Well, Jeremy you and I have Platonism in common. So I don't have to adapt myself to your faith like I need to with the others. That said, I think that in the Platonic literature the situation is mostly the same. I consider us to be like Plato in Athens. The man's only real attempt at political reform was in a separate regime in Syracuse where he failed dramatically in his attempt to educate their tyrant. Subsequent platonic thinking ends up outright eliminating the kind of political philosophy you find in the Republic and the Laws, which is itself already many times removed from the kind of regime we actually live in.

I take it that the reason political philosophy was ultimately booted out of Platonism is because politics uncompromisingly forces one to neglect the highest truth in favor of the expediency of power. Even it a regime with good laws can only do so much since laws are, as it were, dead letter that cannot reason with us.

I guess the most optimistic thing I might be able to say about politics is is that at best a political life is thoroughly caught up in practical reason, which is insufficient for a person to fully attain virtue. I think the best account I could give of politics would still require that you understand it to be an insufficient activity full of a kind of compromise with the good, even if you stop short of calling it evil. However, I think our state, which is founded on liberty, seems to be founded on a kind of evil in and missconstitution, as was Athens in its own way. In that situation, I think all one can do is thank God that you have the opportunity for private virtue.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

I think politics is certainly an activity that is not ideal...

Here I must disagree.

Politics is eminently social and human. The family is stridently political and hierachical and must be in order to function (here we must ignore the foolish who think infants can or should command their parents about).

Politics is an outgrowth of our social being. Anyone who has ever felt the need to intervene in a broad family fall-out to preserve peace or unity or avoid unnecessary damage or dispute is being political. Political becomes negative and seems negative because by its nature it serves the social and, at the same time, can attack the same. Notwithstanding, the political can enshrine and entrench the social and the natural or proper order of human society.

To the proof (I believe) of my point, is the notorious "political compromise." What are such things aimed at? They are negatively associated because they at once tried (or try) to preserve a reality that the "compromise" did in fact undermine; namely, social unity or harmony.

And with that I rest my meagre case to save the God-foresaken politicians

Last edited by Timocrates (7/10/2015 1:37 am)

But what of the modern state? I will grant you the possibility of a virtuous politics- the Church, some families (though I'm not sure the bonds of family are properly political, just as, though differently, the relation between master and servant is not properly political), a small society of the wise, maybe even a small town where all know all -but a congressman? Who lives and breathes poll numbers and interests groups and party pressures? Even a very high level politician, who has high autonomy, is so detached from any sense of his actual work: he rules by numbers and the advice of others.

I am claiming that this modern state is evil, constitutionally so, and that it is inherently directed at vice because directed at a certain kind of freedom, and that the best you can do with it is a kind of channeling that in the right direction- as you can get a group of children to prefer vegetables to not eating at all.

Now, from Nietzsche, I have bought the claim that the West is caught in the grip of something you might call nihilism. If you're optimistic enough to think that the American (or wherever you may be) state and people are fundamentally virtuous and just need to be protected/corrected in some small area- some areas of sexual policy for instance -then it's very clear where my argument would have to start. I would have to argue that we are caught in a state of nihilism.

I am not at all this optimistic. On my view, I think sexuality is manifestly lost and that people have obviously lost the sense that there is some kind of mutually recognizable and meaningful understanding of sexuality beyond a very superficial set of pleasurable feelings and merely perfunctory conventions. Because there are clear realities about sexuality contained both in the phenomena itself and articulated in traditions still available (though politically marginalized) it is possible to figure that out for yourself, but this is a hard process for most people, few will reach it early in their lives, and those who attain it will communicate it badly for lack of a common framework for discussing it in any depth. I do not, however, think this is a simple problem, since the greater moral framework and even more general social framework has broken down and simplified into the most banal shallow common resource. It cannot be fixed with a law or two or a massive movement centered on defeating one or two or even a half dozen sexual laws. You will not save sexuality by, for instance, restricting abortion, birth control, gay marriage or even the "radical" (and unmentionable) measures of restricting adultery, divorce, and sodomy- even if you can manage sneak it in all at once. You won't save it because there is no common language for even understanding why you would even want to do this.

Plenty of people know in their hearts that this way of living and loving that most people carry on today isn't right, even harrowing, but few have any broad insight, and even fewer can communicate that outside an insular religious or local community or in spasms of sadness and dissatisfaction. There is only the barest remnant of a strong Western moral tradition alive now, which amounts to very little more than the fear of violence and discomfort.

Maybe very few people today are this pessimistic about the general Western situation. I think, however, that the fact that the religious now present to the public as an interest group and not a group speaking from a common moral understanding is vastly troubling. When the Gnu atheists can speak *with ease* to an educated public about the moral confusion of religious people and not be laughed away, that's frightening.

If, however, we agree that there's a general case of vice in this state- a Babylonian captivity -then all we have to argue about is the proper way to rule amongst the viscous. I favor a kind of utilitarian principal, where you direct them to the least sin, given that they are determined to sin in some way (in this case- 'if you are going to insist on sleeping with your closest friend, try to make something out of it'). Quietism is also an option. But whatever you do, I would never seek to thrown those few avenues of genuine virtue- the Church, tradition, philosophical wisdom -into political disrepute so that they might be available to save the few.

In short:

Do you think *this* state generally corrupt? 

Or do you only think the modern world is astray in a few areas?

Last edited by iwpoe (7/10/2015 4:16 am)

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Sorry, my post was ambiguous. I was referring in that passage to earthly politics always involving imperfections.

I am not sure if politics would be necessary if all men were Saints, but I agree with Aquinas and not with Augustine about the positive nature of the state.

I do think Daniel is correct that there can be too much of a concern with social virtue. This is obvious when the Saint or monk or mystic is derided for not contributing to society, but there are many other instances. Certainly civic virtue is not the end of life.

Of course civic virtue is not the end of life; indeed, civic virtue is for human society.

And the state is instituted by God.

Timocrates wrote:

In my experience wrestling with things philosophically, I have found that clarity does not come easily but once it comes it's almost difficult to understand how you could ever have believed otherwise or doubted the truth. That is, it is as if it was obvious all along.

Yes, it is very much like that.  Plato describes it exactly this way (or rather, Alcibiades does) in his speech at the end of the Symposium.