/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2825131]

Why can't a meritocracy with a philosopher king(s) work? It really is the perfect system.

[Anonymous No.2826743]

BUMP

[Anonymous No.2826775]

that will just be a righteus dictaship

[Anonymous No.2826779]

Because the plebs won't let it happen because it's not "fair."

[Anonymous No.2826784]

Define "merit"
Define "philosopher king"

[Anonymous No.2826792]

what happens when he dies

how can this government come to be in a way that doesnt invalidate itself (e.g. a way other than oppression and violence)

"merit" is a mythical, totalizing narrative. "merit" is not the same thing for all races, ethnicities, cultures, and economic systems.

[Anonymous No.2826793]

Because it's not reliable.

[Anonymous No.2826809]

>>2826792
>"merit" is a mythical, totalizing narrative. "merit" is not the same thing for all races, ethnicities, cultures, and economic systems.

good point. Plus it can be "bought," as seen with rich kids and the SAT.

[Anonymous No.2826818]

OP I think you lose

[Anonymous No.2826836]

>meritocracy
>2012
Do you REALLY believe on "merit"?

[Anonymous No.2826860]

>tfw if I put this on /sci/ or /pol/, they'd shit a brick and agree so hard.

I love you /lit/, you're not fucking idiotic and shallow like the other boards...w...will you marry me?

[Anonymous No.2826874]

The philsopher king isn't a dictator. They have to forsake all forms of physical gold as they are already rich in spiritual gold. So long as the subjects also believe they are rich in spiritual gold, which is reliant on the philosopher king making decisions which benefit the people over personal interests, they remain in power.

[Anonymous No.2826879]

>what is Iran
lol no OP

[Anonymous No.2826884]

Well, who do decides who's going to be king?

[Anonymous No.2826888]

p-p-pplease v-validate you-u-u-ur post-t OP

[Anonymous No.2826893]

>>2826860
Precisely. /lit/ is the one-eyed king of 4chan.

[Anonymous No.2826894]

>>2826884

BAD GRAMMAR OVERLOAD

[Anonymous No.2826937]

A philosopher king? What a terrible idea. I can study mountains of philosophy, but that doesn't teach me how to administer and run a country.

[Pokémon !MASTERnPU6 No.2826945]

>>2826894
The only thing wrong with that question is the word "do."

[Pokémon !MASTERnPU6 No.2826947]

>>2826893
>/lit/ is the one-eyed king of 4chan.
/lit/ is Odin?

[Anonymous No.2826970]

>>2826947
"Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king"

[Pokémon !MASTERnPU6 No.2826975]

>>2826970
I was being silly. Odin is literally a one-eyed man in Norse lore. Read the Eddas if you haven't. Good stuff.

[Anonymous No.2826980]

>>2826975
you sound like an asshole

oh wait you're a tripfag

>>>/pol/
>>>/sci/
>>>/hm/

and stay out

[Pokémon !MASTERnPU6 No.2826988]

>>2826980
Why do I sound like an asshole? I was suggesting a decent read on the literature board.

Meant to say Odin is literally a one-eyed king in Norse lore, not one-eyed man. He's a god, not a man, and all that.

[Anonymous No.2826995]

>>2826809
Which is why we should read "merit" in the OP as "money."

[Anonymous No.2827008]

>>2826980
I think you are being to critical in this instance.

[Anonymous No.2827032]

>>2827008
And by that I mean too critical.

[Anonymous No.2827056]

>>2825131
I agree.

[Anonymous No.2827240]

Are you people actually arguing against merit?

I'm fucking glad this nihilist and post-modernist subjectivity shit will die with you 20 somethings fuck you objects.

[Anonymous No.2827291]

>>2827240

How is merit not subjective?
In our society, LeBron James is worth about 350-400 Navy SEALS a year. And that's just his base salary.

