd it is to see that false dichotomies are false and advocating for an extreme is indicative of being a fucking idiot.

>>11154748
>Why is the freedom to stuff yourself full of shit food and die an early death a freedom worth having?
Why isn't it worth having? What intrinsic value in life exists that is being fundamentally subsumed by allowing people the freedom to neglect it?

Fuck off.

>tfw Dionysius was too dumb to become a philosopher king

>>11155865
Romantic love is a meme, it just doesn't sustain itself for long, it is a false idea of idealism plus animal instinct

>>11154102
Authoritarian lefties are better than libertarian lefties. Fact.

>>11154102
>>11154093
I want brainlets to leave, take your superficial anlyses to /pol/

>>11158209
Wrong. States are for cucks.

>>11158257
analysis* you illiterate pseud

>>11158257
This. /pol/ is for people with actual opinions and independent thoughts. Leave /lit/ to us whiny pseuds that contribute nothing to discussion unless "go back to /pol/" be considered an argument.

>>11158295
I pay 30 wisdom points for that argument. After all, isn't this the marketplace of ideas?

>>11158295
Name one functional society in history that didnt have a state or some form of government
Libertarians are probably the stupidest people on earth
Even lefty liberals have a more coherent ideology

>>11154093
>interpreting archaic texts through postmodernist terms
>what is hermeneutics

who am I kidding, you didn't even read the Republic, did you?

>Advocates Fascism
>Was the only Greek philosopher who considered men and women to essentially be the same

If anything Plato is the source of a multitude of modernist ideologies.

>>11159159
Nazi Germany had the highest female employment in Europe, more than Britain and the USA
They also had around half a million women serving in the Wehrmacht
Women were given incentives to be mothers and to take on traditional roles but weren't stopped from entering the public sector or the work force, a large amount of women were members of the NSDAP too.
Julius Evola criticised Germany for treating women as equals and letting them work and train alongside the men.
The more you know.

Anyway I'm pretty certain Plato did say that Women shouldnt fight wars or govern, that those roles were for the men

>>11159215
Like I said, if you're really reaching, you can find instances of many modernist ideologies in Plato.

That's one of the problems of engaging in fundamental political philosophy, the amount of people interpreting exactly what they want in your work is exactly proportional to how many people actually read your work.

>>11159234
Yeah I think its unfair to label a guy from the bronze age with modern labels
It just seems like he shits on every government ever except for a totalitarian nationalist state

>>11159280
The book is actually not even about politics itself. The book actually starts by him asking what justice is, and he reaches a system where there are basically 4 castes of people just doing their jobs and accepting their roles.

It's not that much different than many societies that have existed throughout history.

>>11159280
>Platon
>bronze age

>>11159652
its hyperbole m89

>>11159080
History is made by States btw
what if Rome was an ancap city? probably would cease to exist in less than a year

>>11159702
you cannot have an ancap society full stop
lolbertarians think the free market is just small businesses harmlessly trading and mutually competing with one another
when really a handful of multi billion dollar monopolies just liquidate smaller businesses and end up warring with each other over more profit
an "ancap" society wouldnt stay anarchist for a day, all it takes is for an individual to form a coalition with other individuals and boom you have a state
the individual will never win vs the collective

>>11159702
also the NAP sounds great on paper until you realise there is nothing stopping people with more power to abuse it, and since theres no state nobody can enforce the NAP on these more powerful entities
the whole thing is one giant meme
people like Stefan Molyneux are the dumb persons smart person, fucking astounds me he has a following

>>11154093
most of those things were practiced by every society ever until recently (well, not really, just in different forms as it's more complex now)

You've missed the point of Plato's Republic entirely. Building the just city was an exercise to prove the point that the truly "just" city could never actually exist, and even if it did come to be it would eventually fall apart and go through various constitutional changes until it became a dictatorship. The true city, and arguably the only real just city, is the one mentioned early on in the dialogue, the "healthy" city. Once you start tacking on desires beyond physical necessity, as Glaucon does, you get a city where pure justice can never truly exist.

>>11159765
Most societies before the French Revolution, yeah.
I wanna go back to that.

>>11155977
If there was some way for anyone to know that someone was wise, at least some of what you say might be fine, but it is not possible for some or all people to know whether a person is wise and worth following. I personally have no idea how to identify a wise man. It is intrinsically unsettling to be guided ignorantly by outer forces that you do not understand and may not even exist.

>>11159080
it just seems ideal to not be ruled by anyone, regardless of its worldly manifestations

>>11154093
>>natural laws (darwinism)
why secular humanists keep plastering the work of their scholars on ancient texts?

>>11156370
No but it is written similar to that, Mein Kampf was actually dictated by Hitler not written by him, so the whole book is one gigantic speech. Thats why the grammar is less than great.

>>11161479
To you maybe.
90% of people desire to be led, whether they realize it or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOYLCy5PVgM

Fuck off /pol/.

>>11161472

The question of the Republic, as well as of Plato's political project in general, is not whether the wise man exists - but whether it would be right for him to rule and how much power he should have.
And I have to say, he is undeniably right that, if it was possible to have a king-philosopher with near-perfect knowledge of what is good, he should rule over other people with absolute power.

I love Platonic philosophy and Plato in general, and I have been thinking about this for a long time. The only possible escape I see from the claim that, if there was a wise man, he should rule with absolute power is to state that power is intrinsically evil.
The argument for the wise man is this: if someone knew what your good is, and you did not, then he would have a right to dominate you and guide you toward the good.
The argument against him would be something of sort: it is inherently always bad for someone to be guided - even toward their own goodness - by someone else, because it deprives the person of the possibility of learning by themselves what the good is, i.e. instead of putting them in contact with the good, external power from any ruler always leads you away from it - even when it benefits you.

>>11161903
Plato is absolutely bothered by whether or not the wise man exists, whether we can attain perfect knowledge of the good, what the good even is, etc.

What is his concept of justice anyway? to live in harmony in a perfect city?

>>11154093
>aristocracy
not a part of fascism
>natural laws (darwinism)
natural law is part of any political system ever
>eugenics (selective breeding)
not an integral part of fascism
>biological racism
not an integral part of fascism
>socialism
lol

>>11154093
You haven't read The Republic properly.

>Fuck off /pol/.

>>11163500
Say that to Hegel.

>>11163550
Why are you greentexting?

>"The Republic" is essentially advocating Fascism.

>>11154214
why?

>>11154350
Lmao what? did you even read it?