Plato was indeed a liberal, a liberal who wanted to repair the damage done by the late war where many old rules were broken by promoting new moral and religious model to be used by the polis. On this, the author is right.
At the same time, I wanted to point out two interesting sources. They are superficially related to this post, but they do deal with Plato. One attack the whole “gay” question in the classical Greece and is very useful to the pagans against both Christians and the Woke.
Another, even more foundational source look at how Plato inspired both Judaism and Christianity. It’s an expensive book but there is an Aussie guy who engaged it so throughly that his site is a good introduction to”Plato and the Hebrew Bible”. After I considered it I asked myself, “why worship the shadow when the Greek paganism is the sun?” It’s useful to see which parts of Plato’s thought were most effective and which were not.
Agree with you on the politics but I have two sincere questions about metaphysics and practice.
On metaphysics: What about Hegel's resolution of pantheism? That is, the Cosmos splits into being and matter and matter builds up into being and from there, the Cosmos. Nothing outside out of the Cosmos, everything inside infinitely divisible.
On practice: Everything makes sense until I bump up into practice in the real world. We cannot be pagans without a family, a tribe and a master and many here lack a family, a tribe and even decent friends.
First, we are the last men bereft of all tradition. Second, we can explain our predicament and even tradition itself rationally but that is precisely the problem, we can not sincerely believe that Zeus lives in an specific mountain and he turned into a bull. That is, we cannot go back but only push through decay and degeneracy (maybe). We cannot turn back the clock. So what now...
I don't agree that monism leads directly to atheism. In my experience, theism leads directly to atheism. Monism is simply difficult to imagine when immersed in the plurality of manifestation.
Platonism is an off-shoot of Pythagoreanism. Pythagoras had a good reputation among the Greeks. Plato and Socrates, on the other hand, did not. I was taught that Platonism was considered a cult, not a serious philosophy of any kind. That, in fact, it disappeared from view in the West until resusicated by Christian theologians to give aspects of their Chosenite One True God religion the imprimatur of 'the ancients'.
I've often wondered if Plato wasn't a satirist, if, in fact, the whole 'Plato' enterprise was his idea of an elaborate joke. He was the Borat of ancient Greek satirists.
Sometimes I wonder if Plato's Parmenides dialogue is a satire. "Here's what happens when you take Parmenides seriously enough." if so, the Neoplatonists didn't get the joke.
Nov 23, 2023·edited Dec 5, 2023Liked by Imperium Press
The most intriguing dialog is 'Protagoras'. Plato is very careful not to attack Protagoras directly because Protagoras - unlike Socrates or Plato - had a good reputation among the Greeks. If you don't read Plato as a 'thinker' but, instead as an 'interested party' in the War of The Rhetoricians, it's much easier to see his efforts to manipulate his audience (the reader) to take his side in things (whether justified or not).
The 'dialogic' form is a trick. It makes you believe that 'Socrates' (Plato) is actually engaging with the arguments of his opponents. Of course, he rarely does so, but even less so does he deal with the *ethos* of his interlocuters. The 'Protagoras' dialog is one of the few dialogs where Socrates' opponent is not only well-known but well-respected. As a consequence, Protagoras leaves the scene of the dialog before Socrates (Plato) confronts Protagoras' arguments.
BTW, the technique used by Socrates - the so-called 'Socratic dialogic' - was a specific *rhetorical* technique called 'elenchus', AKA 'word-parsing' or 'logic-chopping'. The 'elenchus' was just one of many techniques that were used by professional speech-makers in the days of the Greek polis.
It's still used today by those who attack White racial solidarity due to the inability provide a universally-acceptable abstract determinant for 'White'. In essence - and practice - the 'Socratic method' is the Heckler's Veto established as a philosophical criterion.
In the second book of the Republic, shortly after it's suggested to construct a city as metaphor for the soul, Socrates lays out a basic city populated by labourers, crafstmen and the like, without any of the outlandish stuff he will propose later on in the dialogue. A primitive society. He says this is an ideal and healthy city and I think even mentions how well it will be passed down to the inhabitants' children and so on.
Then Glaucon, I think, complains the city isn't enough, that it has no luxury, furniture or grand temples, or the ability to wage war on other cities; and Socrates basically throws his hands up and says "Fine, if you insist, let's keep adding this fancy stuff to our city and you'll see what weird shit we end up with. Buckle up for the next seven books"
Plato was indeed a liberal, a liberal who wanted to repair the damage done by the late war where many old rules were broken by promoting new moral and religious model to be used by the polis. On this, the author is right.
