1 00:00:00,010 --> 00:00:04,702 >> Two in San Jose and 59 degrees in downtown San Francisco. 2 00:00:04,702 --> 00:00:11,250 [ Music ] 3 00:00:11,269 --> 00:00:17,120 >> Right, ladies and gentlemen, Michael Savage, Hot Talk 560 KSFO. We're talking 4 00:00:17,140 --> 00:00:20,910 about what kind of world do you want to live in? What highway are we on? Do we 5 00:00:20,910 --> 00:00:23,910 want to be on this highway? Do we want to create a new highway? What did Plato 6 00:00:23,910 --> 00:00:27,269 say? This guy knew what was going on, but that was Greece. This is San 7 00:00:27,269 --> 00:00:28,369 Francisco. 8 00:00:28,389 --> 00:00:33,329 >> Is that the idea area? To keep talking until, finally, we get it right? We're 9 00:00:33,350 --> 00:00:37,899 having the same conversations Plato and his friends had back in 400 BC. 10 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:39,217 [ Multiple Speakers ] 11 00:00:39,237 --> 00:00:41,030 >> Did you see the paper the other day about that high school student who was 12 00:00:41,030 --> 00:00:42,030 caught cheating on her college boards. 13 00:00:42,030 --> 00:00:43,239 >> Yeah, I read that, yeah. 14 00:00:42,869 --> 00:00:43,869 >> Oh, yeah. 15 00:00:43,869 --> 00:00:47,769 >> She said her teacher gave her the answers and told her that everyone cheats. 16 00:00:47,789 --> 00:00:48,789 That's the way the world works. 17 00:00:48,789 --> 00:00:51,829 >> But I think it's sad. People are under a lot of pressure. 18 00:00:51,849 --> 00:00:55,859 >> Let's face it here. If you were guaranteed that no one would find out, 19 00:00:55,879 --> 00:00:59,019 wouldn't you cheat? 20 00:00:59,039 --> 00:01:09,930 >> Would you cheat? Would you? What if there was a world where nobody cheated, 21 00:01:09,950 --> 00:01:15,024 and philosophers were the kings? 22 00:01:15,043 --> 00:01:45,043 [ Music ] 23 00:01:46,609 --> 00:01:51,549 This is a book that pulls you in, plays with your mind, and dares you to put it 24 00:01:51,569 --> 00:01:53,849 down without saying what you think. 25 00:01:53,869 --> 00:01:59,450 >> Plato's Republic has the kind of power to intrigue and infuriate that few 26 00:01:59,469 --> 00:02:06,239 works can equal. You can argue about anything from whether we should allow 27 00:02:06,259 --> 00:02:10,999 certain kinds of music to be sold, whether we should censor the arts. 28 00:02:11,019 --> 00:02:12,379 >> What is justice? 29 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:14,439 >> What is a great society? What ought to be? 30 00:02:14,439 --> 00:02:16,439 >> What is authentic, and what is fake? 31 00:02:16,460 --> 00:02:17,460 >> How one has knowledge. 32 00:02:17,460 --> 00:02:19,509 >> What do we teach the young? 33 00:02:19,530 --> 00:02:23,269 >> Whatever it is, it's somewhere in Plato. 34 00:02:23,289 --> 00:02:28,609 >> Plato's Republic follows the intellectual adventures of Socrates, who one 35 00:02:28,629 --> 00:02:35,459 night, 24 centuries ago, created an ideal city, the Republic, were all of 36 00:02:35,479 --> 00:02:38,109 mankind's problems are solved. 37 00:02:38,129 --> 00:02:41,369 >> This book, the Plato's Republic, changed my life. 38 00:02:41,389 --> 00:02:45,049 >> William Bennett, former Secretary of Education of the United States says it 39 00:02:45,069 --> 00:02:47,409 encouraged him to go into politics. 40 00:02:47,429 --> 00:02:51,419 >> Plato says, yeah, we better have censorship in the ideal republic, because 41 00:02:51,439 --> 00:02:55,310 you're going to have otherwise you're going to have license. Everyone's going to 42 00:02:55,310 --> 00:02:59,669 do what they see on the video tape, and the videotape didn't even exist. He said 43 00:02:59,689 --> 00:03:02,979 he would kick out the poets, too. Go up to North Beach, I tend to agree with 44 00:03:02,979 --> 00:03:03,979 him. 45 00:03:03,979 --> 00:03:09,139 >> Mike Savage, a radio talk show host, who bills himself as the compassionate 46 00:03:09,159 --> 00:03:13,189 conservative, reads it regularly to his listeners. 47 00:03:13,209 --> 00:03:17,289 >> It's sort of an internal chess game that I play with myself, and I will read 48 00:03:17,289 --> 00:03:22,489 a few pages and find my mind, for, let's say, the pieces of thoughts that dance 49 00:03:22,509 --> 00:03:27,229 around in my head sometimes that get out of control fall in place. It's a way of 50 00:03:27,250 --> 00:03:33,229 ordering my mind, my imagination, and all of my mental faculties. 51 00:03:33,250 --> 00:03:36,669 >> Nobel prize-winning poet, Joseph Brodsky dismisses it. 52 00:03:36,689 --> 00:03:39,310 >> There are people, and people, you see, and this is what Plato couldn't 53 00:03:39,310 --> 00:03:46,699 understand. He thought that all people should be like, well, let's say himself. 54 00:03:46,719 --> 00:03:49,619 >> Novelist Joyce Carol-Oates questions his sanity. 55 00:03:49,639 --> 00:03:58,209 >> The Platonic vision is basically somewhat unreal. It's basically mad. 56 00:03:58,229 --> 00:04:04,199 >> Madman? Visionary? Plato has been hailed as the father of philosophy, the 57 00:04:04,219 --> 00:04:10,579 first feminist, a dangerously na�ve idealist, and a fascist. The fact is, we 58 00:04:10,599 --> 00:04:15,389 know very little about him or what he meant by his greatest book. 59 00:04:15,409 --> 00:04:20,569 >> It was, indeed, a kind of thought experiment to show the impossibility 60 00:04:20,589 --> 00:04:27,329 precisely of a perfectly just, perfectly communal, perfectly rational society. 61 00:04:27,349 --> 00:04:30,699 What the limits are, the limits that are rooted in our human nature. 62 00:04:30,719 --> 00:04:35,850 >> I think it's the deepest challenge against our way of life that there has 63 00:04:35,870 --> 00:04:42,170 ever been, and a deep challenge, because it has a kind of great nobility and 64 00:04:42,189 --> 00:04:43,780 beauty to it. 65 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:50,280 >> Plato was born in a place that worshiped beauty and knowledge, Athens, 428 66 00:04:50,300 --> 00:04:55,920 years before the birth of Christ. The newly completed Parthenon towered over the 67 00:04:55,939 --> 00:05:00,110 city, another crowning achievement to the world's first democracy. This was the 68 00:05:00,129 --> 00:05:04,280 golden age, where the first plays were performed and the first histories of the 69 00:05:04,300 --> 00:05:09,780 world were written, a time when the Athenians produced art and ideas that we 70 00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:10,941 still marvel at. 71 00:05:10,961 --> 00:05:18,370 [ Music ] 72 00:05:18,389 --> 00:05:24,319 But it was also a time of devastating human loss. For the first 23 years of 73 00:05:24,339 --> 00:05:31,629 Plato's life, the Peloponnesian war raged between Athens and its neighbor, 74 00:05:31,649 --> 00:05:36,420 Sparta. Plato watched as the Athenian democracy was overthrown by a aristocrats, 75 00:05:36,439 --> 00:05:42,899 then replaced by dictators before democracy sees control once again. The one 76 00:05:42,919 --> 00:05:48,139 constant through it all, in Plato's view, seemed to be corruption, brutality, 77 00:05:48,159 --> 00:05:53,810 and blind ambition. Still, he probably would've ended up in politics like the 78 00:05:53,829 --> 00:05:59,720 rest of his wealthy family if he hadn't met a sidewalk philosopher named 79 00:05:59,740 --> 00:06:01,889 Socrates. 