The state of Greece there are twenty-five centuries surprising contemporary
accents. The Hellenic peninsula was a very loose confederation of
city-states, much constantly at war with each other. Greeks only managed to
unite when threatened by foreigners: first when the prince of Troy in Asia
Minor, kidnapped one of their royal princesses, second when the Persian
Empire devised to govern them. Twice the Persian invasion was crushed (the
Battle of Thermopylae in 300 masterfully represented arrived during the
second time).
When the war ended, the Greeks were already used for the union and managed
to bicker much less. skyrocketed trade. Sparta declined. Athens, his
longtime rival, attracted crafters, merchants, intellectuals, to the point
of becoming a cosmopolitan center.
However, prosperity had worms in fruit. With the spirit of camaraderie and
military phalanxes longer necessary, individualism has increased. In
addition to products came to lend money and defraud. The most notable
change was an increase in rhetoric and dialectical discussions. skilled
foreigners, having no political rights in Athens, coached young aristocrats
who wanted to rise above their peers. They taught them how to speak well,
to capture the passions of the people, to use framing and reasoning so that
they guide anyone to a conclusion. These masters of rhetoric were called
sophists.
Under their influence, Athens has become more "dynamic": too many words
have decreased the value of words, too much individual ambitions raised
suspicion, too many conflicting ideas fostered chaos. Social relations
became bad faith, and some, after having a taste of the bright,
cool 'philosophy', have become cynical:
Because I think you have not failed to notice that the guys, when they get
a taste of disputation, improper use as a form of sport, always use the
peremptory and, imitating confuters they confuse with other. They delight
as spies to draw on and tear with words all those who approach them ....
And when they themselves have been refuted many and refuted by many, they
quickly fall into a violent distrust all what they used to be true; and the
result is that they themselves and the whole business of philosophy have
been discredited with other men. (Republic 539b-c)
Many Athenians grew weary not only of the tireless hubbub sophists on a
subject, but their influence on youth. An Athenian, Socrates, decided to
fight the sophists on their own ground. He trained to ask contrived
questions outframing and cropped person. When he descended into the arena,
he foiled at least some of the rhetoricians by turning their own arguments
in reverse. All the dialogues of Plato this mark Socrates always knows
where he wants to go, but he never says, and leads his discussion partners
there by artificial questions.
But Socrates also dangerous. The philosophical chaos in his environment had
made it into a skeptic acid. early dialogues of Plato, as Euthyphro and
Laches speak of the impossibility of, respectively, have a satisfactory
idea of piety and bravery & # 8212; which are fundamentally linked to
spiritual awareness and civic & # 8212 while the later Euthydemus is
dedicated to pure, empty dialectical games a Saul Alinsky does not disown.
The solution of Socrates was too strong and destructive. He not only
rejects the Sophists houses of cards, but the foundations of his own city
as well. Being truly Socratic meant going full circle, throwing almost
certainty, and disengage from politics, which means removing the foundation
of civic fraternity, common sense and shared culture.
When Socrates was rightly trialed, judges would simply loved exile him or
sentence him to close his damned mouth. He would not give them a choice:
either they should hire him as a hero or a death sentence. Not
surprisingly, he was sentenced to drink hemlock.
When Socrates eventually died, his young disciple Plato wept with absolute
sadness. The latter, however, used the rhetoric and dialectic quite
differently. When the true influence of Socrates declined, fiction Socrates
we find in the dialogues later appears as an effective spokesperson who
promotes brotherhood between legitimate citizens, functional caste society,
a living spirituality covering the simplest myths to more esoteric complex.
Plato constantly bashed and ridiculed foreign rhetoricians, perhaps better
than his master did. But where Socrates led to nothing Plato pushed for the
reforging of a true aristocracy. His muse Republic and Laws lot on that.
Those who have a knack noticed the occult references to music, mathematics,
geometry and symbolic myths, mainly related to the Pythagorean tradition
but not only & # 8212; in the Timaeus (22b) a mysterious Egyptian priest
told to nowhere, "the Greeks are always children! "
Thus Plato and his close friends, we face next to the fictitious Socrates
in the dialogues, succeeded where the real old Socrates failed: they drove
fallacy of the city and dried disordered desires she fed. You may find that
Plato went too far, as when he advised censure or expel the artists, but
when you see how the fashion, art and marketing has taken a firm hold on
spirit and people's judgments, it becomes clear that his reasons are still
ours.
Poets and storytellers are guilty to the most serious misrepresentation
when they tell us that the wicked men are often happy, and miserable well;
and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a
man's own loss and another's gain those things we forbid them from
speaking, and order them to sing and say otherwise. (Republic 392a-b)
ideal city Plato was never realized. Utopias are more like stars guide that
mandatory plans. He also led the Athenians and other Greeks to their true
compass. One of those Greeks who came from the northern city of Stagira,
has spent years studying under Plato before becoming a classic in its own
right. His name was Aristotle, and although the volume of his writings
enough to create fear, it was not by pompous sputtering, but a real thinker
who understood the value of the world in which we live.
Aristotle collected many things, dead animals with political constitutions
and has drawn comparisons revealing them. Needless to say, he needed more
assistants traveling to fetch the data, and he could not afford it because
he tutored the prince over a kingdom on the north, Macedonia. This medium
sized boy was made king by the name of Alexander III. Eventually, it would
become a fierce warrior, unite Greece by its military strength and
competence, and make his own empire.
If you had lived in Athens just before Socrates himself made a name in the
agora, you would never have guessed what was to happen later. Greeks were
divided, individualistic, although under the influence of marketing before
the word was invented. Yet some of them, using the same weapons marketers,
expose them and chased them away. Less than 50 years later, the Greeks were
still alive, well, full of masculine energy and trip back to the fountain
of youth in India Aryan side of Alexander the Great. If Plato and Aristotle
came back today, they definitely one with the red pill.
Read more: As Western democracy Descends On Tyranny, Plato's Republic is
more than ever
No comments:
Post a Comment