The Daily Poor

Splitting my diatribe into parts.... How insufferable.... All future Daily Poor effortposts will come in the form of .pdf files

When we reexamine the previously explored context through the lens of the book's central thesis and use that understanding to examine the dialogue, a more nuanced and esoteric interpretation emerges. Plato's characterization of the luxurious city as "fevered" is telling. It suggests that a society predicated on the pursuit of material excess is inherently imbalanced from its inception. Consequently, the more radical proposals that follow—such as the abolition of private property and traditional family structures—can be understood not as Plato's ideal, but as drastic corrective measures necessitated by a fundamentally flawed societal model. Platon is offering a critique of societies driven by unchecked appetites rather than reason. His more controversial suggestions, then, are not prescriptive ideals for a utopian communist state, as some critics contend. If they were, he would not have contrasted the "fevered" city with the moderate and "healthy" one that Socrates claims to prefer. He wouldn't have framed the discussion as concerning "the origin of a luxurious city," a discussion aimed at assessing "how justice and injustice grow up in cities," and he wouldn't have had Socrates claim that "the true city, in my opinion, is the one we’ve described, the healthy one, as it were" and suggest that they are now studying "a city with a fever" at Glaucon's request. Rather than being prescriptive ideals, those suggestions serve as a philosophical exploration of the extreme measures that might be attempted to append balance to a society that is founded on excessive appetite. Critics who fixate on these proposals without considering this broader context risk misapprehending Platon's philosophical project. The Republic, in this light, can be seen as a warning against the perils of founding a society on the pursuit of luxury and excess, rather than an endorsement of radical social engineering. Platon was not some communist who wanted you to give up your private property and hand over your kids to the state. He was poor-pilled and thought that a society founded on the pursuit of luxury could reasonably be expected to head in such directions and was trying to warn us.

In discourse surrounding Platon's Republic, a common critique emerges: some interpret Socrates' proposals as proto-communist, particularly his suggestions regarding the dissolution of traditional family structures and private property. However, this interpretation overlooks crucial contextual elements that frame those ideas. A pivotal moment occurs in Book II, when the dialogue shifts from examining the nature of justice in individuals to exploring it within the context of a city-state. This methodological move is deliberate and significant. Socrates posits that principles are more readily observable in larger entities than in smaller ones; thus, if justice exists in both the individual and the city, it would be more discernible when examined at the societal level. This analytical approach provides the foundation for the subsequent discussion. Socrates spends some time at the outset outlining his conception of a just polis, one characterized by its simplicity and moderation. The social structure is predicated on basic familial units, with citizens subsisting on a modest diet and residing in functional dwellings furnished with very simple, perhaps even shoddy, furniture. This austere vision of civic life is promptly challenged by Glaucon, Platon's brother and Socrates' interlocutor in the dialogue, who raises objections concerning the conspicuous absence of luxuries and amenities that were customary in Athenian society of the time:

It seems that you make your people feast without any delicacies, Glaucon interrupted. True enough, I said, I was forgetting that they’ll obviously need salt, olives, cheese, boiled roots, and vegetables of the sort they cook in the country. We’ll give them desserts, too, of course, consisting of figs, chickpeas, and beans, and they’ll roast myrtle and acorns before the fire, drinking moderately. And so they’ll live in peace and good health, and when they die at a ripe old age, they’ll bequeath a similar life to their children. If you were founding a city for pigs, Socrates, he replied, wouldn’t you fatten them on the same diet? Then how should I feed these people, Glaucon? I asked. In the conventional way. If they aren’t to suffer hardship, they should recline on proper couches, dine at a table, and have the delicacies and desserts that people have nowadays. All right, I understand. It isn’t merely the origin of a city that we’re considering, it seems, but the origin of a luxurious city. And that may not be a bad idea, for by examining it, we might very well see how justice and injustice grow up in cities. Yet the true city, in my opinion, is the one we’ve described, the healthy one, as it were. But let’s study a city with a fever, if that’s what you want. There’s nothing to stop us. The things I mentioned earlier and the way of life I described won’t satisfy some people, it seems, but couches, tables, and other furniture will have to be added, and, of course, all sorts of delicacies, perfumed oils, incense, prostitutes, and pastries. We mustn’t provide them only with the necessities we mentioned at first, such as houses, clothes, and shoes, but painting and embroidery must be begun, and gold, ivory, and the like acquired (372c-373a, Grube's translation).

