/lit/ - Literature

>>23239004
Troll thread
Have a (You)

Plato was based and Popper was a cringe midwit.

more like Pooper

>>23239017
Not a troll thread. The book is full of examples of Plato
> defending slavery
> attacking humanitarian treatment of slaves
> defending propaganda
> defending class division
> prioritizing the state before the individual (individual exists to serve the state vs other way around)
> dishonestly conflating individualism and egoism
> idolizing old, primitive societies (as they're supposedly closer to the ideal form of the State, which in turn is an ideal form of the individual)
> using other dishonest rhetorical tactics to propagandize the reader
> calling everything around him subversive and degenerate (common fascist talking point)

>>23239018
>>23239025
Anything else?

>>23239032

>In this highest state, he tells us, ‘there is common property of wives, of children, and of all chattels. And everything possible has been done to eradicate from our life everywhere and in every way all that is private and individual. So far as it can be done, even those things which nature herself has made private and individual have somehow become the common property of all. Our very eyes and ears and hands seem to see, to hear, and to act, as if they belonged not to individuals but to the community. All men are moulded to be unanimous in the utmost degree in bestowing praise and blame, and they even rejoice and grieve about the same things, and at the same time. And all the laws are perfected for unifying the city to the utmost.
Insane.

>>23239032
All based

>>23239045
There’s nothing wrong with this, in fact it was a moderate position for the time. you’re just an Americuck mindbroken by liberalism.

>‘The greatest principle of all’, he writes, ‘is that nobody, whether male or female, should ever be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace—to his leader he shall direct his eye, and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matters he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals34 … only if he has been told to do so … In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it. In this way the life of all will be spent in total community.
If you agree with him you are literal cattle NPC.
Mmm yes I hate having personal autonomy.

>>23239050
>>23239047
Why don't you move to north korea?

>>23239061
Because it’s an ethnostate and I’m not Korean.

>>23239053
>Oh my Fauci, Plato said there would be no drag queen story hour? Cancel his ass rn

Supposing you are not a troll. Wouldn't it be better to read Plato himself to take your own conclusions and see if Popper's criticism is good or not?

>>23239004
People are complete retards and don't understand that Plato is writing in the form of discussion between characters. It's not supposed to be the best final word on anything.

>>23239075
> this huge book proposing a distinct worldview and passionately arguing for it is just satire

>>23239070
I might get around to it some time later. Do you think Popper is wrong or dishonest in his presentation of Plato? If so, care to give a specific example?

All Greek philosophy is metaphysical, pseudo-religious garbage. The only good philosopher is Marx because he was purely materialist.

>>23239032
Most of this is misreading 20th century political concepts into an ancient book so Popper can deliberately portray Plato as a fascist and set him up as a fall guy for all of liberal modernity's bastard children (fascism, stalinism).

The Greeks didn't have a concept of the individual or the state. It was Hobbes and Locke who intented the atomized individual as a concept with their pop sci tier attempt at applying Newton's physics to political philosophy. The Greeks didn't distinguish between society and the state as seperate spheres of existence, but saw governmental institutions as social ones always wrapped into the fabric of social life (politeia). That's the whole point of the Republic. How do we fashion an ideal community/polis? Its a worth of ethics and politics not a /pol/ tier manifesto.

Also, Plato was reacting to the tyrannical dictatorship of guys like Solon and how people were manipulated by angry sophists into putting Socrates to death. His idea of justice is anti-tyrannical. And what ancient society didn't practice slavery? If Marx is to be believed, proletarian wage labor is little better than slavery. Nobody's perfect but no one in antiquity could imagine a world without slavery as much as we can imagine a world without machines. They were more concerned with how to regulate it or what rights, if any, slaves ought to have.

Popper was a midwit and so are most liberals. You want a liberal open society of maximum individual freedom? >>>/b/ yeah see how well that turned out.

>>23239082
Plato was mostly concerned with the ordering of the soul, rather than in making a political treatise on the Republic. The city was just an analogy on how your soul should be ordered. With your rational part being in charge, rather than being led by your "passions" or by the desires of the flesh.

