Rovian dialogue

Comments (7)

1. The basis for most modern political campaigns. Rove’s lasting legacy.

2. There’s a layer of irony here. Plato held that one could tell a “noble lie” if it would result in social harmony. Rove is, in fact, the bastard depraved grandchild of Plato.

3. For Plato and in particular Aristotle, democracy was effectively mob rule. The notion of a constitutional democracy hedged by rule of law was not yet in play. And they were right: to the extent that democracy is the rule of the majority, we see it lead to tyranny and slavery.
   The Republic was an argument for a utopian political structure, and the idea was that those who sought a good life and knowledge (philosophers) would make the best rulers (Guardians). Of course that raised the old riddle: who guards the guardians? But in context that quote is not peculiar but the conclusion of the whole argument.

4. I thought that was Goebbels – or was it Stalin? It seems to me Rove has more in common with them than he does Plato.

5. But Aristotle said that “we are what we repeatedly do”, so the truth is he’s just a liar 😉
   As I go through them, I finding that both Aristotle and Plato had some great quotes. They’ve been down our road before. Also from Plato:
   “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.”
   and a rather peculiar quote:
   “There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world”

6. I don’t know if it’s entirely fair to Leo Strauss to put it this way, but a lot of modern conservatism amounts to Plato without the forms. At least in America, rightists tend to ground ethics in the will of some authority figure, dominant social class, or supernatural agent instead of in an objective, rational standard (Plato) or in a set of norms that emerge from shared social and political experience (Aristotle). Which means, come to think of it, that it’s not quite accurate to accuse Conservatives of reviving the Platonic idea of the noble lie since for them, to paraphrase Hamlet, there is no good or bad but ruling makes it so. No truth, no lies.

7. I don’t know if it’s entirely fair to Leo Strauss to put it this way, but a lot of modern conservatism amounts to Plato without the forms. At least in America, rightists tend to ground ethics in the will of some authority figure, dominant social class, or supernatural agent instead of in an objective, rational standard (Plato) or in a set of norms that emerge from shared social and political experience (Aristotle). Which means, come to think of it, that it’s not quite accurate to accuse Conservatives of reviving the Platonic idea of the noble lie since for them, to paraphrase Hamlet, there is no good or bad but ruling makes it so. No truth, no lies.

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