In the first volume, Popper attacks Plato for his totalitarian opinions, something I really had no idea about until I read this book. Popper writes that a lot of the big misunderstandings of Plato come from either Plato's use of words that imply he is more liberal than he really is, misleading his audience, or of mistranslations. The two words I noticed this the most on are "republic," the name of one of his works, and "justice." When Plato refers to a republic, he doesn't use it in the modern conception that implies the rule of law or governance by the governed. Rather, he just uses it to mean something more like a constitution or the state. Similarly, when he uses "justice," he doesn't mean justice towards the individual in terms of fairness, but a justice that serves the state and does what is good for the state. Plato loves the state and his state loves the ruling class. He attacks individualism and equalitarianism, which are both implicit in the modern Western conception of justice, and supports collectivism, associating individualism with selfishness. He even writes that no one should think for themselves:
The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should 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. An 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 incapable of it.
So Plato is insane. He wants us to live in the most dystopian world imaginable without any free will. I had no idea. And Popper goes on to criticize Plato for arguing that it is unjust for any of us to change station in life or rise up in life because we are not worthy of it, making our social climbing a great crime to the city. Plato even believes that it is the right of the state to lie and deceive its enemies and its own citizens if it is to the benefit of his perfect state. Those lies can be useful for Plato's insane breeding program. Plato wrote that rulers could establish a fake lottery to mate their young and then secretly arrange it like a dog breeder to mate who they think is best while the victims blame their bad luck.
Plato believes in degeneration and devolution, that the world generally gets worse over time, and that changes are generally bad. It's pretty ridiculous, especially to the extent that he argues that men devolve into women, and women devolve into animals, and birds come from those who are too easy-going, and fish are degenerated from the most stupid men. Okay Plato. But that is all informed by the fact that Plato came from an aristocratic Athenian family and believed that Athens' transition from a divine kingdom to an oligarchy to a democracy to tyranny was a natural, historical progression for the worse that all polities were destined to face. This is developed in Plato's "historicism," a method of analysis that looks to the past to predict the future. A theistic historicism may be the concept of God's chosen people as being destined to inherit the Earth, whereas a racial historicism may be the belief that a chosen race will take over the world, or Communist historicism is that a certain class will conquer all. Historicism may be left-wing or right-wing, optimistic or pessimistic. So when analyzing an institution like a police force, a historicist will look back in time to determine whether it is an instrument of freedom and security or an instrument of class rule and oppression. A "social engineer" or "technologist," (which is what Popper describes himself as), on the other hand, would not try to find the origin or true role of the institution, but instead evaluate it based on how well it serves as a means to an end principle, such as freedom or security.
Popper synthesizes Plato's political program offered in his many works into two main principles and three lesser principles. The primary principles: (1) the strict division of classes, (2) the identification of the fate of the state with that of the ruling class. The three principles that follow: (1) the ruling class must have a monopoly of things like military virtues and training, being the only group to carry arms and receive education although it may be excluded from commercial endeavors, (2) there must be censorship of all intellectual activities of the ruling class and there must be continual propaganda at uniting their minds, and (3) the state must be self-sufficient without dependence on traders or outsiders.
Plato believes that, "The wise shall lead and rule, and the ignorant shall follow," a reformulation of Thucydides' "The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must." And Plato writes that there is a paradox of freedom, as a democracy is likely to hand over power to a tyrant. But Popper points out that all theories of sovereignty are paradoxical, because just as democracies may choose to use their sovereignty and freedom to hand over power to a tyrant, a tyrant may do the same to an oligarchy, which may do the same to some other government. So Popper does away with democracy as defined by majority rule and instead says there are only two types of government: a government that can be done away with by elections (which he calls democracy) and a government that cannot be removed by elections (tyranny).
Popper identifies two competing theories of the state. One is the more basic idea that the state is a protectionist entity, which stops crimes being committed and brings criminals to justice, ensuring negative liberties for its citizens. The other, advanced by Plato, is a state that should look after the moral life of its citizens, which Popper believes inherently moves towards authoritarianism because it would seek to shape the lives of its citizens affirmatively rather than let them do as they please so long as they don't harm another. Popper says the state should educate its citizens enough (for free) that they can "participate in the life of the community, and to make use of any opportunity to develop their special talents and gifts." But he doesn't believe that the state should mold their minds in a way to ensure that students love and defend the state no matter what.