80 00:06:01,909 --> 00:06:06,209 >> Socrates seemed to have stood out in absolutely every possible way. He said 81 00:06:06,229 --> 00:06:13,750 that he was to Athens what a gadfly is to a large, lazy horse, in that the gods 82 00:06:13,769 --> 00:06:19,110 had sent him there to prick Athens and to irritate it and to make it think 83 00:06:19,129 --> 00:06:22,370 seriously about the kind of life that its citizens were leading. He was there to 84 00:06:22,370 --> 00:06:23,370 make people uncomfortable. 85 00:06:23,370 --> 00:06:28,000 >> Ever says this scum set up shop here, he's made me work twice as hard. 86 00:06:28,019 --> 00:06:30,919 >> So you say Simmias here is your enemy, because he makes you work harder than 87 00:06:30,919 --> 00:06:31,919 you did before? 88 00:06:31,919 --> 00:06:34,500 >> Well, isn't that enough to make any man your enemy? 89 00:06:34,500 --> 00:06:36,620 >> But an enemy is a man who does you evil, isn't he? 90 00:06:36,620 --> 00:06:38,459 >> Any fool knows that. 91 00:06:38,479 --> 00:06:40,589 >> And a friend is one who does you good. 92 00:06:40,589 --> 00:06:41,589 >> Any fool knows that, too. 93 00:06:41,589 --> 00:06:45,479 >> But what a fool does not know is what is good and what is evil. Now you make 94 00:06:45,479 --> 00:06:49,459 better vases and you work harder because of Simmias's competition, do you not? 95 00:06:49,479 --> 00:06:57,290 >> To talk to Socrates was to be taken down the garden path at the end of which 96 00:06:57,310 --> 00:07:02,449 one finds that, alas, you don't know what you're talking about. So it's fun to 97 00:07:02,469 --> 00:07:08,469 read the works. You sympathize with the person Socrates is questioning, and you 98 00:07:08,489 --> 00:07:14,420 have a sense that this poor person is being had, but you don't know exactly how 99 00:07:14,439 --> 00:07:18,980 it's being done. Socrates is the master of this. He can give you enough rope to 100 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:22,579 hang yourself, and he always does. 101 00:07:22,599 --> 00:07:26,389 >> The master wrote nothing himself. We know him through writers like the 102 00:07:26,409 --> 00:07:31,969 general, Xenophon, and the comic poet, Aristophanes, who lampooned Socrates as 103 00:07:31,989 --> 00:07:33,209 the proprietor of a thinking shop. 104 00:07:33,209 --> 00:07:34,209 >> Anger. 105 00:07:34,209 --> 00:07:36,229 >> I told you once, Simmias, and I won't tell you again. 106 00:07:36,229 --> 00:07:37,670 >> Anger always interests me. 107 00:07:37,689 --> 00:07:38,750 >> Protagoras. 108 00:07:38,769 --> 00:07:43,439 >> But the infamous Socratic method was captured most vividly by Plato in a 109 00:07:43,459 --> 00:07:49,509 series of imaginary conversations known as The Dialogs. He made his mentor the 110 00:07:49,529 --> 00:07:56,410 main character of more than 20 books, including The Republic. The action begins 111 00:07:56,430 --> 00:08:03,839 at the port of Piraeus, just outside Athens. Socrates bumps into an old friend 112 00:08:03,859 --> 00:08:10,939 who invites him home to a party. It's there that he seizes the occasion to start 113 00:08:10,959 --> 00:08:13,699 a conversation that will last all night. 114 00:08:13,719 --> 00:08:21,639 >>Cephalus, it's clear that you're a good and decent man, so if anybody knows 115 00:08:21,659 --> 00:08:24,639 what it means to be a good and just person, it's you. 116 00:08:24,639 --> 00:08:30,750 >> I have been able to proceed through life with a clear conscience. I haven't 117 00:08:30,769 --> 00:08:35,688 been tempted to cheat or deceive someone to survive. I pay my bills. 118 00:08:35,708 --> 00:08:37,700 Occasionally, I give to a good cause. 119 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:44,049 >> So if I understand you, Cephalus, to be a good person means to tell the truth 120 00:08:44,068 --> 00:08:46,689 and to pay your debts. 121 00:08:46,709 --> 00:08:47,709 >> Well, Socrates -- 122 00:08:47,709 --> 00:08:56,740 >> The main argument of the Republic is an argument about being a good person, 123 00:08:56,759 --> 00:09:01,340 but the term that's usually used in translations is justice and what's at stake 124 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:03,850 is the definition of justice. 125 00:09:03,870 --> 00:09:06,689 >> The style of the book's like the Johnny Carson show. Here we are, we're 126 00:09:06,689 --> 00:09:10,569 gathered together. We're talking. Let's meet so-and-so. Let's see what he has to 127 00:09:10,569 --> 00:09:14,209 say. Let's meet Cephalus. Well, Cephalus, come on out and tell us what you think 128 00:09:14,209 --> 00:09:17,480 about things. Well, Polemarchus, come on out. What do you think? Well, here's 129 00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:21,299 that crazy guy, Thrasymachus. Come on out, Thrasymachus. What do you think it 130 00:09:21,319 --> 00:09:25,860 is? Well, it's like an ongoing, you know, late-night TV show with these 131 00:09:25,879 --> 00:09:29,580 "experts" coming on. Here's your interviewer, your moderator, who says, well, 132 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:34,980 that won't do. No, that idea of justice won't do and this idea, and the audience 133 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:36,079 gets caught up in it. 134 00:09:36,079 --> 00:09:43,960 >> A man has lent you a weapon and now wants to have it back, but in the 135 00:09:43,980 --> 00:09:49,450 meanwhile, he believes his wife's having an affair with someone else, and he's 136 00:09:49,470 --> 00:09:55,100 desperate and actually wants to kill himself. Would it be right to give him what 137 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:57,539 is rightfully his? 138 00:09:57,559 --> 00:09:59,539 >> No, I suppose not. 139 00:09:59,559 --> 00:10:04,580 >> So in this case, doing the right thing would, in fact, be doing the wrong 140 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:11,379 thing. It's perfectly obvious that everyone is just doing what is in their best 141 00:10:11,399 --> 00:10:15,980 interests. The reality is that justice in this day and age is in what's in the 142 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:20,649 interest of the stronger party. As a matter fact, I'll take it even further. The 143 00:10:20,669 --> 00:10:23,429 advantage goes to the unjust person every single time. 144 00:10:23,449 --> 00:10:25,529 >> Let's see if I understand you. 145 00:10:25,549 --> 00:10:30,549 >> At this point in the story, Socrates smashes the theory that might makes 146 00:10:30,569 --> 00:10:35,169 right, but back in Athens, might smashed right. The leaders of the shaky 147 00:10:35,189 --> 00:10:41,169 democracy had only had only recently lost the Peloponnesian war. They were tired 148 00:10:41,189 --> 00:10:46,090 of being stunned by Socrates's sharp tongue. In 399 BC, the 69-year-old 149 00:10:46,110 --> 00:10:50,319 philosopher was brought to trial for undermining the system. 