Literature and Art
Plato’s attack on individualism —Sir Karl Raimund Popper
“Why did Plato try to attack individualism? I think he knew very well what he was doing when he trained his guns upon this position, for individualism, perhaps even more than equalitarianism, was a stronghold in the defences of the new humanitarian creed. The emancipation of the individual was indeed the great spiritual revolution which had led to the breakdown of tribalism and to the rise of democracy. Plato’s uncanny sociological intuition shows itself in the way in which he invariably discerned the enemy wherever he met him.
Individualism was part of the old intuitive idea of justice. That justice is not, as Plato would have it, the health and harmony of the state, but rather a certain way of treating individuals, is emphasised by Aristotle, it will be remembered, when he says “justice is something that pertains to persons”. This individualistic element had been emphasised by the generation of Pericles. Pericles himself made it clear that the laws must guarantee equal justice “to all alike in their private disputes”; but he went further. “We do not feel called upon,” he said, “to nag at our neighbour if he chooses to go his own way.” Pericles insists that this individualism must be linked with altruism: “We are taught…never to forget that we must protect the injured”; and his speech culminates in a description of the young Athenian who grows up “to a happy versatility, and to self-reliance”.
This individualism, united with altruism, has become the basis of our western civilisation.
Plato was right when he saw this doctrine the enemy of his caste state; and he hated it more than any other of the ‘subversive’ doctrines of his time. In order to show this even more clearly, I shall quote two passages from the Laws whose truly astonishing hostility towards the individual is, I think, too little appreciated. The first of them is famous as a reference to the Republic, whose “community of women and children and property” it discusses. Plato describes here the constitution of the Republic as “the highest form of the state”. In this highest state, he tells us, “there is common property of wives, of children, and of all chattels. And everything possible has been done to eradicate from our life everywhere and in every way all that is private and individual. So far as it can be done, even those things which nature herself has made private and individual have somehow become the common properly of all. Our very eyes and ear and hands seem to see, to hear, and to act, as if they belonged not to individuals but to the community. All men are moulded to be unanimous in the utmost degree in bestowing praise and blame, and they even rejoice and grieve about the same things, and at the same time. And all the laws are perfected for unifying the city to the utmost.” Plato goes on to say that “no man can find a better criterion of the highest excellence of a state than the principles just expounded.”
The second passage, also from the Laws, is, if possible, even more outspoken. It should be emphasised that the passage deals primarily with military expeditions and with military discipline, but Plato leaves no doubt that these same militarist principles should be adhered to not only in war, but also “in peace, and from the earliest childhood on”. Like other totalitarian militarists and admirers of Sparta, Plato urges that the all-important requirements of military discipline must be paramount, even in peace, and that they must determine the whole life of all citizens; for not only the full citizens (who are all soldiers) and the children, but also the very beasts must spend their whole life in a state of permanent and total mobilization. “The greatest principle of all,” he writes, “is that nobody, whether male or female, should ever be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace - to his leader he shall direct his eye, and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matters he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals...only if he has been told to do so...In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it. In this way the life of all will be spent in total community. There is no law, nor will there ever be one, which is superior to this, or better and more effective in ensuring salvation and victory in war. And in times of peace, and from the earliest childhood on should it be fostered - this habit of ruling others, and of being ruled by others. And every trace of anarchy should be utterly eradicated from all the life of all the man, and even of the wild beasts which are subject to men.”
These are strong words. Never was a man more in earnest in his hostility towards the individual. And this hatred is deeply rooted in the fundamental dualism of Plato’s philosophy; he hated the individual and his freedom just as he hated the varying particular experiences, the variety of the changing world of sensible things. In the field of politics, the individual is to Plato the Evil One himself.
(This extract is taken from The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper)
Sir Karl Raimund Popper was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\03\story_3-1-2010_pg3_5
|
