Rhetoricians and Politicians

Though Plato doesn't mention rhetoricians and politicians in this passage from Book X of The Laws, I couldn't help reading it as a backhanded condemnation of those two most evil of societies in Plato's writings. In this passage, flattery, along with prayers and incantations, are the means whereby rhetoricians and politicians herd those who, like "brute animals," are unable to think for themselves, and so follow wherever they are led. 


"Upon this earth we know that there dwell souls possessing an unjust spirit, who may be compared to brute animals, which fawn upon their keepers, whether dogs or shepherds, or the best and most perfect masters; for they in like manner, as the voices of the wicked declare, prevail by flattery and prayers and incantations, and are allowed to make their gains with impunity. And this sin, which is termed dishonesty, is an evil of the same kind as what is termed disease in living bodies or pestilence in years or seasons of the year, and in cities and governments has another name, which is injustice. 




In The Apology, Socrates claims that he is the only true politician, because he is the only one who tells the people what they should hear, even when they don't want to hear it. 

The Golden Rule

The Laws can get tedious. Unlike The Republic, which outlines Socrates/Plato's ideal state, the laws were meant to be practical. The Athenian Stranger's self-imposed task is to lay down the laws that will govern an colony. Consequently, Plato spends an inordinate amount of time giving technical details for the best way to create a stable state. After all, stability, even in The Republic, is his end goal.

There are moments when The Laws surprise you. One of which is when Plato lays down principles for "dealings between man and man" in Book XI. "The principle," he tells us, "is very simple: Thou shalt not, if thou canst help, touch that which is mine, or remove the least thing which belongs to me without my consent; and may I be of a sound mind, and do to others as I would that they should do to me."

I have italicized the last few words to emphasize their similarity to the Golden Rule in the New Testament. However, what is really interesting is that Plato connects the self-interest of the first clause to the charity of the second clause with "may I be of a sound mind." I'm not sure if that was intended as a prayer or a logical proposition. In other places he argues that no one intentionally does a neighbor wrong, because no sound person would want to live near someone who had ill will toward them, thus making "love thy neighbor" a reasonable rather than a spiritual act. Though, distinctions between reason and spiritual is a distinction that is more of the 20th Century than Plato's.

Captain Karl's Pedernales Falls 30K

Captain Carl's Pedernales Fall 30K. This was a night time run on June 25th. Start time, 7:15, so headlamps weren't needed for the first hour or so. Around 11:00 PM, when I hadn't seen anyone else on the trail for a while, I remember thinking how claustrophobic it felt when all I could see was the section of trail illuminated by my headlamp. I turned my headlamp off once, and everything turned black. There was the hint of a horizon to the east, faint light in the sky from some town that was cut off by  the mountains. Nothing but black between here and there.