If anything, his political treatise was "The Laws".

>>23239004
I liked the parts where Popper defined property as the base for all human rights. But his argument for abolishing the age of consent is questionable and he would be rightfully canceled for it today.

>>23239107
>You want a liberal open society of maximum individual freedom?
You might as well look at how decadent things are in our society itself, since we have adopted ultra liberalism.

>>23239107
>His idea of justice is anti-tyrannical
>>23239053

>>23239079
No, it just means it's an exploration. People treat it like a sacred text to worship or reject when its purpose is clearly to engender lengthy discussion.

>>23239107
>thinks b fags or in general the board picture how society is to any sort of measure

My guy, this entire fucking site is a niche and b is a niche inside of a niche.

>>23239116
Ultra-liberalism is why we have the advanced technology we do today. America's open patent system encouraged so many of the great inventors. You might call it greed, but it's been proven that when you don't materially incentivise things, creativity and innovation ends. Who wants to create something if you don't get to own it? That's why communism failed.

>>23239142
America was a famously pious Christian nation when it rose as the world's superpower.
It was not the land where transvestites are held as the role models of society and where people feel they should rebel for the sake of rebelling. That any kind of restraint is tyranny.

>When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cupbearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oligarchs…
...
>she would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a State, can liberty have any limit?”
...
>“…and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.”

This is the world we have right now. And we are seeing how bad it works.

>>23239053
The Greeks didn't believe in liberal personal autonomy. Nobody did. Plato assumes people are always part of a social network and their actions have consequences within their social setting. Its pretty clear that people need leaders and if you leave them up to their own devices the result would be disaster. Every BBS needs a sysop. What's so controversial about this?

>>23239135
Its not been niche since 2008. Some boards still are but the site really isn't. Look at how fast /b/ degenerated into endless porn dump threads and low quality bait. Point is if you treat individuals as atoms and give them maximum freedom with minimal consequences and no leadership they will stagnate and everything will turn to shit.

>>23239107
>>23239094
Read Popper.

>>23239165
>The Greeks didn't believe in liberal personal autonomy. Nobody did
Lycophron did.

>>23239107
>The Greeks didn't have a concept of the individual or the state.
In the sense that they saw the individual and society intertwined and not as two separate, hostile spheres, yes, but they definitely did have a concept of the individual. Isn't this shown all the way back with Achilles?
>Also, Plato was reacting to the tyrannical dictatorship of guys like Solon
This is nonsense. He wasn't "reacting" to Solon, who was alive 100+ years before him and wasn't a "tyrannical dictator". Tyrannical dictatorship followed Solon. He was more reacting to the thirty but even that regime wasn't a dictatorship.

>>23239142
>America's open patent system encouraged so many of the great inventors
Innovation has slowed down as America's become more libtarded, and the government was involved in a ton of that innovation (i.e the internet)

>>23239165
>The Greeks didn't believe in liberal personal autonomy. Nobody did
Then why does Plato spend so many words on criticizing the concept? Clearly a lot of his contemporaries were much more inclined to liberal personal autonomy than he was.

>>23239177
I'm not trying to be a redditfag but source? I want to read whatever he said.

Why are pseuds so attracted to making enormous claims about the mindsets of cultures?
>uhh the Greeks didn't even know what the individual was
It's on the level of reddit-tier "the Greeks didn't know the color blue" shit.

