What is different this year however is not just the amount of candidates, but also the diversity in terms of their background. More and more, people are running for office who haven't been in formal government service before. They haven't worked in a political machine. They are outsiders, activists, educators, working class people, lawyers, professionals, veterans, journalists and more. The question remains however, and I will acknowledge from the very start of the conversation, that there is nothing intrinsically better in terms of electing insiders or outsiders. Those who come from within a system can have knowledge to keep it running well or reform it. Those who come from without may have new ideas or not be enamored or bogged down with institutional loyalty or dependency. But at the same time, outsiders struggle to navigate systems they may have disdained before or just wish would evaporate and insiders may not even be able imagine past the limits into which they were born.
Insiders or outsiders, both have things to offer, your support for one or another may have alot to do with where you see yourself in relation to larger structures of power and society. For example, many white uneducated Americans may have voted for Trump, wanting to send an outsider to Washington D.C. to destroy the swampy system of the federal government. But in truth, their perception and identity as people outside of the system has little relevance to their relationship to that system. In truth, far more than any other group, those white Americans are greatly served by the existing system. It supports them and privileges them far more than any others. We saw this in terms of Republican attempts to destroy Obamacare. While most of Trump's supporters felt that system was against them or hurting them, in truth it helped make sure that more poor Americans got access to health care and couldn't be denied health care because of pre-existing conditions.
In thinking about this issue, I am drawn back to my freshman philosophy discussions on what makes someone ethical or moral. I still remember when I first took a philosophy class and read ancient Greek philosopher such as Socrates and Plato and their discussions. All cultures have these discussions, and while within the West, we are supposed to look to those thinkers as crafting the thoughts that became the glue to hold together the foundation of universality, but that's all bullshit really. As any historian can tell you, even within just the East - West paradigm, you find intellectual trajectories that run parallel in these civilizations even if they weren't actively talking to each other. If anyone thinks that the Greeks invented democracy, they simply don't know much about the history of the world at all. But nonetheless texts such as this represented my first steps into really thinking about those philosophical issues. I was intrigued them and remain interested in the notion of a "philosopher-king" especially in the time of Trump.
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The Republic “The Philosopher King”
Plato
Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal
and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable
are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the
rulers of our State?
And how can we rightly answer that question?
Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and
institutions of our State--let them be our guardians.
Very good.
Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian
who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes?
There can be no question of that.
And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the
knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear
pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth
and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to
order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered,
and to guard and preserve the order of them--are not such persons, I ask,
simply blind?
Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition.
And shall they be our guardians when there are others who,
besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no
particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing?
There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who
have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first
place unless they fail in some other respect. Suppose, then, I said, that we
determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences.
By all means.
In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of
the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about
him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also
acknowledge that such a union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom
they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State.
What do you mean?
Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love
knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from
generation and corruption.
Agreed.
And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of
all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less
honorable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover
and the man of ambition.
True.
And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not
another quality which they should also possess?
What quality?
Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into
their minds falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the
truth.
Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them.
"May be." my friend, I replied, is not the word;
say rather, "must be affirmed:" for he whose nature is amorous of
anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his
affections.
Right, he said.
And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?
How can there be?
Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of
falsehood?
Never.
The true lover of learning then must from his earliest
youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth?
Assuredly.
But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires
are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like
a stream which has been drawn off into another channel.
True.
He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form
will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily
pleasure--I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one.
That is most certain.
Such a one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of
covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and
spending, have no place in his character.
Very true.
Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be
considered.
What is that?
There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing
can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after
the whole of things both divine and human.
Most true, he replied.
Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the
spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life?
He cannot.
Or can such a one account death fearful?
No, indeed.
Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true
philosophy?
Certainly not.
Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not
covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward--can he, I say, ever be unjust or
hard in his dealings?
Impossible.
Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle,
or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the
philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.
True.
There is another point which should be remarked.
What point?
Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one
will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes
little progress.
Certainly not.
And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he
learns, will he not be an empty vessel?
That is certain.
Laboring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his
fruitless occupation?
Yes.
Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine
philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good
memory?
Certainly.
And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only
tend to disproportion?
Undoubtedly.
And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to
disproportion?
To proportion.
Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a
naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously
toward the true being of everything.
Certainly.
Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been
enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul,
which is to have a full and perfect participation of being?
They are absolutely necessary, he replied.
And must not that be a blameless study which he only can
pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn--noble,
gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his
kindred?
The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault
with such a study.
And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and
education, and to these only you will entrust the State.
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