Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

engelsbergideas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 59 posts

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#41

Post by gonzo41 »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #8

The oldest democracy today is ~200 years old, and a modern democracy [1] for much less - 100 years. Still, we have been talking about democracy for at least 2300 years. If Plato had the answers, we should have learned by now. I think the jury is still out on wether this is just a matter of "bad implementation", or long-term democracy is an impossibility without degenerating into a dystopia. Also, funny way to "pick a…

Consider a democracy without capitalism. That's a combination I can't recall being tried. I think personal wealth and the associated detachment it gives people from thinking they are part of the masses is a problem for democracy.

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#42

Post by cttet »

hartator wrote: post #35
blululu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot to unpack here. China's response to Covid is maybe not the best, but Taiwan provides an excellent example of how a democracy can responsibly react to a crisis. The author's point that western governments have become woefully ineffective can be seen in other examples. A lot of civil institutions in the west are languishing and this should be improved regardless of what's happening in some foreign country. Finall…

> China's response to Covid is maybe not the best, but Taiwan provides an excellent Taiwan is not China.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#43

Post by _qulr »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #40
_qulr wrote: post #39

The last paragraph was a bizarre pivot to China, which no apparent justification for the analogy. As a totalitarian state, China would be the first to suppress and oppress philosophers. No freedom of thought. They'd put Plato to death much faster than Athens did to Socrates.

It's not bizarre. It's the culmination of an unfortunate "democracy is bad" and even "freedom is bad" undertone in the rest of the author's essay. Plato of course got a lot going for him, but The Republic never really solved the problem of making sure you get a philosopher-king instead of a tyrant. This essay's author declines to mention the possibility of tyrants because he knows it will undermine his argument badly…

> The Republic never really solved the problem of making sure you get a philosopher-king instead of a tyrant.

I disagree.

"train the guardians through a prolonged education that involves not just academic education but also character-training designed to ensure that guardians put the public good above private interests"

"the guardians should be banned from getting married or owning private property in order to focus their minds on the common good"

The point is that you don't just give any idiot supreme power after they win an election. The guardians go through lifelong training for rule, and only the best of the best, the most thoroughly tested, are left at the end of that process.

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#44

Post by _qulr »

Barrin92 wrote: post #31

There's good general stuff in the piece. Governance is important, we do need better governance, and we need to cultivate virtue and responsibility in citizens and leaders. That's all true but it's also kind of obvious. That things go to crap if society is run by private interest, greed or straight up clowns seems self-evident. But every time someone brings up old ideas, in this case Plato's philospher caste, there's…

> Good things don't vanish randomly. Whenever someone tries to restore some old form of governance the question needs to be answered why it died out.

Good things vanish because people forget history, or fail to learn it, and thus don't understand the reason why the things came to be. Consequently, we ignorantly and futilely attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#45

Post by llamaz »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #10
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #8

The oldest democracy today is ~200 years old, and a modern democracy [1] for much less - 100 years. Still, we have been talking about democracy for at least 2300 years. If Plato had the answers, we should have learned by now. I think the jury is still out on wether this is just a matter of "bad implementation", or long-term democracy is an impossibility without degenerating into a dystopia. Also, funny way to "pick a…

> If Plato had the answers, we should have learned by now. The passage of time doesn't implies moral progress, unlike natural sciences who progress is only forward. What I'm want to mean by this is: we'll do the same mistakes again and again and again.

Have you been reading John Gray too?

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#46

Post by dwohnitmok »

nine_zeros wrote: post #33
dwohnitmok wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait aren't these opposites? > 2 terms in most positions ought to remove all the oldies implementing policies of 70s on today's people. This sounds exactly like a problem of ideology, not financial gain.

When people are so entrenched and need to make a living, they will make a living out of what they are entrenched in. There are no other real career choices for them besides continuing in politics.

Isn't it the case that those politicians who leave office and continue to work (mostly those who are not of retirement age) almost always make more money in their post-office careers than while they were in-office as a politician?

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#47

Post by aebtebeten »

gonzo41 wrote: post #41
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #8

The oldest democracy today is ~200 years old, and a modern democracy [1] for much less - 100 years. Still, we have been talking about democracy for at least 2300 years. If Plato had the answers, we should have learned by now. I think the jury is still out on wether this is just a matter of "bad implementation", or long-term democracy is an impossibility without degenerating into a dystopia. Also, funny way to "pick a…

Consider a democracy without capitalism. That's a combination I can't recall being tried. I think personal wealth and the associated detachment it gives people from thinking they are part of the masses is a problem for democracy.

Plato addresses that notion, although he (outdoing Lycurgus) proposes aristocracy without capitalism.

(The Dictator's Handbook would say the difference between aristocracy and democracy is in the size of the selectorate, a distinction which is quantitative but not necessary qualititative.)

another take on guardians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvAsR4O4W0w

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#48

Post by 082349872349872 »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #8

The oldest democracy today is ~200 years old, and a modern democracy [1] for much less - 100 years. Still, we have been talking about democracy for at least 2300 years. If Plato had the answers, we should have learned by now. I think the jury is still out on wether this is just a matter of "bad implementation", or long-term democracy is an impossibility without degenerating into a dystopia. Also, funny way to "pick a…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Charter_of_1291

(Modern democracy only since 1971. Before you laugh, consider that we've now had 5 different female presidents from 3 different parties. Yes, consensus takes a while to achieve, but it also facilitates implementation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23415639 )

One can, of course, argue the continuity between the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Swiss_Confederacy and the current confederation. (especially due to Napoleon, whose infrastructural, legal, and social improvements we kept even after getting rid of his people, at the end of his interregnum) However, there have also been substantial changes in the selectorate of the US between the 13 colonies and today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lMOL7GaPWI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965

Re: Leadership in crisis – why the West needs Plato more than ever

#49

Post by 082349872349872 »

dynamite-ready wrote: post #5
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Good to see he mentions some of Plato's odder (to our eyes) ideas in The Republic . Add iPhones to them and one arguably winds up close to 1984 : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24069572

Take his ideas on procreation, and you'd also end up with a Brave New World.

load Tinder for the latter?

More seriously, does 1984 ever address the sex lives of the Inner Party? For all I know, they're also purely Platonic.

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZRA-Dwv86E

Post reply on HN