My brain is trainwrecking over Plato this morning so I'm pausing my reading to blog. I'm doing the best/worst thing I could do- reading Les Miserables while I'm reading Plato. I feel like Plato has this ultimate idealism and with Les Miserables, Victor Hugo has the understanding of that idealism with the reality of the human condition.
We aren't really that Just. The problem with the Just city is that it doesn't work. Maybe it's a picture of heaven, or maybe it's a picture of what everything is supposed to look like if we all loved each other and really wanted what was best for each other. But we don't.
At one point in the Rebuplic, Socrates said that in the event that no one is just, Democracy is best. And I think that's the conclusion America (and many places around the world at that time- France, for example) came to. The conclusion that a King isn't going to know what you need any more than you do. That a Guardian is not made of gold while I am made of bronze.
The first time Hugo uses the phrase 'Les Miserables' in his work is when Marius realizes that the people living next to him haven't eaten in 3 days. He gives them all his money and they spend it in a scheme trying to rob someone else. This is truely the Miserable. Starving to death and the charity they are given they use to destroy others. These are the dredges of humanity. These are the people Plato suggest we kill to purify the world.
But I just refuse to believe that is the answer. I refuse to believe that atlas shrugged, that the only thing we need to do is get rid of all the people who aren't wicked.
"People arent either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things all chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."
-Lemony Snicket
We aren't really that Just. The problem with the Just city is that it doesn't work. Maybe it's a picture of heaven, or maybe it's a picture of what everything is supposed to look like if we all loved each other and really wanted what was best for each other. But we don't.
At one point in the Rebuplic, Socrates said that in the event that no one is just, Democracy is best. And I think that's the conclusion America (and many places around the world at that time- France, for example) came to. The conclusion that a King isn't going to know what you need any more than you do. That a Guardian is not made of gold while I am made of bronze.
The first time Hugo uses the phrase 'Les Miserables' in his work is when Marius realizes that the people living next to him haven't eaten in 3 days. He gives them all his money and they spend it in a scheme trying to rob someone else. This is truely the Miserable. Starving to death and the charity they are given they use to destroy others. These are the dredges of humanity. These are the people Plato suggest we kill to purify the world.
But I just refuse to believe that is the answer. I refuse to believe that atlas shrugged, that the only thing we need to do is get rid of all the people who aren't wicked.
"People arent either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things all chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."
-Lemony Snicket
I agree, but disagree at the same time. I think that the perfect aristocracy is possible, in theory. However, I don't think that it is possible in reality. The problem is just what you said: There is no perfect person at all on Earth, so there is no way that there could ever be a perfect ruler. The only way that we could come close to this would be if Jesus (who is the only perfect man who ever existed on Earth) actually became an aristocratic king in this world and governed the people as a politician. Unfortunately, this is not going to happen, so we are forced to digress to the democracy. I still think that aristocracy has its benefits, but it won't always work, just like democracy doesn't always work for everyone.
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