>>23239192
This is a quote from Popper's book
>Aristotle tells us that Lycophron considered the law of the state as a ‘covenant by which men assure one another of justice’ (and that it has not the power to make citizens good or just). He tells us furthermore45 that Lycophron looked upon the state as an instrument for the protection of its citizens against acts of injustice (and for permitting them peaceful intercourse, especially exchange), demanding that the state should be a ‘co-operative association for the prevention of crime’. It is interesting that there is no indication in Aristotle’s account that Lycophron expressed his theory in a historicist form, i.e. as a theory concerning the historical origin of the state in a social contract. On the contrary, it emerges clearly from Aristotle’s context that Lycophron’s theory was solely concerned with the end of the state; for Aristotle argues that Lycophron has not seen that the essential end of the state is to make its citizens virtuous. This indicates that Lycophron interpreted this end rationally, from a technological point of view, adopting the demands of equalitarianism, individualism, and protectionism

>>23239181
>>23239204
I was thinking more of liberal posessive individualism i.e. each individual is simply an island unto themsleves with a distinct identity independent of any social bonds and is capable of total self-determination through the exercise of reason. I always read Plato's arguments as against egotism and selfish hedonism. Clearly, the Greeks did have an idea of an individual as a distinct member of a species, but the modern Western idea that individuals are these authentic self-determining beings that can exist by themselves and the individual as the basis of political life.

>>23239228
>I always read Plato's arguments as against egotism and selfish hedonism
His arguments are against individualism and for collectivism. He dishonestly frames individualism as egoism, when in fact the two are orthogonal.

>>23239240
I don't think you have read Plato.

>>23239269
I have read Popper who is much better.

smoothbrain Popper inspired me to double down on my essentialism, holism, and historicism.

>>23239309
Why do you call Popper a smoothbrain? And how did he inspire you to double down on those things?

>>23239334
>>23239299

Compared to Plato, Popper is a smoothbrain.

>>23239351
Proof?

>>23239111
he never made that argument. shut the fuck up.

>>23239187
If that's true, then why is everything innovative still coming from America while the rest of the world still mindlessly copies everything from America?

>>23239004
>Popper

Who is this Pooper guy and what does he have to do with Plato?

>>23239062
NTA but you’re spiritually Korean

>>23239094
No

>>23239135
>my guy
Die

>>23239107
holy based

>>23239107
>You want a liberal open society of maximum individual freedom? >>>/b/ yeah see how well that turned out.
You make a good point

>>23239523
What does that mean?

Tolerance paradox is such a retarded concept. Hard to take the guy seriously

>>23239886
How is it retarded? It makes perfect sense.

>>23239886
I'm far from a Popper fan, but there is the tolerance paradox and there is the "misunderstanding" of the tolerance paradox.
The tolerance paradox is about defending yourself of people who won't debate but who will use force against you.
The "misunderstanding" of the tolerance paradox is when you refuse to debate the other side, label the other side "intolerant" and use force against them.

>>23239053
I'm beginning to agree with this sentiment.

t. dying of freedom

>>23239907
Not that anon but the "paradox of tolerance" is an obvious motte and bailey argument for liberals.

Bump

>>23239907
The tolerance paradox is more robust than that. Think about it. If the other side is trying to peacefully end the open society through the means of the open society. The open society is not supposed to have a finale where it ends. In that sense, it's not really a misunderstanding (if applied with care and tact) but a full understanding of the stakes.

>>23239032
half of this is so wrong you couldn't have pulled it from Republic, so I conclude you must be trolling

>>23240290
Which point is wrong? I have quotes to back them up.

>>23239163
That’s all well and good but how do you foster creativity otherwise?

>>23239868
You have the soul of one despite your outward appearance

>>23241956
Post them, then.
>idolizing old, primitive societies (as they're supposedly closer to the ideal form of the State, which in turn is an ideal form of the individual)
Is probably the dumbest argument. If Plato actually believed this, Republic would have ended halfway through Book II, when Socrates spoke about the cute little rural commune.

>>23241963
Souls don't exist.

>>23239004
Idk who Karl is but it speaks volumes who was more influencial to our civilization and who was not when the public discourse does not involve the pseudo intellectual..

