Jim Devine wrote:
>I wrote:
>>>It ends up being akin to Plato's golden myth (used to justify class
>>>inequality in
>>>the REPUBLIC).
>
>Shane Mage responds:
>>In fairness to Plato, the first conscious communist, it should be pointed
>>out that the "class inequality" justified by the *gennaios pseudos*
>>consisted of persuading the *rulers* ("guardians" and "philosopher kings")
>>to accept a way of life in which they should not only own no money, but no
>>private property at all, and in which their material consumption would be
>>limited to the strict requirements of physical and mental health.
>
>Shane is right (and I don't have my copy here to check if he's totally
>right or just right about Platos's emphasis). However, given Plato's
>general disdain for the common folk, I think that the myth also applies to
>convince them that the system he proposes is natural.
If Plato was so disdainful of common folk, he would scarcely have so
extolled Socrates the stonemason, who spoke of finding real knowledge only
among artisans and craftsmen (demiourgoi)--albeit only in what pertained to
their crafts. Nor, in particular, would he have imaged the creator of the
universe as a manual worker, a *demiourgos*.
>Plato's main audience was the rich young men of the town, who we might label
>conservative,
In Plato's literarily productive years (390-350 BCE) Athens was a shadow of
what it had been in the days of Pericles, Socrates, and Alkibiades.
Plato's audience was Panhellenic, as is obvious both from the drammatis
personnae of the greatest dialogues and from what is known of the Academy's
"fellows" [and girls] and of their scholarly and political activities.
>while most observers see the Republic as an idealized
>(cleaned-up) version of Sparta.
Perhaps, if by "most observers" you mean tendentious smart-alecks of the
I.F.Stone/Bertrand Russell/Karl Popper stripe. No-one in his right mind,
least of all a product of the Athenian enlightenment, would ever take
post-Leuctra Sparta as a model of anything at all. Anyone who simply reads
the *politeia* (misleadingly translated as "Republic") on its own terms,
let alone with a philosophically critical mind and an appreciation of
Socratic irony, will quickly realize that its purpose is quite other.
>Plato was a communist, but his communism
>was very much a conservative top-down operation.
True, as true as the fact that to declare the total equality of men and
women was viewed as a conservative stance in the nacient world.
>It is quite different from
>the bottoms-up democratic rule by the proletariat that Marx favored. (Cf.
>Hal Draper's little essay, "The Two Souls of Socialism").
No doubt about that.
Shane Mage
"immortals mortals, mortals immortals, living their deaths, dying their lives"
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62
