Transcript for interview with GRF Ferrari on Plato's Republic

Read the Full Interview Transcript.

0. Introduction

Plato's Republic is one of the foundational texts of the West. It's a timeless masterpiece that set the agenda for the next 2000 years of Western philosophy. And yet the Republic is hostile to almost everything the modern west stands for today. Democracy, equality, liberty, freedom of speech, tolerance. All of these are explicitly named by Plato in the Republic as things which produce bad lives and, and even worse societies.

My guest today is a leading Plato scholar, Giovanni Ferrari, who will help us understand why the founding text of the west is so hostile to everything the modern west has become. Professor Ferrari is going to unpack the Republic for us through a central metaphor that Plato uses between cities and souls, tyranny. A type of city, a type of state is compared to a drunkard, a type of soul, aristocracy is compared with a philosopher, and democracy is compared with an aimless dilettante. This is the central metaphor we're going to spend this entire interview unpacking and it'll teach us why Plato despised democracy and what are the better ways to not only organize society, but our own lives.

1. Democracy

Johnathan Bi: For Plato, the generation of states goes like Aristocracy, a society of reason; Timocracy, society of spirit, of honor; Oligarchy, society of appetite, of money; Democracy, a society ruled by the people, and then finally Tyranny. Let's start with democracy first, because I think our audience is going to be able to recognize that in their own lives. Tell us about the nature of democratic society.

Giovanni Ferrari: Well, we're not talking about democracy primarily in the political sense. It's more like the decadent society that people write books about these days, which can be connected with democracy. Everyone is very proud of their freedoms and their political freedoms and will not tolerate, it's surprisingly libertarian rather than power to the people. You know, they won't tolerate too much government interference. Authority is challenged. They don't... Children are disobedient to their parents, masters come to resemble their dogs, and so on.

It's very anarchic, actually. It degenerates into anarchy because people just don't want to be ruled in this society. But what that corresponds to in the democratic individual is not someone who would be a member of that democratic society, necessarily a member of that democratic society as described. Instead, that kind of worship of fetishizing almost of freedom is one thing at the political level in a city as a whole, and quite another thing, if we're just looking within the level of the soul and the democratic in the same way as everyone is equal in a democratic society, politically equal. And you're not going to push me around, governments not going to push me around, my neighbor's not going to push me around.

Giovanni Ferrari: The democratic individual gives equal power, is very equitable among his desires, and each of them get equal time. He's very fickle and whimsical. One day he's working out at the gym, the next day he's getting, he's partying with his fraternity buddies. You know, it's just...

Johnathan Bi: He fails to make distinctions.

Giovanni Ferrari: He has a new fad every day.

Johnathan Bi: One of the key values that is attacked is equality. Let me give you a quote from the Republic:

Anarchic and Motley [democracy] assigns a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike.

(Plato, The Republic)

Non-discrimination, equality. These are things for us that would be important political values. What does Plato see as the problem here?

Giovanni Ferrari: He's not afraid to say that the best people are not accorded their full value. That he, and Aristotle too, support what they call proportional equality. In other words, people get the value they deserve.

Johnathan Bi: Equality for equals, inequality for unequals.

Giovanni Ferrari: Exactly.

Johnathan Bi: And so I think the real issue of democracy for Plato must be that we fail to make distinctions between activities, that we ought make distinctions. And maybe I can give you an example. I was riding the subway in New York and there was an ad on the subway that said, do not be shameful that you are using heroin. Be proud that you are using it cleanly. And it was an advertisement for like one of those safe heroin injection sites. And that is something that Plato is trying to get at here. Right? Which is. No, maybe we should be shameful for certain types of activities. And the egalitarian intuitions of democracy flatten everything out, even when we should make distinctions. Well, heroin addicts won't be allowed to grow up, but unfortunates will be taken care of, taken into account. It is very important to him that those who are ruled by philosophers agree to be ruled, realize that that will be much more beneficial for them than any of the current alternatives.

Johnathan Bi: Right. What Plato attacks in his critique of democracy is not just equality, but also tolerance, liberty, freedom of speech. He names these explicitly as objects. I do find it quite fascinating that the foundational text, I think you can give a good argument that this is the foundational text of the Western canon, seems to be hostile to everything that the modern west today seems to stand for.

Giovanni Ferrari: Well, you know, freedom to do what, you know, if it's freedom to smoke crack that's not a freedom we want to preserve.

Johnathan Bi: So let me give you another quote from the Republic. This is him describing the person you already brought up, which is a democratic man:

Day by day indulging the appetite of the day, now wine-bibbing and abandoning himself to the lascivious pleasing of the flute and again drinking only water and dieting; at one time exercising his body, and sometimes idling and neglecting all things, and at another time seeming to occupy himself with philosophy. And frequently he goes in for politics and bounces up and says and does whatever enters his head. And if military men excite his emulation thither he rushes, and if money men, to that he turns, and there is no order or compulsion in his existence, but he calls this life of his the life of pleasure and freedom and happiness.

(Plato, The Republic)

Kierkegaard described this type of man as performing crop rotation. What is wrong with such a life?