The only thing he had to do to "earn" that ridiculous amount of money was to be born with talent and work hard. The same as a Navy SEAL. There are fewer LeBrons than there are SEALS, but I bet some of those guys worked just as hard or harder than Bron Bron.

[Anonymous No.2827293]

>>2827291
If you make the Navy SEALs worth too much, it gets too expensive to send them overseas to be killed.

[juvyPunk No.2827297]

>>2827293
actually it would be an incentive to send them off to die faster because the pay scale raises the longer they survive. and if le bron was a SEAL how long would he survive

[Anonymous No.2827303]

>>2827297
That makes no sense. It's like saying a buy one get one free offer means you save more if the price increases.

[Anonymous No.2827322]

>>2827291
>supernigger at basketball
>work harder than seals

typical sports faggot

[juvyPunk No.2827339]

>>2827303
no its more of a 1 dies and his salary will pay for 5 replacements where none will live to retirement age

[Anonymous No.2827340]

Democracy+socialism is the way of the future. You fucking heard me. Our population is getting too big to keep fucking over the lower classes. Things need to stop being privately owned. They probably naturally will once families and friends are forced to share things to keep eating and living.

Capitalism worked great for a while though. Bad long term effects. As far as actual policy making? Democracy is the only thing. Nerf the Legislative branch in the US and you've got yourself a great system.

[Anonymous No.2827344]

>>2827339
Or you could pay them half as much and do the same for less.

[Anonymous No.2827349]

An aristocracy in the classical sense of the word, would obviously be ideal. The issue is simply that in practice it is difficult to evaluate who is the 'best' and power has a tendency to concentrate, thus it is better to have checks on power than to trust the power will be used for the best.

[juvyPunk No.2827360]

>>2827340
i think people misunderstand the stance of private property and personal rights. A population explosion doesn't mean that suddenly people will be willing to share what they never have before. also if America were to try to redistribute wealth with a 50% tax and nationalization of oil and other industries, i think the profitability of the industries and capital that owns them would arm up and try to sussed like the first civil war when the union tried to take the rich men's workforce from his industry

[Anonymous No.2827362]

>>2827340
nerf the legislative branch? surely you jest. The executive is vastly too powerful and the legislative never gets anything done. Either way a more federalist system would be better.

[juvyPunk No.2827364]

>>2827344
that is what they do do

[Anonymous No.2827369]

>>2827360
>nationalization of oil and other industries, i think the profitability of the industries and capital that owns them would arm up and try to sussed like the first civil war when the union tried to take the rich men's workforce from his industry
That's kind of the whole damn point though. They wield too much power.

[Anonymous No.2827371]

>>2827364
And so they can send twice as many over to die on the same budget. The economy works!

[Anonymous No.2827378]

>>2827291
You don't really want a special forces made of mercenaries, you don't want people who are just in it for the money and will head off the highest bidder.

[juvyPunk No.2827397]

>>2827369
America goes to shit the dollar ain't worth shit and the rich people higher all the navy seals to fight for them and protect them(just like through all history) how many navy seals do you think will stay in the union military when the other side is paying gold and they actually defend the constitution. If your fighting trained soldiers with pissed of hungry poor people i know which side of the front line i would be on.

>>2827240
i like this

>>2827371
ya military people are willing to die for shit pay and allow the kardashians to rob the soul of the nation in complete safety

[Anonymous No.2827408]

Don't you mean noocracy?

[Anonymous No.2827411]

>he believes merit exists

[Anonymous No.2827478]

Plato would abolish Homer and Hesiod because they portray actual human emotions rather than perfect stoicism. Which is just one of Plato's absurd restrictions on art in his attempt to craft people into non-human rational machines.
Any system that relies so heavily on imagining humans as becoming something fundamentally other than obviously human in order to be tenable is just completely impractical and unimplementable.

[sage No.2827489]

>philosopher king
because he's no friend.