150 00:10:50,339 --> 00:10:54,240 >> The official charge was that he did not believe in the gods of the city, and 151 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:58,580 that he corrupted the young. He showed you how to find holes in what other 152 00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:03,039 people believed but didn't necessarily, in fact never, substituted something 153 00:11:03,059 --> 00:11:07,350 positive in its place, and that was seen as a very dangerous thing, which in 154 00:11:07,370 --> 00:11:12,919 fact, it was. After all, Plato, his greatest disciple, was also the greatest 155 00:11:12,939 --> 00:11:15,610 critic Athens has ever had. 156 00:11:15,629 --> 00:11:20,740 >> Socrates's trial was attended by health of Athens, including Plato. He says 157 00:11:20,759 --> 00:11:25,569 Socrates was offered his freedom if he would just stop questioning people, but 158 00:11:25,589 --> 00:11:31,370 he refused, proclaiming that the unexamined life was not worth living. Found 159 00:11:31,389 --> 00:11:36,149 guilty by a jury of 500, he suggested he be sentenced to free meals at city hall 160 00:11:36,169 --> 00:11:41,230 for the rest of his life. They didn't laugh. He was condemned to die by drinking 161 00:11:41,250 --> 00:11:45,600 a poison made from the hemlock plant. 162 00:11:45,620 --> 00:11:48,980 [ Music ] 163 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:52,049 Plato's account of the death of Socrates made him a symbol of free speech and 164 00:11:52,049 --> 00:11:54,529 the favorite subject for artists like Jacques-Louis David. 165 00:11:54,549 --> 00:12:00,769 >> His friends come to say goodbye to him, and he spends the whole day trying to 166 00:12:00,789 --> 00:12:06,220 convince them that the soul is immortal, and then after he dies, the soul, which 167 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:10,389 is the most valuable part of the human being, is going to remain perfectly 168 00:12:10,409 --> 00:12:14,019 unharmed. Socrates takes the poison and starts drinking it and continues 169 00:12:14,039 --> 00:12:19,539 discussing the issues. The executioner says "Please don't do that, because if 170 00:12:19,559 --> 00:12:23,299 you get agitated and talk too much, the poison doesn't work so quickly." 171 00:12:23,319 --> 00:12:25,039 Socrates says, "No leave me alone," he says. "Leave us alone, my good man. Your 172 00:12:25,039 --> 00:12:31,360 job is to give the poison as many times as it takes to kill me. My job is to 173 00:12:31,379 --> 00:12:37,110 have a discussion for as long as I can." He insisted on talking until the very, 174 00:12:37,129 --> 00:12:45,299 very end. Plato closes the dialogue by describing him as the best, the wisest, 175 00:12:45,319 --> 00:12:50,210 and the most just man of all we knew at that time. 176 00:12:50,230 --> 00:12:55,919 >> The martyrdom of Socrates made a political career unthinkable Plato. He spent 177 00:12:55,939 --> 00:13:01,509 the rest of his life carrying on his teacher's work. Nobody knows for sure where 178 00:13:01,529 --> 00:13:07,909 Socrates's ideas leave off and Plato's begin. Over time, the two names have 179 00:13:07,929 --> 00:13:14,350 become interchangeable. It is as Socrates that Plato plans a new world, where 180 00:13:14,370 --> 00:13:20,500 wisdom, not power rules, and it is Socrates who explains why philosophers must 181 00:13:20,519 --> 00:13:25,759 be its catalyst. Until philosophers are kings or the kings and princes of this 182 00:13:25,779 --> 00:13:30,370 world have the spirit and the power of philosophy and political greatness and 183 00:13:30,389 --> 00:13:34,949 wisdom meet in one, our cities will never have rest from their evils. No, nor 184 00:13:34,969 --> 00:13:46,929 the human race. Back at the party, Socrates has turned into the dinner guest 185 00:13:46,949 --> 00:13:49,709 from hell. The rest of the company has been drawn into the debate. 186 00:13:49,709 --> 00:13:53,399 >> You want me to prove that virtue is its own worth. 187 00:13:53,419 --> 00:13:58,350 >> But you have to prove that the good and honest person who goes unrewarded and 188 00:13:58,370 --> 00:14:01,553 unrecognized comes out ahead in the end. 189 00:14:01,573 --> 00:14:02,573 >> You're on. 190 00:14:02,573 --> 00:14:05,360 [ Chuckling ] 191 00:14:05,379 --> 00:14:12,269 We'll begin with a very simple society with men and women leading very basic 192 00:14:12,289 --> 00:14:13,769 lives, living close -- 193 00:14:13,789 --> 00:14:19,389 >> And so Socrates begins to fantasize the first utopia in Western literature. 194 00:14:19,409 --> 00:14:26,899 Perhaps they can find that good person with the best life here, he reasons. For 195 00:14:26,919 --> 00:14:33,009 after all, society is just the soul writ large. 196 00:14:33,029 --> 00:14:36,169 >> He originally creates the city as a device, in order to understand something 197 00:14:36,169 --> 00:14:41,279 about human beings. He wants to say that each of us is made up of three parts. 198 00:14:41,299 --> 00:14:46,110 There's a rational part. There's an emotional part that loves honor and gets 199 00:14:46,129 --> 00:14:50,529 angry and so on, and then there's what he calls the appetitive part, which is 200 00:14:50,549 --> 00:14:56,169 the part that wants food and drink and sex and so on, the bodily appetites. 201 00:14:56,189 --> 00:15:00,730 >> Those animal appetites must be kept in their cages. Reason and honor will 202 00:15:00,750 --> 00:15:08,399 rule the republic, just like the well-ordered soul. Everybody gets one job for 203 00:15:08,419 --> 00:15:17,199 life, and a color-coded class, bronze for workers, merchants, and artisans. 204 00:15:17,219 --> 00:15:25,689 Silver for police and soldiers. And pure gold, naturally, for the philosopher 205 00:15:25,709 --> 00:15:26,709 King. 206 00:15:26,709 --> 00:15:32,699 >> See, he said that there's three types of people, the gold person, the silver 207 00:15:32,719 --> 00:15:36,929 person, etc. Now you may say, oh, my God. That means some people are not as good 208 00:15:36,929 --> 00:15:38,839 as others. Well, let me ask you something -- 209 00:15:38,839 --> 00:15:41,039 >> Who's to determine what class they get into? 210 00:15:41,039 --> 00:15:45,199 >> It's real simple. I could never be a linebacker. I said that yesterday on the 211 00:15:45,219 --> 00:15:50,600 49ers, but don't let me sit and listen to somebody tell me every 49er is capable 212 00:15:50,620 --> 00:15:52,000 of being a poet or philosopher. 213 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:53,000 >> Right. 214 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,299 >> We're not equal. 215 00:15:55,319 --> 00:15:58,740 >> In Plato's Republic, the philosopher kings would much prefer to be off 216 00:15:58,759 --> 00:16:05,829 thinking, but duty requires them to rule the state. Eternal bonding is 217 00:16:05,849 --> 00:16:10,709 forbidden. It might detract from loyalty to the state. Mothers care for babies, 218 00:16:10,729 --> 00:16:16,419 but they aren't told which ones are their own. A child's place is determined not 219 00:16:16,439 --> 00:16:25,909 by sex or race, but purely by intelligence. A farmer's daughter might become a 220 00:16:25,929 --> 00:16:26,929 philosopher queen. 