At the same time, I wanted to point out two interesting sources. They are superficially related to this post, but they do deal with Plato. One attack the whole “gay” question in the classical Greece and is very useful to the pagans against both Christians and the Woke.
https://archive.org/details/higmc/page/n48/mode/1up
Another, even more foundational source look at how Plato inspired both Judaism and Christianity. It’s an expensive book but there is an Aussie guy who engaged it so throughly that his site is a good introduction to”Plato and the Hebrew Bible”. After I considered it I asked myself, “why worship the shadow when the Greek paganism is the sun?” It’s useful to see which parts of Plato’s thought were most effective and which were not.
https://vridar.org/series-index/russell-gmirkin-plato-and-the-hebrew-bible/
Hope they will help.
Agree with you on the politics but I have two sincere questions about metaphysics and practice.
On metaphysics: What about Hegel's resolution of pantheism? That is, the Cosmos splits into being and matter and matter builds up into being and from there, the Cosmos. Nothing outside out of the Cosmos, everything inside infinitely divisible.
>>> Absolute spirit > Being > Essence > Notion > Mechanics > Physics > Organics > Subjective Spirit > Objective Spirit > Absolute Spirit >>>
On practice: Everything makes sense until I bump up into practice in the real world. We cannot be pagans without a family, a tribe and a master and many here lack a family, a tribe and even decent friends.
First, we are the last men bereft of all tradition. Second, we can explain our predicament and even tradition itself rationally but that is precisely the problem, we can not sincerely believe that Zeus lives in an specific mountain and he turned into a bull. That is, we cannot go back but only push through decay and degeneracy (maybe). We cannot turn back the clock. So what now...
I don't agree that monism leads directly to atheism. In my experience, theism leads directly to atheism. Monism is simply difficult to imagine when immersed in the plurality of manifestation.
Platonism is an off-shoot of Pythagoreanism. Pythagoras had a good reputation among the Greeks. Plato and Socrates, on the other hand, did not. I was taught that Platonism was considered a cult, not a serious philosophy of any kind. That, in fact, it disappeared from view in the West until resusicated by Christian theologians to give aspects of their Chosenite One True God religion the imprimatur of 'the ancients'.
I've often wondered if Plato wasn't a satirist, if, in fact, the whole 'Plato' enterprise was his idea of an elaborate joke. He was the Borat of ancient Greek satirists.
Sometimes I wonder if Plato's Parmenides dialogue is a satire. "Here's what happens when you take Parmenides seriously enough." if so, the Neoplatonists didn't get the joke.
The most intriguing dialog is 'Protagoras'. Plato is very careful not to attack Protagoras directly because Protagoras - unlike Socrates or Plato - had a good reputation among the Greeks. If you don't read Plato as a 'thinker' but, instead as an 'interested party' in the War of The Rhetoricians, it's much easier to see his efforts to manipulate his audience (the reader) to take his side in things (whether justified or not).
The 'dialogic' form is a trick. It makes you believe that 'Socrates' (Plato) is actually engaging with the arguments of his opponents. Of course, he rarely does so, but even less so does he deal with the *ethos* of his interlocuters. The 'Protagoras' dialog is one of the few dialogs where Socrates' opponent is not only well-known but well-respected. As a consequence, Protagoras leaves the scene of the dialog before Socrates (Plato) confronts Protagoras' arguments.
BTW, the technique used by Socrates - the so-called 'Socratic dialogic' - was a specific *rhetorical* technique called 'elenchus', AKA 'word-parsing' or 'logic-chopping'. The 'elenchus' was just one of many techniques that were used by professional speech-makers in the days of the Greek polis.
It's still used today by those who attack White racial solidarity due to the inability provide a universally-acceptable abstract determinant for 'White'. In essence - and practice - the 'Socratic method' is the Heckler's Veto established as a philosophical criterion.
In the second book of the Republic, shortly after it's suggested to construct a city as metaphor for the soul, Socrates lays out a basic city populated by labourers, crafstmen and the like, without any of the outlandish stuff he will propose later on in the dialogue. A primitive society. He says this is an ideal and healthy city and I think even mentions how well it will be passed down to the inhabitants' children and so on.
Then Glaucon, I think, complains the city isn't enough, that it has no luxury, furniture or grand temples, or the ability to wage war on other cities; and Socrates basically throws his hands up and says "Fine, if you insist, let's keep adding this fancy stuff to our city and you'll see what weird shit we end up with. Buckle up for the next seven books"