[Anonymous No.2827495]

Zadie Smith

[Anonymous No.2827501]

>>2827478

#cough,cough,religion.cough,cough#

[Anonymous No.2827510]

>>2827478
Then fuck humans and kill them all.

[Anonymous No.2827512]

>>2827510

>Le kill people, le burn shit, le fuck school

[Anonymous No.2827514]

I don't think nation-states are the future of mankind, in any form, whether social democracy, a republic, fascism, communism or what have you. If mankind has a future, that future lies in space. And as a nation-state expands into space, it will run into various insurmountable problems.

"Essentially, the contention is that our currently dominant power systems cannot long survive in space; beyond a certain technological level a degree of anarchy is arguably inevitable and anyway preferable.

To survive in space, ships/habitats must be self-sufficient, or very nearly so; the hold of the state (or the corporation) over them therefore becomes tenuous if the desires of the inhabitants conflict significantly with the requirements of the controlling body. On a planet, enclaves can be surrounded, besieged, attacked; the superior forces of a state or corporation - hereafter referred to as hegemonies - will tend to prevail. In space, a break-away movement will be far more difficult to control, especially if significant parts of it are based on ships or mobile habitats. The hostile nature of the vacuum and the technological complexity of life support mechanisms will make such systems vulnerable to outright attack, but that, of course, would risk the total destruction of the ship/habitat, so denying its future economic contribution to whatever entity was attempting to control it."

Some form of anarchy is the future; anything else is an evolutionary dead end.

Source on the quote:
http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

[Anonymous No.2827518]

>>2827514
so then every ship must become its own state. and a much more totalitarian one than any earthbound state, i suspect. that hardly seems anarchic to me.

[Anonymous No.2827521]

I don't think nation-states are the future of mankind, in any form, whether social democracy, a republic, fascism, communism or what have you. If mankind has a future, that future lies in space. And as a nation-state expands into space, it will run into various insurmountable problems:

"Essentially, the contention is that our currently dominant power systems cannot long survive in space; beyond a certain technological level a degree of anarchy is arguably inevitable and anyway preferable.

To survive in space, ships/habitats must be self-sufficient, or very nearly so; the hold of the state (or the corporation) over them therefore becomes tenuous if the desires of the inhabitants conflict significantly with the requirements of the controlling body. On a planet, enclaves can be surrounded, besieged, attacked; the superior forces of a state or corporation - hereafter referred to as hegemonies - will tend to prevail. In space, a break-away movement will be far more difficult to control, especially if significant parts of it are based on ships or mobile habitats. The hostile nature of the vacuum and the technological complexity of life support mechanisms will make such systems vulnerable to outright attack, but that, of course, would risk the total destruction of the ship/habitat, so denying its future economic contribution to whatever entity was attempting to control it."

Therefore it is clear that if mankind is to conquer the universe and survive, we will need more freedom than a nation-state can offer. That is, anarchism. Some form of anarchy is the future; anything else is an evolutionary dead end.

Source on the quote:
http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

[Anonymous No.2827523]

>>2827514
Read this

[Anonymous No.2827524]

>>2827521
so then every ship must become its own state. and a much more totalitarian one than any earthbound state, i suspect. that hardly seems anarchic to me.

[Anonymous No.2827525]

>>2827518
A ship would most likely have too small a population to warrant a state.

[Anonymous No.2827527]

>>2827510

That seems a bit hasty - we just need to disentangle ourselves from Platonic reasoning. Which, unfortunately, is extraordinarily difficult to do, considering it is the foundation of all western thought.
There have been strides in this direction in 20th century philosophy, but politics still hasn't followed suit. Both socialism and liberalism are still fundamentally based on neoplatonic rationalist ideals.