>>23241967
>. It is important to note that Plato explicitly identified this best and oldest among the existing states with the Dorian constitution of Sparta and Crete, and that these two tribal aristocracies did in fact represent the oldest existing forms of political life within Greece. Most of Plato’s excellent description of their institutions is given in certain parts of his description of the best or perfect state, to which timocracy is so similar.
> In spite of his repeated assertions, in the Republic, Timaeus, and Critias, that he is describing the distant past, and in spite of the parallel passages in the Laws whose historical intention is manifest, it is often assumed that it was his intention to give a veiled description of the future.
> But I think that Plato meant what he said, and that many characteristics of his best state, especially as described in Books Two to Four of the Republic, are intended (like his accounts of primitive society in the Statesman and the Laws) to be historical27, or perhaps prehistorical.
According to Plato, change is bad, and the most ideal society is the oldest one, that is least degenerated one.

>>23241984
So did Plato prefer hippy dippy little communes, or did he prefer autocratic societies like Sparta? Make up your mind you sophistical retard.

>>23239004
>Karl Popper was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902 to upper-middle-class parents. All of Popper's grandparents were assimilated Jews

>>23241988
He preferred timocratic totalitarian societies like Sparta because according to his own theory of change, they were older and more closer to the ideal form of the State, and therefore are less degenerate and better.
I never suggested he preferred hippy dippy little communes.

>>23241992
Your point being?

>>23239050
>in fact it was a moderate position for the time

Plato's Socraties makes it clear that this idea would obviously be received as complete insanity by most people and is to be taken as an ideal and not something that people are likely to want to implement.

>>23242000
>I never suggested he preferred hippy dippy little communes.
Then explain Book II of Republic. There, Socrates doesn't suggest the oppressive, regimented Kallipolis at first. He suggests a tiny, quaint commune. The only reason the rest of the book happens is because his interlocutors, Glaucon and Adeimantus, insist that it sucks. Then they have to spend like 8 books trying to make the bloated mess work until Socrates admits that it can't work. Explain that nigger.

>>23242002
>Your point being?

>>23242000
You said primitive societies you spastic.
>wait, no, not that primitive
Yeah, okay. Sophist.

>>23242037
I apologize for the confusion. I meant old, primitive according to Plato, not according to the current state of pre-historic research.

>>23242036
> the platonist is a jew-hating chud
Many such cases!

>>23242054
Sparta would have been contemporary to Plato, not primitive.

>>23239004
'humanitarianism is anti-evolution [speciation]

>>23242078
> Sparta would have been contemporary to Plato, not primitive.
The two are not contradictory. Primitive is a compliment in Plato's worldview. It simply means close to the original, uncorrupted form, that is little developed. Nondegenerated.
Sparta was one of the oldest of the existing states in Plato's time and changed the least, unlike his native city of Athens whose democratic and humanitarian tendencies he criticized so fervently.

>>23239067
Egg Gang

>>23242092
> humanitarianism is anti-evolution [speciation]
Evolution is a fact that will happen whether we want it to or not.
It makes no sense to say that a part of a natural world is anti-evolution. Unless you want to clarify what specifically you mean?

>>23239107
>tyrannical dictatorship of guys like Solon
In the five stages of governance Plato enumerates, Solon's rule is aligned with that of timocracies, rather than the final one (tyranny) as exemplified by the Thirty Tyrants.

>>23242101
He didn't like it because it was primitive though. And again, you're ignoring Book II. The Kallipolis is objectively less primitive than the first society that Socrates proposed. So, obviously, something being primitive is not the quality Plato was looking for.

Fuck, did you even read Plato? Or are you regurgitating Popper's take on him? For the record, Popper's opinions on Plato are laughably unsophisticated. Eric Voegelin on Popper:
>I feel completely justified in saying without reservation that this book is impudent, dilettantish crap. Every single sentence is a scandal, but it is still possible to lift out a few main annoyances.
>Perhaps I am oversensitive about such things, but I do not believe that respectable philosophers such as Bergson develop their concepts for the sole purpose that the coffeehouse scum might have something to botch.
>Popper is philosophically so uncultured, so fully a primitive ideological brawler that he is not able even approximately to reproduce correctly the contents of one page of Plato. Reading is of no use to him; he is too lacking in knowledge to understand what the authors say. Briefly and in sum: Popper’s book is a scandal without extenuating circumstances; in its intellectual attitude it is the typical product of a failed intellectual; spiritually one would have to use expressions like rascally, impertinent, loutish; in terms of technical competence, as a piece in the history of thought, it is dilettantish, and, as a result, is worthless.