221 00:16:26,929 --> 00:16:32,069 >> He does imagine that there will be some women all the way up to the top 222 00:16:32,089 --> 00:16:37,110 class. "If then, we use the women for the same ends as the men, we must teach 223 00:16:37,129 --> 00:16:42,319 them the same things. Yes, the males received an education consisted of 224 00:16:42,339 --> 00:16:47,750 literature and athletics, yes. Then we should give these two sorts of training 225 00:16:47,769 --> 00:16:51,490 to the women, too, and military training also, and we should treat them in the 226 00:16:51,490 --> 00:16:53,279 same way." 227 00:16:53,299 --> 00:16:58,839 >> Repos in Plato's time probably greeted this with astonishment. Athenian women 228 00:16:58,859 --> 00:17:06,460 had no vote and virtually no education. Often, the weren't even the sexual 229 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:14,279 partners of choice. Wives didn't eat at the same table as their husbands, let 230 00:17:14,299 --> 00:17:16,858 alone fight beside them at war. 231 00:17:16,878 --> 00:17:22,269 >> It's a world in which men and women are completely equalized on the premise 232 00:17:22,289 --> 00:17:27,049 that women must never again be mothers. So I think what Plato means to say is 233 00:17:27,069 --> 00:17:31,839 this is what it would take to really overcome sexual differentiation and 234 00:17:31,859 --> 00:17:32,859 hierarchy. 235 00:17:32,859 --> 00:17:38,160 >> Was the Republic meant as a straightforward blueprint or a political satire, 236 00:17:38,180 --> 00:17:41,599 as many scholars insist. Maybe some of both. 237 00:17:41,619 --> 00:17:45,680 >> There is the sense that in his city, I would not be able to do what I liked. 238 00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:50,940 There is a sense in which I would not be able to have my own family in my city. 239 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:57,029 Those are very, very frightening ideas. On the other hand, on the other hand, 240 00:17:57,049 --> 00:18:08,680 there's this incredible love of learning, of understanding, of trying to fit all 241 00:18:08,700 --> 00:18:12,759 the various pieces of our lives and of the world together in such a way that 242 00:18:12,779 --> 00:18:19,569 they can't even for one moment, make sense to us. It's such a powerful idea that 243 00:18:19,589 --> 00:18:24,039 there are moments when you say, even if the price is the other, it might be 244 00:18:24,059 --> 00:18:25,920 worth paying. 245 00:18:25,940 --> 00:18:31,250 >> Plato doesn't want the rulers fighting over money or personal relationships. 246 00:18:31,269 --> 00:18:35,269 So he doesn't give them any. The rest are allowed the comforts of their own 247 00:18:35,279 --> 00:18:43,069 homes and families but have no say in how things are run. Those who have can't 248 00:18:43,089 --> 00:18:51,069 rule. Those who rule can't have. It's an interesting idea. To keep up the 249 00:18:51,089 --> 00:18:56,079 quality of the flock, the philosopher kings secretly rig periodic meeting 250 00:18:56,099 --> 00:19:00,809 lotteries to produce the best possible offspring. Once the children are born, 251 00:19:00,829 --> 00:19:06,461 the society begins shaping their characters early and carefully. 252 00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:10,079 [ Music ] 253 00:19:10,099 --> 00:19:14,240 "Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales, which may be 254 00:19:14,259 --> 00:19:19,599 devised by casual persons? And to receive into their minds ideas, for the most 255 00:19:19,619 --> 00:19:23,119 part, the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they're 256 00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:25,759 grown up? We cannot." 257 00:19:25,779 --> 00:19:29,139 >> William Bennett's collection of stories, The Book of Virtues, starts with 258 00:19:29,159 --> 00:19:31,480 that quote from The Republic. 259 00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:36,139 >> There's really only one fundamental political question, and that is the 260 00:19:36,159 --> 00:19:38,869 education of the young. It's a very platonic thought. I mean, I think anyone 261 00:19:38,869 --> 00:19:43,529 would agree. What do we tell them about ethics? What do we tell them about jobs, 262 00:19:43,549 --> 00:19:48,670 life, career, destiny, fate? Isn't that what determines the future of this 263 00:19:48,690 --> 00:19:52,690 country, education? And that is, essentially, what he saying in this book. That 264 00:19:52,710 --> 00:19:54,990 the whole course of a city state and the whole course of a life depends upon 265 00:19:54,990 --> 00:19:56,912 education. 266 00:19:56,932 --> 00:20:02,149 [ Multiple Speakers ] 267 00:20:02,169 --> 00:20:07,170 >> To ensure that the Republic remains on course, the children are only allowed 268 00:20:07,190 --> 00:20:13,869 to hear heroic and uplifting tales. Homer's stories about the gods temper 269 00:20:13,889 --> 00:20:18,539 tantrums and carousing with humans are out. So is rowdy music. 270 00:20:18,559 --> 00:20:23,029 >> This is Zeus. 271 00:20:23,049 --> 00:20:27,940 >> Socrates decrees that any poet who refuses to produce politically correct 272 00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:33,559 fairytales will be banished from the kingdom. 273 00:20:33,579 --> 00:20:37,839 >> "The first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction 274 00:20:37,859 --> 00:20:41,680 and let the sensors receive any tale of fiction which is good and reject the 275 00:20:41,700 --> 00:20:46,480 bad. And we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized 276 00:20:46,500 --> 00:20:53,649 ones only." Well, this is just a very spirit of the dictator. 277 00:20:53,669 --> 00:20:57,670 >> Censoring storytelling in ancient Athens would be like censoring TV in our 278 00:20:57,690 --> 00:21:03,980 own culture. The tragic plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus were the free press of 279 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:11,470 their day. And Homer, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, was a read as a guide 280 00:21:11,490 --> 00:21:18,009 to life and revered as a god. Plato thought that was unhealthy. As he puts it in 281 00:21:18,029 --> 00:21:24,629 The Republic, "Good role models don't make good theater." He doubted whether 282 00:21:24,649 --> 00:21:28,649 average citizens could separate reality from fantasy and worried that they might 283 00:21:28,669 --> 00:21:30,730 imitate the world they saw on the stage. 284 00:21:30,750 --> 00:21:36,940 >> And he said if amusements become lawless and the youths themselves become 285 00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:41,399 lawless, they could never grow up into well conducted and virtuous citizens. 286 00:21:41,419 --> 00:21:48,690 >> Who is to give the guidance that's most authoritative in life? Is it to be 287 00:21:48,710 --> 00:21:54,099 the philosopher, which includes the scientists, the man of reason? Or is it to 288 00:21:54,119 --> 00:22:00,200 be the poet, the person or man of inspiration of the gods, of revelation, of 289 00:22:00,220 --> 00:22:09,220 mystery? And Socrates insistence is the poets need, finally, to bow to reason. 290 00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:13,629 That would be one of the great costs of a perfectly just society. If you're 291 00:22:13,649 --> 00:22:19,220 going to say everyone must be brothers and sisters, don't expect Shakespeare or 292 00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,369 Goethe or Aristophanes to be part of it. 293 00:22:22,389 --> 00:22:28,309 >> "From my window at dusk, I would watch the horde of bleating automobiles, as 294 00:22:28,329 --> 00:22:34,869 they flash back and forth past shapely, nude columns and Dordic hairdos, 295 00:22:34,889 --> 00:22:38,019 standing pale and un-rebellious on the steps of the city court." 