AGR Radio Ep.8 - Michael Millerman and the Noble Lie
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2024
- Since Plato wrote the Republic, it has been a trope of the Left to portray the Greek philosopher as "proto-fascists," for teaching that an ideal state must always lie to its citizens so as to keep the existing order. But Canadian philosopher Michael Millerman begs to differ, and through this conversation, shows that Plato might have been Right all along.
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You can find Michael Millerman's book on Heidegger at: heideggerbook.com
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I haven't had the pleasure of reading Plato's "Republic" or Socrates. This podcast inspired to to do so. When listening to these podcasts you are left wanting even more!👍👍👍
You never disappoint expectations.
I can't wait. The " Plato-Left" thing was always a question for me. Also, when I subscribed, we were just a thousand, now it's more than five thousand!
Wonderful discourse, thankyou sir!
Stimulating chat! I'll have to add Strauss to my list (I've been meaning to as I keep seeing his name pop up in other books that you've recommended... in that vein I will also to add Chomsky who I've also been meaning to get to)... and Michael Millerman of course. :)
Just a note the term neo-conservative was originally used for a group of thinker from the 60' and seventies who became disillusioned with "The Great Society" and social welfare progressives and moved from the left to the right. See Irving Kristol's book NEO-CONSERVATISM.
Yes. We were just mentioning D. Murray's book on Neo-conservatism, where he traces the movement back to Leo Strauss.
An interesting perspective, which I had not before considered. Replacing the opinion of the many, democracy, with idealized truth is by definition undemocratic. This was the heresy of Socrates.
Will you be doing an episode on Symposion/Symposium, especially on love? Thank you.
I would love to (pun intended). I would be looking for someone who can carry this dialogue with me, however. If you know of anyone please let me know.
@@AncientGreeceRevisited Eros is waiting. I caught a slight reference to the love that dare not speak it's name, in your recent video. Cheers! 👍🏻
@@Thomas88076 The "love that dares not speak its name.." wow, that is a great expression! Thank you!
I think "noble" and "lie" are antinomic words. There's nothing noble in lies. At least in the indo-european worldview (example the Zoroastrian religion for which, lie is the worst). I don't know if it's the translation that's unfortunate or if Socrates got it wrong (^^)) but maybe "necessary lie" would have been a better term.
Great comment. Like Millerman said, the Greek word is γενναῖόν (genaion), which can mean "brave," or "noble." And it IS a contradiction in terms! That should not stop us from investigating or even accepting this idea! Now, it's interesting how you mentioned Indo-Europeans, because many have seen a strong IE influence on the "Republic." It's related to the "tripartite Indo-European Hypothesis" which suggests that ancient IE communities recognised 3 functions: the sovereign or kingly function, the warrior, and the farmer. These were in turn reflected into myth as gods of kingship, war, and fertility. So in the Republic you have the philosopher-kings, the guardian-warriors, and the farmers and labourers. Now, you say that in IE societies, lies were shunned and could never be considered noble. But perhaps Plato went one step further into questioning: how DID this culture that valued honour and bravery, with a clear "tripartite" conception of reality came to be? It is clearly not the ONLY culture in existence, nor does it have any more authority on reality that other cultures have. My answer to this question - which is very much influenced by Cornelius Castoriadis - is this: that ANY culture, IE included must occlude, hide, obscure, its own metaphysics, its basic assumptions, in other words, about reality. The Hebrews created laws by which to live, but they could not just say "we created these laws," perhaps out of fear they would not be taken seriously. So they said "God created them." Respectively, the Indo-Europeans could not say, "this tripartite structure works well for us, and keeps the slaves from revolting," and so they said, "it's part of the fabric of existence." But Plato, the lawmaker, knows that, and knows that a certain "lie" must be employed even for a culture that values truth above everything, because even the idea that "truth is supreme" is not based on anything but a decision of the human will.
Hope that answers your question ...
lets say we pump millions of dollars into a science proyect to prove a political point you could say well science can prove the contrary but you would have to invest time and money to disprove it. so your stuck with a truth that could someday turn out to be false.
Noam Chomsky who recently said the unvaccinated should be left to starve!
Yes, very indicative of his political oeuvre.
Anyone who has the money, go buy the courses at Millerman Online, worth every penny IMHO
26:58
I am strongly convinced that lying is always the root of corruption and degeneracy.
I seems that the obvious answer here is simply the choice to be courageous. You don't give him the weapon back but you don't lie either. You simply tell the truth, that you will not give it to him right now because you believe he is going to do something dangerous, and faced the consequences of that. The small lie of convenience to sidestep that conflict always metastasizes into something worse down the road.
A lot of these “personalized” examples one finds in Plato are metaphors for the body politic. When Socrates makes the case of lying to a person from whom you have borrowed weapons and has since gone insane, you could think of the entire people of a city (who often acts like they are insane through mass formation).
@@AncientGreeceRevisited well that is certainly a fair point, and I had kind of already assumed that. I still think the same principle applies regarded a though, in that you are trading experience for long-term stability calling you may avoid some kind of conflict or unpleasant disclosure in the moment, but you are setting up future dysfunction of a definitively worst sort down the line. I do not think there is a free lunch to be had.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug Understood. However, the problem the ancient philosophers had to solve was this: since it was understood that security and freedom are eternal opposites (think of how we raise a child, the more freedom we allow them, the more dangers they are exposed to), and, since it was understood that, essentially, there are two kinds of people: those who prefer security and those who prefer freedom, and, finally, considering that those who prefer security form the vast majority... how then, can we have a free society with a "majority rule?" I'm not going to defend the practice that Plato seems to advocate, but it's important to remind the objectors that this was the context in which the Noble Lie was framed in.
Jesus, 20 minutes in and he STILL hasn't described in detail what Strauss believed!
I understand where you are coming from. And I am all for short and direct definitions. But Strauss can be very elusive, and that’s at his best of times :-)
I can never take these positions seriously because its all premised on hating annoying green haired college girls and then pretending that the whole world is secretly communist. so boring and dull.
We never actually mentioned any "green haired college girls." Any position taken to its extremities becomes boring and dull. I hope that we didn't actually do that in our episode.