The overarching argument of the Republic posits that justice is fundamentally a matter of proper balance, both in the individual psyche and in society. Platon articulates this through his tripartite model of the soul, where harmony is achieved when reason governs over spirit and appetite, when intellect places emotions and desires into their proper places. In this paradigm, a well-ordered soul—as well as the just polis—is one in which the rational faculty exercises appropriate control over the emotional and appetitive aspects of human nature.

Seven monks are living in a monastery. They have taken a vow of silence, and cannot communicate with each other in any way. Each morning, the monks silently enter a large meditation chamber, where they all sit silently facing each other to meditate, then return to their own rooms at night. They are expected to meditate every day, but if they ever become aware that they have reached enlightenment, they will pack up their belongings in the night and leave the monastery. When a monk reaches enlightenment, a dark mark appears on his forehead and they obtain perfect logical ability. There are no mirrors in the monastery, so each monk cannot see his own forehead, though he *can* see the foreheads of all of the other monks when they are all in the meditation chamber together. One night, while all the monks are in their own rooms, a booming voice rings out: "At least one of you has reached enlightenment!" Will any of the monks leave the monastery? When?

Which one of you wrote this math problem?

There's no jobs up in northern Michigan; it's the middle of nowhe——

Oh no

(Final continuation.)

*Despite their zeal for world political, social and economic unity, the churchmen were less drastic when it came to themselves. They were frank enough to admit that their own lack of unity was no shining example to the secular world, but did no more than call for “a new era of interdenominational cooperation in which the claims of cooperative effort should be placed, so far as possible, before denominational prestige.”

(Continuing from above)

Reason: The Federal Council felt that, since five of its other commissions are directly connected with the war effort, the conference’s concern should be with plans for peace. One war statement -“the Christian Church as such is not at war” -was proposed by Editor Charles Clayton Morrison, of the influential and isolationist-before-Pearl-Harbor Christian Century. This statement was actually inserted in a subcommittee report by a 64-58 vote after a sharp debate. In the plenary session, however, it was ruled out of order. Some of the conference’s economic opinions were almost as sensational as the extreme internationalism of its political program. It held that “a new order of economic life is both imminent and imperative” -a new order that is sure to come either “through voluntary cooperation within the framework of democracy or through explosive political revolution.” Without condemning the profit motive as such, it denounced various defects in the profit system for breeding war, demagogues and dictators, “mass unemployment, widespread dispossession from homes and farms, destitution, lack of opportunity for youth and of security for old age.” Instead, “the church must demand economic arrangements measured by human welfare . . . must appeal to the Christian motive of human service as paramount to personal gain or governmental coercion.” “Collectivism is coming, whether we like it or not,” the delegates were told by no less a churchman than England’s Dr. William Paton, co-secretary of the World Council of Churches, but the conference did not veer as far to the left as its definitely pinko British counterpart, the now famous Malvern Conference (TIME, Jan. 20, 1941). It did, however, back up Labor’s demand for an increasing share in industrial management. It echoed Labor’s shibboleth that the denial of collective bargaining “reduces labor to a commodity.” It urged taxation designed “to the end that our wealth may be more equitably distributed. “It urged experimentation with government and cooperative ownership. “Every individual,” the conference declared, “has the right to full-time educational opportunities … to economic security in retirement … to adequate health service [and an] obligation to work in some socially necessary service.” The conference statement on the political bases of a just and durable peace proclaimed that the first post-war duty of the church “will be the achievement of a just peace settlement with due regard to the welfare of all the nations, the vanquished, the overrun and the victors alike.” In contrast to the blockade of Germany after World War I, it called for immediate provision of food and other essentials after the war for every country needing them. “We must get back,” explained Methodist Bishop Francis J. McConnell, “to a stable material prosperity not only to strengthen men’s bodies but to strengthen their souls.” Politically, the conference’s most important assertion was that many duties now performed by local and national governments “can now be effectively carried out only by international authority.” Individual nations, it declared, must give up their armed forces “except for preservation of domestic order” and allow the world to be policed by an international army & navy. This League-of-Nations-with-teeth would also have “the power of final judgment in controversies between nations . . the regulation of international trade and population movements among nations.” The ultimate goal: “a duly constituted world government of delegated powers: an international legislative body, an international court with adequate jurisdiction, international-administrative bodies with necessary powers, and adequate international police forces and provision for enforcing its worldwide economic authority.”

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