The Spirit of the Republic
By
On Sunday afternoon I fell asleep listening to an audio book rendition the Republic by Plato. Though I missed most of it, I still awoke with a strong feeling for this argument for an ideal state. Listening to this new translation read aloud by a professional actor during a fast afternoon, the time when my brain is squeezed out like a lemon and laid out to dry, I experienced a deep feeling, call it the spirit of the Republic. What a movie it would make! This is not just the first but the greatest utopia that can be conceived. The Republic is not just part of Utopian literature, it _is_ Utopian literature and always will be. Anybody who thinks about or tries to implement a better society must, know it or not, recapitulate ground covered by the Republic.
As Baha'is I think we are prepared to read the Republic on a level that few philosophers down the ages have appreciated, even the greatest among them. We can assume that the philosopher king or king philosopher is no mere mortal but a roundabout way of referring to what we call the Manifestation of God. After all, Socrates is not at all clear that there can be a philosopher king on earth, only that his leadership would be the ideal. And so it plays out for us, the Manifestation is always long ascended to the Unseen Realm before His true impact is felt. That is true of Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab, and all the others. Make that assumption and most of the troubling features of the Republic begin to make sense. You see in Plato's vision the
What a glorious picture Plato paints of the leadership that could be. The human flock is guarded by a vigorous, rigorous guardian class, a picked fraternity raised communally from birth for integrity. They are assiduously taught from early childhood to be vigorous and to have iron devotion to the state. They commune with the head, the king who is a philosopher, the philosopher who is a king, and then strive to carry out his will, which of course is nothing else but the dictate of reason.
With these guardians permanently standing on guard for the city, the rest of the population would be enabled to specialize in that unique service most suited to an individual's own nature. In other words, universal participation. Everybody, man or woman, works either as a guardian or a producer, a sheepdog or a sheep. Most sensible people would be more than happy as sheep, to grow and multiply as much as possible. But a small, chosen minority are singled out to act as sheepdogs who guide and protect the flock.
It is true that the guardians are a picked elite. They are a meritocracy and what they do is difficult, very unnatural. Like domestic dogs serving a shepherd, they are bred and trained to act in a way diametrically opposed to their own dog nature, which of course is more wolf-like than sheep-like. They make this sacrifice in order to conform to the will of the philosopher king, whose goal is to preserve the producers, sheep, creatures that otherwise in the order of things would be their prey.
A city that becomes corrupted has sheepdogs that betray their dog nature and turn around and act like wolves, attacking the flock. A dog is in a position of trust and can do far more harm than a wolf every could, should it so choose. This reversal of domestic to predator is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a state; it is the very definition of corruption. Consider what Benjamin Franklin, in "Dangers of a Salaried Bureaucracy," wrote in 1787,
"Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British Government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace."
Franklin's picture of greedy, power-hungry individuals clamoring for posts that offer hegemony and lucrative government patrimony in the Britain of the 18th Century is now writ large on the whole planet. Everybody fights for money or power. It is the norm. The only question is how big you are, not whether a decision is right or wrong. Highly efficient corporations grow without constraint of law, elbowing out even nationalist governments in a mad rush to exploit natural resources as fast as possible. Meanwhile, earth's atmosphere becomes a gas chamber offering a Final Solution to human life. Without a single philosopher king to unite and guide us, the civilization we call "the West" is sorely corrupted and rapidly sinking into such a terminal crisis.
The guardians of the Republic, in contrast, think nothing of their own profit or loss, only of the desire of the philosopher king and the good of the Republic. If in their education -- which is still going on when they reach their fifties -- they should ever fail in their integrity and be corrupted by ambition or greed, the guardian candidate is -- not killed or tortured as you might expect -- no, he is quietly sent off to work among the majority, the sheep. Just sacked. Fired, and placed into a more benign environment for what he wants. The flock offers a safe, constructive outlet for those tinged by greed or ambition. Greed and ambition are only fatal when it comes to matters of public trust, with whatever concerns the entire Res Publica, public thing, the Republic. For that reason as soon as these traits show themselves in a potential guardian, he or she is immediately fired and given other work.
Is it a coincidence that Abdu'l-Baha titled His successor the "Guardian" of the Faith? I think not. The Master, the last individual with charismatic authority in the Faith, put the Guardian as the head and permanent chairperson of the House of Justice. He also allowed only the Guardian to appoint Hands of the Cause and their learned auxiliaries. The Guardian then, was the head of the learned wing of the Administrative Order, and also the non-removable CEO of the administrative wing. And even he now operates spiritually, from outside what Socrates called the "sphere of the determined." To my surprise, Plato in this new translation even uses the word "auxiliary" at one point. An auxiliary, as I recall, is a guardian who falls a little short of being a philosopher but still works in the capacity of a guardian.
Most striking is the platform that Plato has his guardian class propound. I found it very shocking at first. I will talk about that tomorrow.
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