296 00:22:38,039 --> 00:22:42,680 >> For the late Russian poet, Joseph Brodsky, this is no theoretical discussion. 297 00:22:42,700 --> 00:22:49,009 He lived in Plato's Republic Soviet style. Jailed four times, he was finally 298 00:22:49,029 --> 00:22:50,210 exiled as a social parasite. 299 00:22:50,210 --> 00:22:55,549 >> There is a certain point that it was allowed in the city, well, and a certain 300 00:22:55,569 --> 00:23:00,349 point which it wasn't. As simple as that. The state was simply doing the 301 00:23:00,369 --> 00:23:07,970 discerning job, which is, essentially, a very Platonic idea in the sense, 302 00:23:07,990 --> 00:23:14,039 because what it does, it simply subordinates ascetics to the ethics. This is 303 00:23:14,059 --> 00:23:20,720 exactly what Plato is all about, and this is garbage. Well, aesthetic is, how 304 00:23:20,740 --> 00:23:24,829 should I put it to you? Aesthetics is the mother of ethics, not the other way 305 00:23:24,849 --> 00:23:28,770 around. No matter how ethical society can build, it won't secure the 306 00:23:28,790 --> 00:23:31,520 masterpiece. Good ethics don't. 307 00:23:31,540 --> 00:23:39,930 [ Music ] 308 00:23:39,950 --> 00:23:44,049 >> Plato thought reason should rule in his republic. We think he pushed it a 309 00:23:44,069 --> 00:23:47,029 little too far. We reject the eugenics. We reject the imposition of order. We 310 00:23:47,029 --> 00:23:51,129 would reject the censorship. No, there's too much totalitarianism here. There's 311 00:23:51,149 --> 00:23:54,930 too much utopian totalitarianism. There's too much tyranny. There's too much the 312 00:23:54,950 --> 00:23:56,149 smart guys know best. 313 00:23:56,169 --> 00:23:59,129 >> When he gets to the point of saying you shouldn't love your children. We 314 00:23:59,129 --> 00:24:02,849 should structure the city in such a way that we don't even know who our own 315 00:24:02,849 --> 00:24:13,799 children are, so that we won't have these intense personal attachments, you 316 00:24:13,819 --> 00:24:14,819 can't run a city that way, because if people don't love their own, that they're 317 00:24:14,819 --> 00:24:15,819 not going to care about anything else either. The vision of The Republic is a 318 00:24:15,819 --> 00:24:19,680 vision of justice and harmony. Well, people are not going to be harmonious, 319 00:24:19,700 --> 00:24:23,599 because people are going to insist upon, in the face of all these laws, 320 00:24:23,619 --> 00:24:27,460 committing adultery. They're going to have romantic liaisons. Children are not 321 00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:33,569 going to want to be taken from their mothers. Mothers are going to love their 322 00:24:33,589 --> 00:24:37,549 children. Somebody's going to want to create music. Everybody is born with the 323 00:24:37,569 --> 00:24:43,750 specific spiritual identity, and we're not worker ants. I'm not sure that ants 324 00:24:43,769 --> 00:24:48,859 are happy. I really wouldn't want to be an ant to find out. 325 00:24:48,879 --> 00:24:53,200 >> I don't think any serious person could agree that The Republic is really a 326 00:24:53,220 --> 00:24:56,990 good place to live in, and I doubt very much whether Socrates or Plato did. The 327 00:24:56,990 --> 00:25:02,619 Republic is meant by Plato to prove that philosophers can never be kings, and 328 00:25:02,639 --> 00:25:07,149 that we can never have a completely communistic society. It establishes the 329 00:25:07,169 --> 00:25:12,529 limits of politics, I think, more clearly and more profoundly than any thinker 330 00:25:12,549 --> 00:25:17,509 ever has, precisely by pressing those limits of this fantastic thought 331 00:25:17,529 --> 00:25:18,690 experiment. 332 00:25:18,710 --> 00:25:23,730 >> My own view is that he believed it. He believed every word of it, and he 333 00:25:23,750 --> 00:25:29,369 never had a doubt that if his city was installed, it would be the best city in 334 00:25:29,389 --> 00:25:30,389 the world. 335 00:25:30,389 --> 00:25:32,774 >> No, that's why we go to wise men and experts, isn't it? To clear things like 336 00:25:32,774 --> 00:25:33,948 this up. 337 00:25:33,968 --> 00:25:40,069 [ Music ] 338 00:25:40,089 --> 00:25:51,720 Is this a real mountain? Plato didn't think so. What about those clouds? This 339 00:25:51,740 --> 00:26:00,269 flower? That bee? He said they're just copies. That there's a parallel world 340 00:26:00,289 --> 00:26:08,799 where you'll find the ideal cloud, the original flower, the perfect bee. The 341 00:26:08,819 --> 00:26:14,309 soul is imprinted with these models at conception. That's how we recognize a 342 00:26:14,329 --> 00:26:20,929 tree, for instance, when we see one. For Plato, the idea of a tree that you hold 343 00:26:20,949 --> 00:26:28,089 in your mind is what's real. This particular tree, and all the others we see, 344 00:26:28,109 --> 00:26:30,089 are just imitations of that idea. 345 00:26:30,109 --> 00:26:43,490 >> Plato's theory of forms is an effort to explain what's true in an absolute 346 00:26:43,509 --> 00:26:55,589 sense. What is it possible to know really? Answer, what doesn't change. When you 347 00:26:55,609 --> 00:26:59,769 will learn geometry, you're not learning about chalk circles. You're not 348 00:26:59,789 --> 00:27:06,169 learning about circles that are even more perfect than the one I've drawn, if, 349 00:27:06,189 --> 00:27:12,779 in fact, the circle is made of something physical. You're learning about an 350 00:27:12,799 --> 00:27:22,159 ideal circle. One that you can't touch. One that you can't even see, because any 351 00:27:22,179 --> 00:27:31,220 circle you could see would be a physical circle. And so, Plato, wanting to point 352 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:39,330 us to what can't change and is perfect, wants us to consider a circle that can't 353 00:27:39,350 --> 00:27:40,733 be seen. 354 00:27:40,753 --> 00:27:43,079 [ Music ] 355 00:27:43,099 --> 00:27:53,609 >> What do we see about the three yellow and the two green? What do we see? 356 00:27:53,629 --> 00:27:59,169 >> Mathematicians proving the existence of invisible circles and abstract 357 00:27:59,189 --> 00:28:04,539 equations all deal with ideal forms, but the kind of mental leap Plato was 358 00:28:04,559 --> 00:28:08,490 talking about went way beyond math, and that's frustrated philosophers for 359 00:28:08,509 --> 00:28:15,129 centuries. On file in that metaphysical heaven, were perfect examples of 360 00:28:15,149 --> 00:28:21,339 everything in the universe, even qualities like beauty, justice, and goodness. 