Plato's Republic & Might is Right.

 

I find the term "life changing" a much-overused and hackneyed cliché. I read Plato's Republic but I didn't find it "life changing." It's an inquiry into what we mean by 'justice' using Socratic dialogue. Today, most people if they thought about it, would consider justice, as 'isonomy’ - equality before the law, but Plato doesn't seem to use this definition.

Both Plato and Socrates were critical of Athenian democracy. To both of them, the vote of an ignorant assembly was no better than to allow the skilled navigator of a ship, to be over-ruled by a majority crew, untrained in navigation. It was a democratically elected Athenian jury that sentenced Socrates to death for impiety and for corrupting the youth of Athens. It's a book that's worth reading because it deals with issues that are largely unresolved to this day, such as "might is right."

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, held that civilization as we understand it, was born from barbarism. It was a process of the strong eliminating the week, the educated eliminating the uneducated, and the able, eliminating the unable. He attacked the Christian values of compassion and pity which he believed empowered the weak and the underdog and fostered dependence.

In Plato's Republic, I particularly like that quote by Pindar, “What must a man be, and what paths must he take, if he would live the best possible life? Shall I by justice or by crooked wiles ascend the higher wall and so fortify myself for life? For what do men say? If I am just, unless I also seem just, I gain no advantage, but manifest toil and pains. But if I am unjust and have acquired the appearance of justice, a heavenly life, they say is mine."

We talk about international law but what does that really mean in reality? The state of Israel continues to occupy Palestinian territories in breach of U.N. resolutions and international law and has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza, including thousands of women and children.  The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity and yet, when Netanyahu, address the American Congress, he gets numerous standing ovations. For the last eighty years, Europe's security has been underpinned by U.S. military might and if it wasn't for American financial and military aid, it's doubtful that the state of Israel could exist.

The Sophist philosopher, Thrasymachus, who is referred to in Plato's Republic, is quoted as saying: "If I have the power to impose my will on you, and choose to do so, your appeal to an abstract and objective morality will give neither colour nor strength to your cause. The natural superiority of the strong must and will assert itself in human affairs, public and private, in spite of all the claptrap about morality." It looks like Thrasymachus might be correct.