So Plato ends up with an idea of a philosopher king, ruling over a class of elite aristocrats with all the rights and privileges in society, served by a class of slaves. Popper says this is always one of two results of a utopianism: dystopia. The other is that because this utopia is so difficult to achieve, one does nothing to achieve it and the status quo remains. On the other hand, the piecemeal engineer (Popper) would advocate for small changes being made based on their ability to serve a higher principle better instead of some radical transformation of society. Speaking of Plato's philosopher king system, Popper writes,
What a monument of human smallness is this idea of the philosopher king. What a contrast between it and the simplicity and humaneness of Socrates, who warned the statesman against the danger of being dazzled by his own power, excellence, and wisdom, and who tried to teach him what matters most—that we are all frail human beings. What a decline from this world of irony and reason and truthfulness down to Plato’s kingdom of the sage whose magical powers raise him high above ordinary men; although not quite high enough to forgo the use of lies, or to neglect the sorry trade of every shaman—the selling of spells, of breeding spells, in exchange for power over his fellow-men.
Popper traces the issues that caused Plato to support such a totalitarian system as coming from the breakdown of tribal society, transforming into an open society, the central conflict of the book. As population growth expanded the class of landed proprietors, it put strain on the separation of the class from others, as soon there would be too many proprietors with too little land for each of them. The organic solution to the problem was to create the colonies in Cyrenaica, Asia Minor, the Black Sea, southern Italy, and the rest of the northern Mediterranean coastline. But this could only postpone the transformation into an open society. The result of this was not maintaining the old, closed ways, but creating a new class of traders and merchants not of the old aristocracy, and creating cities abroad with connections to other civilizations. Seafaring dissolved the old way of life for Athens and other maritime city-states, and so the conservative elites looked to Sparta as a model, which they felt (incorrectly) was still a model of the old way (even though it had changed too). These Spartan principles are (except for the last one) the model of modern totalitarianism: (1) protection of arrested tribalism to shut out all foreign influences, (2) anti-humanitarianism to shut out all equalitarianism, democracy, and individualism, (3) autarky, (4) particularism to uphold the differentiation between one's own tribe and others, (5) the domination, mastery, and enslavement of one's neighbors, and (6) not growing too large. Modern totalitarians usually do all the above except for the final one, as they seek to achieve the unity that comes with smallness at a far greater scale.
So the same problem as was found in ancient Athens exists in the modern day and in all of time. The establishment class sees change coming as society opens up and tries to arrest that change to prevent newcomers from taking what they have. They may seek help from the outside to quell the majority on the inside. They will use racism and blame others for the problems of the day (tribalism), and attempt to shut the city, state, or empire off from the world. But they cannot succeed. Popper writes referencing a pamphlet of this kind:
This remarkable pamphlet was to become the first of a practically infinite sequence of works on political philosophy which were to repeat more or less, openly or covertly, the same theme down to our own day. Unwilling and unable to help mankind along their difficult path into an unknown future which they have to create for themselves, some of the ‘educated’ tried to make them turn back into the past. Incapable of leading a new way, they could only make themselves leaders of the perennial revolt against freedom. It became the more necessary for them to assert their superiority by fighting against equality as they were (using Socratic language) misanthropists and misologists—incapable of that simple and ordinary generosity which inspires faith in men, and faith in human reason and freedom. Harsh as this judgement may sound, it is just, I fear, if it is applied to those intellectual leaders of the revolt against freedom who came after the Great Generation, and especially after Socrates. We can now try to see them against the background of our historical interpretation.
And to finish the volume:
For those who have eaten of the tree of knowledge, paradise is lost. The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism, the more surely do we arrive at the Inquisition, at the Secret Police, and at a romanticized gangsterism. Beginning with the suppression of reason and truth, we must end with the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is human. There is no return to a harmonious state of nature. If we turn back, then we must go the whole way—we must return to the beasts.
It is an issue which we must face squarely, hard though it may be for us to do so. If we dream of a return to our childhood, if we are tempted to rely on others and so be happy, if we shrink from the task of carrying our cross, the cross of humaneness, of reason, of responsibility, if we lose courage and flinch from the strain, then we must try to fortify ourselves with a clear understanding of the simple decision before us. We can return to the beasts. But if we wish to remain human, then there is only one way, the way into the open society. We must go on into the unknown, the uncertain and insecure, using what reason we may have to plan as well as we can for both security and freedom.
Miscellaneous:
- One thing I did not love about The Spell of Plato was the confusion between the real Socrates and Plato's Socrates. I was not clear on what methodology Popper was using to distinguish the two, and it seemed convenient that the Socrates that Popper likes is the real Socrates and the one he doesn't is Plato's.
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