361 00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:26,579 Today, wise men and women say he was looking in the wrong direction. For them, 362 00:28:26,599 --> 00:28:32,970 our world, this minute, is as real as it gets. 363 00:28:32,990 --> 00:28:37,869 >> These ideas were always be evolving, so long as we are human, and so long as 364 00:28:37,889 --> 00:28:42,399 consciousness is evolving. You simply can't stop history. You see, everything is 365 00:28:42,419 --> 00:28:46,700 changing. Reality is flux. 366 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:52,139 >> Whatever you think of Plato's quest for permanent answers, nobody denies the 367 00:28:52,159 --> 00:28:54,584 power of The Republic's most famous story, the allegory of the cave. 368 00:28:54,584 --> 00:29:04,269 [ Music ] 369 00:29:04,289 --> 00:29:09,279 Imagine that this is the only world you've ever known. For as long as you can 370 00:29:09,299 --> 00:29:12,263 remember, you've been chained here in this cave watching the shadows dance on 371 00:29:12,263 --> 00:29:13,709 the wall in front of you. 372 00:29:13,709 --> 00:29:21,220 [ Music ] 373 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:27,429 Unable to even turn around, you have no idea that they are merely reflections 374 00:29:27,449 --> 00:29:32,976 cast by the outside world. You believe they are all there is to life. This is 375 00:29:32,996 --> 00:29:34,419 your reality. 376 00:29:34,439 --> 00:29:38,549 [ Music ] 377 00:29:38,569 --> 00:29:42,838 Then one day our prisoner breaks loose. 378 00:29:42,858 --> 00:29:53,250 [ Music ] 379 00:29:53,269 --> 00:30:00,679 Drawn to the light, he is almost blinded by his first sight of the sun. But 380 00:30:00,699 --> 00:30:11,869 little by little, he is able to open his eyes and see the world beyond the cave. 381 00:30:11,889 --> 00:30:13,429 >> We are prisoners right now. We are now in the middle of a cave, [inaudible] 382 00:30:13,429 --> 00:30:19,059 of a dark room in which we are all tied up. This is the cave. The freest moments 383 00:30:19,079 --> 00:30:23,639 that we have for Plato are moments of imprisonment, are moments of slavery. We 384 00:30:23,659 --> 00:30:29,220 all begin, in some sense, is prisoners of our culture or our religion or our 385 00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,639 civilization. We're given answers to the most fundamental questions. What is 386 00:30:33,659 --> 00:30:40,119 love? What's a good family? Who is God? Nowadays, the currently fashionable 387 00:30:40,139 --> 00:30:43,740 conventional philosophy that's taught in our schools is something called 388 00:30:43,759 --> 00:30:47,960 pragmatism. The idea being that we just simply can't really transcend our own 389 00:30:47,980 --> 00:30:52,619 time and culture. That we just have to deal with the world that's given to us. 390 00:30:52,639 --> 00:30:56,279 Now Plato would say that means just rearranging the shadows on the walls of our 391 00:30:56,279 --> 00:30:57,279 cave. 392 00:30:57,279 --> 00:31:00,369 >> One of the tasks of The Republic is to bring people out of the cave, so 393 00:31:00,389 --> 00:31:05,750 they're not looking at shadows, but looking at the real thing out into the sun. 394 00:31:05,769 --> 00:31:10,990 If there's a cave today and shadows the people are looking at, it is the sort of 395 00:31:11,009 --> 00:31:14,936 darkened living room at four in the afternoon, with those images flickering 396 00:31:14,956 --> 00:31:16,096 across the screen, miseducating the young. 397 00:31:16,096 --> 00:31:21,960 [ Music ] 398 00:31:21,980 --> 00:31:28,189 >> Are his fellow prisoners thrilled to learn that the real world is out there? 399 00:31:28,209 --> 00:31:33,750 Not exactly. Plato ends the story by saying that they would tear the enlightened 400 00:31:33,769 --> 00:31:39,240 one limb from limb if they could break their chains. He has challenged 401 00:31:39,259 --> 00:31:42,439 everything they believe in. Of course, once you've seen the light, it's hard to 402 00:31:42,439 --> 00:31:47,888 go back. As Socrates discovered, it's a lonely being the bearer of new ideas. 403 00:31:47,908 --> 00:31:50,684 [ Music ] 404 00:31:50,704 --> 00:31:54,464 The most damning criticism of The Republic came in the 1940s. 405 00:31:54,484 --> 00:31:55,484 >> Seig! 406 00:31:55,484 --> 00:31:57,056 >> Heil! 407 00:31:57,076 --> 00:31:58,076 >> Seig! 408 00:31:57,551 --> 00:32:02,963 >> Heil! Heil. 409 00:32:02,983 --> 00:32:10,730 >> Philosopher Karl Popper the charge that Plato had opened the door for this 410 00:32:10,750 --> 00:32:17,689 madness with the eugenically superior model state he had envisioned in 386 BC. 411 00:32:17,709 --> 00:32:22,069 >> People do think of Plato as a fascist, as maybe the first fascist, maybe is 412 00:32:22,089 --> 00:32:26,389 the greatest fascist. I think it's extraordinarily unfair and inaccurate to 413 00:32:26,409 --> 00:32:30,359 think of him in those terms. He does not believe in any kind of racial 414 00:32:30,379 --> 00:32:32,619 superiority of the people in his city. He does not believe that this society can 415 00:32:32,619 --> 00:32:35,346 come about by, as it were, forcible means. 416 00:32:35,366 --> 00:32:42,759 [ Explosions ] 417 00:32:42,779 --> 00:32:49,079 >> The idea that Plato foreshadowed certain ideas that we've come to associate 418 00:32:49,099 --> 00:32:52,949 with fascism, I'd say, I think that's fairly tenable. If Plato had never lived, 419 00:32:52,949 --> 00:32:59,369 however, we would still have had Hitler. One certainly can't blame Plato for 420 00:32:59,389 --> 00:33:04,259 Hitler or Stalin or Marx or Lenin. It's not for their theories that they're 421 00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:09,299 remembered but for their actions. They were brutal murderers. 422 00:33:09,319 --> 00:33:17,210 >> Corruption is the human norm, and this is what Plato won't swallow. 423 00:33:17,230 --> 00:33:20,909 >> Plato's understanding of human nature might appear to be as abstract as his 424 00:33:20,929 --> 00:33:25,909 ideas, but some of those ideas are still very much alive. For instance, in 425 00:33:25,929 --> 00:33:30,534 Singapore, in just 30 years, this small, ethnically diverse island has been 426 00:33:30,554 --> 00:33:31,892 transformed into one nation, one people, one Singapore. 427 00:33:31,892 --> 00:33:40,389 [ Singing ] 428 00:33:40,409 --> 00:33:45,589 Led by a benevolent despot named Lee Kwan Yew, whose reputation for integrity is 429 00:33:45,609 --> 00:33:49,990 as legendary as his strict controls, the crime rate is down. The standard of 430 00:33:50,009 --> 00:33:54,109 living is up. It's seen as one of the most astonishing success stories in the 431 00:33:54,129 --> 00:33:58,049 developing world and is a nation in a straitjacket. 432 00:33:58,069 --> 00:34:03,750 >> He has curtailed individual freedoms and put into place a highly moralistic 433 00:34:03,769 --> 00:34:09,400 and constraining conception, which includes a lot of policies for breeding. I 434 00:34:09,420 --> 00:34:14,599 mean, eugenic policies, which say that we'll give special breaks to people in 435 00:34:14,619 --> 00:34:18,799 certain classes when they reproduce but will penalize reproduction and some of 436 00:34:18,819 --> 00:34:24,829 the other ethnic groups. All of this, with a kind of Platonic idea that in this 437 00:34:24,849 --> 00:34:29,009 way, we're going to promote the common good and raise people's well-being. 438 00:34:29,029 --> 00:34:30,029 >> It's Hot Talk 560 KSFO. 439 00:34:30,029 --> 00:34:34,529 >> I got a quote from another political scientist, Ben Franklin. He said, 440 00:34:34,549 --> 00:34:38,090 "People who are willing to sacrifice freedom in exchange for security will 441 00:34:38,110 --> 00:34:39,590 receive neither and deserve neither." 