[Anonymous No.2827530]

>>2827525
well, it depends on what kind of ship you're envisioning - a generation ship or a very large habitat certainly would have enough population. in any case that doesn't matter, because the point is that any unit no matter what the size could easily have a totalitarian internal system, even if it was not called a "state". certainly each ship/habitat would be sovereign and independent, but that does not mean that the people within them would be what we would call "free"; i would suspect that it is more likely than not that they would be unfree

[Anonymous No.2827534]

>>2827478
>taking the Republic at face value

[Anonymous No.2827535]

>>2827527
>There have been strides in this direction in 20th century philosophy

No there hasn't.

[Anonymous No.2827536]

>>2827523
I think transhumanism is pretty much a form of anarchism. It's not like minds so advanced that they are practically incomprehensible to humans are going to need a government.

[Anonymous No.2827539]

>>2827534

Wat? You think Plato's politics are some kind of metaphor?

>>2827535

Yes there have.

[Anonymous No.2827543]

>>2827539
>Yes there have.

Show me then.

[Anonymous No.2827545]

>>2827530
How so? A habitat ship is most likely self-sufficient and automated. Nobody has to do any work to survive. It's hard to see a hierarchy arising under such conditions.

[Anonymous No.2827549]

>>2827539
You think the Republic is really asking for a political regime that would abolish works like the Republic? This is a lazy way to read Plato.

[Anonymous No.2827563]

>>2827543

Are you asking me because you're interested, or are you asking me because you're already convinced you know everything you need to know already and just trying to start some bullshit? If it's the former, I'd be happy to list some ideas, but if it's the latter, just never mind.

>>2827549

Plato is rife with inconsistencies and logical faults. It wouldn't be surprising at all if that were the logical outcome of the work.
He advocated that no one should know their parents or siblings, and therefore everyone would be fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. Then he goes on to advocate that no one can marry within the family. Hence, Plato abolishes the future of humanity. He didn't think plenty of things through all the way.

[Anonymous No.2827566]

Because philosopher king is a pretty vague term.

this was the first person to come to mind.

[Anonymous No.2827571]

>>2827563
>He didn't think plenty of things through all the way.
I think Plato thought through many things, and that it is you who refuses to think. Did you not go "hang on a second" with all the talk about mimesis?

[Anonymous No.2827574]

>>2827566

[Anonymous No.2827575]

>>2827566
Check out Heidegger.

[Anonymous No.2827580]

>>2827563
well yes i'm interested

[Anonymous No.2827578]

>>2827571

If you've got a point, make it already.
You keep your posts as uninformative as possible so as not to have to take responsibility for any actual content you might bring to the table.
This is intellectual cowardice and mere posturing.

[Anonymous No.2827585]

>>2827574

[Anonymous No.2827612]

>>2827574
He only came to mind after Mussolini, Lenin, and Hitler. It only shows the ambiguity of the term.

[Anonymous No.2827622]

>>2827580

Postmodernism and post-structuralism generally have been attempts (some say successful, some say not) to break with the rationalist tradition. Many people disdain it, but it's a huge movement that does just that.
Derrida's critique of Plato's reliance on the logos to subject writing to speech, and his subsequent inversion of that binary in Of Grammatology is probably the most well known and controversial attempt to overturn the platonic tradition and offer a new 'way of thinking', so to speak.
It's difficult, and many people don't have the patience or desire for trying to see how it could actually be politically applicable or sustainable, but Derrida, at least, insisted it could be.

[Anonymous No.2827647]

>>2827578
>If you've got a point, make it already.
That sounds familiar.
>...the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just-the reason is, that the god compels-me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. Some of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery.

[Anonymous No.2827657]

>>2826980
Agreed. Although I would say he seems like a douche bag more than an asshole

[Anonymous No.2828048]

>>2827563
>He advocated that no one should know their parents or siblings, and therefore everyone would be fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. Then he goes on to advocate that no one can marry within the family. Hence, Plato abolishes the future of humanity.

He gives very specific rules about how incest is supposed to be avoided, based on your date of birth.

It's a ridiculous system he's got, but you're just lazily ascribing a problem to him that he was at least aware of and tried to avoid.