>>23242111
He didn't read Plato, he's a retard who read a retard who skimmed Plato and got filtered by him. You're reading the thoughts of a double retard nigger. Don't bother with even the simplest of nuance.

>>23242122
> He didn't like it because it was primitive though
Why did he like it then?
> The Kallipolis is objectively less primitive than the first society that Socrates proposed
How so and what relevance does this have to the greater point?
> Eric Voegelin on Popper
No actual arguments. Pure ad hominem.

>Any regime which does not at least manage what its subjects think will shortly be replaced by one that does. Popper’s paradox. The flaw in Popper’s paradox is that, once he admits that the open society cannot be open, he removes the only argument for the open society (which is his word for oligarchy). Popper shows you that even oligarchies must be illiberal - then, for his other one thousand pages, argues for oligarchies, because they must be liberal. There is no paradox; the professor has only disproved himself.

>>23242133
>Why did he like it then?
It's not clear that he did like it. That's the point I'm driving home. Did Plato like the humble commune? Or did he like the fatally flawed Kallipolis? You tell me. I've read Plato's Republic multiple times, and it's designed to be ambiguous on this point. If you read it as a work of political punditry, you are reading it in a contemptible fashion.
>How so and what relevance does this have to the greater point?
Nigger, YOU made the argument that Plato worshiped primitive societies. The fuck is wrong with your brain?
>No actual arguments. Pure ad hominem.
It's not an ad hominem. Voegelin isn't engaging with Popper's political arguments, so how can there be a fallacy here? Another pseud abusing concepts he barely understands. Take all of Voegelin's insults, and apply it fivefold to yourself.

>>23242141
>Voegelin isn't engaging with Popper's political arguments
In the segment that you quoted he didn't address a single misinterpretation of Plato that Popper had, while claiming there are many and crying about how bad of a person Popper is for criticizing his idol.
Sounds like he was just mad.

>>23242157
You would be mad too if a retard didn't even bother reading what you had to say and then wrote an entire book making fun of you and calling you the source of all evil in the world. Don't say you wouldn't be.

>>23242184
What makes you think Popper didn't read Plato? All the evidence suggests he was well-versed in Plato.

>>23242190
>all the evidence
You just made this up. I know this because you can't even answer whether the commune or the Kallipolis is better, so you're nowhere near equipped to judge if Popper was well-versed in Plato. You can't even make a fair judgment relating to one book of Plato's, let alone of his entire corpus.

Here's my question to you. Why the fuck do you even care about this shit if you don't even want to put in the effort of reading the people you're talking about? You could just, not talk about things you're clearly not interested in. Why would you go the extra mile to shill your opinions about a guy you've never read? You could have reached Book IV by now if you had started reading Plato's Republic instead of baking this thread. Why do you have to draft a thinker who lived 2500 years ago into a war that exists entirely in your head? The fuck is wrong with you?

>>23242199
I am currently reading Popper not Plato.
I am also a slow reader. I doubt I could have finished Plato's republic from the time I published this thread.

>>23242229
First of all, it's been an entire 24 hours. I was being generous with reading only 4 books out of the 10 present in the Republic. That's like 50 pages or something. I didn't ask you to read the whole book (even though that's entirely doable).

Wait, did you not realize that Plato's Republic was divided into 10 books? Jesus Christ. How do you not feel embarrassed talking about things that are clearly beyond your level? You don't even know the basic facts about Plato's work, yet you feel comfortable criticizing his ideas. You are seriously fucked in the head.

>>23242235
I will read book II if you stop crying.

>>23242245
It really doesn't matter to me. It's your life. You can be as prudent or as stupid as you want to be.

I'll just mock you for being a special kind of stupid if you start talking shit about a philosopher you haven't even read. Personally, I enjoy it, because every person like that deserves worse than a few mean (but true!) insults tossed their way.