442 00:34:39,610 --> 00:34:42,569 >> Yes, I love that. That's very beautiful. So you're saying -- 443 00:34:42,569 --> 00:34:47,980 >> How do we make America an orderly state without making it overly orderly and 444 00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:52,900 turn it into a Singapore where a piece of chewing gum on the street is an 445 00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:56,750 offense for $500, for example? I don't want to live in in this Huxleyan Brave 446 00:34:56,750 --> 00:35:03,369 New World, okay? So I think maybe, Plato's Republic can also warn us away from 447 00:35:03,389 --> 00:35:10,949 an overly ordered state, an overly clean place, an overly good place. 448 00:35:10,969 --> 00:35:16,599 >> Time to take out the trash and clean out the barn. 449 00:35:16,619 --> 00:35:20,960 >>Ah, that brings us to a democracy. Could a philosopher king survive in 450 00:35:20,980 --> 00:35:21,980 Washington DC? 451 00:35:21,980 --> 00:35:28,299 >> On the one hand, it's wonderful that anyone can grow up to be president. On 452 00:35:28,319 --> 00:35:33,159 the other hand, it's frightening that anyone can grow up to be president. 453 00:35:33,179 --> 00:35:38,219 >> America doesn't choose its leaders by lot, as ancient Athens did. It holds 454 00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:43,710 popularity contests instead. Plato might well have admired the idea of a small 455 00:35:43,730 --> 00:35:48,210 group of wise men and women seeking justice in the courts, but he'd most likely 456 00:35:48,230 --> 00:35:54,360 see America's obsession with individual power, money, and success as signs of a 457 00:35:54,380 --> 00:35:56,619 society with a seriously disordered soul. 458 00:35:56,639 --> 00:36:02,049 >> One of the serious criticisms Plato addresses to democracy is that its love 459 00:36:02,069 --> 00:36:08,509 of freedom easily becomes a life of license without realizing it. That a taste 460 00:36:08,529 --> 00:36:11,884 for having no restrictions can easily replace the more thoughtful and mature 461 00:36:11,903 --> 00:36:14,746 conception of freedom, which is freedom has to be freedom under the rule of law. 462 00:36:14,746 --> 00:36:19,090 [ Crowd Shouting ] 463 00:36:19,110 --> 00:36:26,250 >> I mean, can we admit that our public life is disordered in something like the 464 00:36:26,269 --> 00:36:29,449 way Plato says, and yet still defend our own way of life? What can the role of 465 00:36:29,449 --> 00:36:32,313 reason be in a democracy like ours without taking away the freedoms that we all 466 00:36:32,313 --> 00:36:34,538 cherish? 467 00:36:34,557 --> 00:36:38,329 [ Music ] 468 00:36:38,349 --> 00:36:44,150 >> The citizens of the Republic are satisfied with their place in life, because 469 00:36:44,170 --> 00:36:48,420 they've been told that the gods created them for different purposes. That's why 470 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:52,690 they made some people with gold in their veins, some with silver, and some with 471 00:36:52,710 --> 00:36:54,655 bronze. In the book, Socrates calls the story The Noble Lie. 472 00:36:54,655 --> 00:37:00,269 [ Snare Drum Playing ] 473 00:37:00,289 --> 00:37:05,909 >> We, too, have our myths, our noble lies. The Declaration of Independence, 474 00:37:05,929 --> 00:37:11,739 prior to a probing philosophical analysis, which very people undertake, it 475 00:37:11,759 --> 00:37:15,639 really comes to us and is taught to us when we're Young is a kind of myth, a 476 00:37:15,639 --> 00:37:20,699 kind of poetry, a kind of beautiful belief, and what the philosopher in our 477 00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:21,719 society, if he was a Socratic, would have to do is question it, doubt it. Ask 478 00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:23,487 what do we mean by human rights? Do they exist? 479 00:37:23,487 --> 00:37:25,952 [ Music ] 480 00:37:25,972 --> 00:37:35,889 >> The Republic was Plato's ultimate attempt to vindicate Socrates way of life. 481 00:37:35,909 --> 00:37:41,980 In the allegory of the cave he says that the escaped prisoner cannot sit alone 482 00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:48,579 forever under the sky of ideas. It is the philosopher's job to return to the 483 00:37:48,599 --> 00:37:55,309 cave and try gradually to turn others away from the shadows. 484 00:37:55,329 --> 00:38:00,779 >> The deep insight into human beings here is that we are political creatures. 485 00:38:00,799 --> 00:38:05,440 That the life of the city and our lives are inextricably intertwined. That 486 00:38:05,460 --> 00:38:09,860 probably explains why I'm engaged personally, so much engaged in public life and 487 00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:16,000 politics. I am persuaded by Plato that the man who lives away from the affairs 488 00:38:16,019 --> 00:38:20,019 of the city state is the idiot. That to separate oneself from the life of the 489 00:38:20,019 --> 00:38:21,719 community is to separate out oneself from life itself. 490 00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:30,179 [ Music ] 491 00:38:30,199 --> 00:38:35,819 >> Plato wasn't just someone who lectured and wrote. He was someone who started 492 00:38:35,839 --> 00:38:41,710 a school. His school was called The Academy. The word we have now, academy, and 493 00:38:41,730 --> 00:38:47,639 likewise, the word academics, comes from the Greek word, and at his school, he 494 00:38:47,659 --> 00:38:52,710 had a student who went on to become rather famous it is all right. His name was 495 00:38:52,730 --> 00:38:53,730 Aristotle. 496 00:38:53,730 --> 00:39:00,710 >> Aristotle arrived at The Academy when he was 17. He spent the next 20 years 497 00:39:00,730 --> 00:39:05,099 arguing with Plato about the meaning of it all before he went on to tutor 498 00:39:05,119 --> 00:39:11,650 Alexander the Great. The world's first university lasted for almost 1000 years. 499 00:39:11,670 --> 00:39:14,025 Then in 529 AD, the Christians targeted this early think tank as a pagan 500 00:39:14,025 --> 00:39:16,159 stronghold and shut it down forever. 501 00:39:16,179 --> 00:39:24,679 [ Non-English Spoken ] 502 00:39:24,699 --> 00:39:29,529 Today, there's not much left of Plato's Academy, but it is still hallowed ground 503 00:39:29,549 --> 00:39:37,110 for those lovers of wisdom who gather each week to listen to the ideas of modern 504 00:39:37,130 --> 00:39:41,529 philosophers. When the school was closed, the Academy's students fled, probably 505 00:39:41,549 --> 00:39:45,500 taking Plato's and Aristotle's manuscripts with them for safekeeping. 506 00:39:45,519 --> 00:39:48,960 >> It meant that they were scattered all around the Mediterranean world, 507 00:39:48,980 --> 00:39:54,659 extremely good copies of all of Plato's works, and this meant that the odds that 508 00:39:54,679 --> 00:40:00,360 they would last of The Dark Ages and be rediscovered in cellars and in wine 509 00:40:00,380 --> 00:40:05,819 casks, in all kinds of crazy places was much greater than, for example, poor 510 00:40:05,839 --> 00:40:16,029 Sophocles or poor Euripides, most of whose plays were lost, and so on. 511 00:40:16,049 --> 00:40:19,809 >> Socrates survived the dark ages, thanks to Islamic scholars. They translated 512 00:40:19,829 --> 00:40:21,009 Plato into Arabic and passed his books through Egypt, India, Persia, in Spain. 513 00:40:21,009 --> 00:40:27,940 It wasn't until centuries later that the ancient texts were finally unearthed in 514 00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:34,900 Europe and translated into Latin and other languages. This ninth century 515 00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,099 manuscript found in Constantinople was purchased by King Henry IV of France 516 00:40:38,119 --> 00:40:44,559 towards the end of the 16th century. It is believed to be the oldest surviving 517 00:40:44,579 --> 00:40:51,670 copy of The Republic in the world. In the 24 centuries since it was written, 518 00:40:51,690 --> 00:40:57,440 Plato's Republic has sired hundreds of imaginary worlds. In 1516, Sir Thomas 519 00:40:57,460 --> 00:41:04,029 More named the mythical kingdom he modeled on Plato Utopia. In Greek, it means 520 00:41:04,049 --> 00:41:11,130 both no place and good place. Sigmund Freud studied Plato. The inventor of 521 00:41:11,150 --> 00:41:15,480 psychiatry divided the human psyche into the into the id, the ego, and the super 522 00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:20,159 ego, an intriguing resemblance to Plato's balance of reason, honor, and passion 523 00:41:20,179 --> 00:41:22,339 in the well-ordered human soul. 524 00:41:22,359 --> 00:41:27,880 >> That idea that the person is the soul or the mind, and that the body is 525 00:41:27,900 --> 00:41:35,019 somehow external and temporary, a bit like a house in which you might live, has 526 00:41:35,039 --> 00:41:40,219 been a very prominent idea in the history of Western civilization. Of course, it 527 00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:46,960 has obvious connections with the immortality of the soul in Christianity. 528 00:41:46,980 --> 00:41:52,179 >> The German philosopher Nietzsche called Christianity "Plato for the people." 529 00:41:52,199 --> 00:42:04,259 Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called Plato one of his gods. Even Arthur Conan Doyle, 530 00:42:04,279 --> 00:42:10,400 creator of Sherlock Holmes, pays tribute when Dr. Watson quotes Plato to 531 00:42:10,420 --> 00:42:13,891 describe his detective friend as, "The best and wisest man I have ever known.". 532 00:42:13,891 --> 00:42:16,641 >> Allow me to congratulate you on a brilliant bit of deduction. 533 00:42:14,632 --> 00:42:21,429 [ Music ] 534 00:42:21,449 --> 00:42:25,349 >> Plato never gave up searching for the truth, and one must never let it be 535 00:42:25,369 --> 00:42:31,630 said that his views were impervious to experience. His one venture into politics 536 00:42:31,650 --> 00:42:36,130 was on the island of Sicily, where he had hoped to turn the young ruler into a 537 00:42:36,150 --> 00:42:40,289 flesh-and-blood philosopher king. His pupil, however, soon grew bored with the 538 00:42:40,309 --> 00:42:46,969 experiment and tried to sell Plato into slavery. After barely escaping with his 539 00:42:46,989 --> 00:42:52,969 life, Plato felt compelled to create a somewhat more user-friendly utopia. The 540 00:42:52,989 --> 00:42:55,809 poets still are banished, but the philosopher kings have been replaced by the 541 00:42:55,809 --> 00:43:03,750 vote and a set of laws. Plato died shortly after finishing The Laws at the age 542 00:43:03,769 --> 00:43:09,710 of 80. His biographer reported he had passed to that city state which he planned 543 00:43:09,730 --> 00:43:12,998 for himself and planted in the sky. Many centuries later, philosopher Alfred 544 00:43:13,018 --> 00:43:16,116 Whitehead concluded that everything is just a footnote to Plato. 545 00:43:16,136 --> 00:43:26,299 [ Music ] 546 00:43:26,319 --> 00:43:31,059 >> "He imagines that he is a master in dishonesty, able to take every crooked 547 00:43:31,079 --> 00:43:36,099 turn wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of 548 00:43:36,119 --> 00:43:40,739 the way of justice, and all for what? In order to gain small points not worth 549 00:43:40,759 --> 00:43:45,569 mentioning." He's talking about the life-long litigant, ladies and gentlemen. 550 00:43:45,589 --> 00:43:49,369 Twenty-seven-hundred years ago the lawyers of the judges were already driving 551 00:43:49,389 --> 00:43:51,609 Greek society and saying, okay. 552 00:43:51,629 --> 00:43:55,929 >> I think one of the most compelling moments in the history of Western thought 553 00:43:55,949 --> 00:43:59,699 is in this book, and I will never forget it. I still get goosebumps thinking 554 00:43:59,710 --> 00:44:05,299 about it, which is the challenge of the Ring of Gyges. If you had this ring, and 555 00:44:05,319 --> 00:44:08,900 that's the story and here, and you turned the bezel of the ring, and you became 556 00:44:08,900 --> 00:44:13,819 invisible, and you could get away with anything by being invisible, would you do 557 00:44:13,839 --> 00:44:14,839 it? 558 00:44:14,839 --> 00:44:19,630 >> What Plato wants to prove in The Republic is that that's wrong. That in fact, 559 00:44:19,650 --> 00:44:25,109 even with a ring that made you invisible, even apart from what other people 560 00:44:25,129 --> 00:44:31,049 think, it's good to be good. The question is whether he succeeds in proving what 561 00:44:31,069 --> 00:44:35,699 others might want him to prove or expect him to prove. The course of The 562 00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:43,009 Republic, he redefines goodness. Plato tells us that virtue is internal to a 563 00:44:43,029 --> 00:44:48,039 person. That is the harmony of the soul. 564 00:44:48,059 --> 00:44:52,880 >> People leave the dialogue differently from when they start. You are a changed 565 00:44:52,900 --> 00:44:58,000 person, in some ways, by encountering this man who truly means what he says. 566 00:44:58,019 --> 00:45:02,420 This is not just highfalutin bull session. This is about life and how you leave 567 00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,079 it, how you live it, how you leave it, and the conditions under which it should 568 00:45:07,099 --> 00:45:09,099 be lived. This is about the real stuff. 569 00:45:09,109 --> 00:45:15,079 >> You see, most of us, when we think, usually we're in trouble, and we think to 570 00:45:15,099 --> 00:45:20,400 get out of trouble. What Plato tries to convey there is thinking can be a feast 571 00:45:20,420 --> 00:45:26,359 and a frenzy, and that philosophy is that thinking as a feast. 572 00:45:26,379 --> 00:45:34,469 >> "The wonder," Plato says, "is the beginning of philosophy." We still wonder 573 00:45:34,489 --> 00:45:48,119 about the same questions he set down all those centuries ago, searching for 574 00:45:48,139 --> 00:45:52,359 wisdom and justice and finding an imperfect approximation, struggling between 575 00:45:52,379 --> 00:45:53,379 reality and illusion, reason and passion, politics and philosophy, public and 576 00:45:53,379 --> 00:45:55,610 private, body and soul. And probably, we always will be. 577 00:45:55,630 --> 00:46:16,989 [ Music ] 578 00:46:17,009 --> 00:46:21,079 >> Behind every great book, there's a great story in it. Now sit back and spend 579 00:46:21,099 --> 00:46:25,099 an hour with the best reading experience you'll ever have on television. The 580 00:46:25,119 --> 00:46:27,619 Great Books Festival continues on TLC, adventures for your mind.