Contra Plato II

The oeuvre of Plato is too massive and his influence too vast to give an adequate assessment of it in these few short pages. And unfortunately, everything that we could have to say in defense of the legacy of Plato would be suspect, since western civilization has been so radically influenced by Plato that there is not even one westerner who can be trusted to speak objectively with his regard. Since Plato's death, entire civilizations have risen and fallen, and along with them, tongues have died, grown, and been reborn. What are we, modern men, but aware of our infinite capacity for self-deception, and implicitly distrustful of the languages that speak our lives?

If a man loses consciousness and his memories, upon awakening does he trust first the woman who claims to be his wife, of whom he has no recollection? Or does he distrust all except himself, and his own capacity for judgment? It is this way with our civilization. We are amnesiacs trying to regain a memory of the past, while still comporting ourselves toward the future. Where do we start? And who can we trust? It is this way with our philosophical heritage – with our capacity to think, and how willing we are to trust our thinking. We are amnesiacs trying to remember how to think. But how are we to relearn thinking except by forgetting what we have always known, that knowledge which has always skewed our thought? Having lost the past, we must willfully forget it. We must forget Plato.

Instead, we will begin as everyone does when they are born or awakened, with the present. The worst thing about Plato is that he is so clear, yet so incomprehensible. I read his dialogues and understand that humankind has always wondered what it means to be just, what it means to love, what it means to be beautiful and good. But do I understand anything else? How often does it seem that the lines of argumentation obfuscate more than they clarify? How often does it seem that Socrates is more interested in making other people look like fools than he is interested in reaching the truth? Indeed, Plato frustrates me because he seems so much more a sophist than the sophists themselves.

Yet everything I have just said is still just appearance. There is a clear meaning in every line of Plato – but to see it, one must spend years studying Greek and Greek civilization. The lie is the clarity concealing the truth. For Plato to be read, he must be rewritten. He must be destroyed and reborn, that something of the truth he loved so much could be made to live again. Instead what we have of him naught but a reanimated corpse haunting our universities and minds. He must be summarily destroyed and re-filtered through a brilliantly modern mind. But even this kind of radical salvaging would still be a forgetting.

What is a man without a country? For us, a hero. When Kurt Vonnegut gave the title to his autobiography, though there was an echo of the rogue and scoundrel, it was not a title of dejected remorse. He did not mourn for the country he lost – he rejoiced that he never had one to lose. These are not the sentiments of a Platonist. What did Socrates die for, except Athens? What did Socrates teach for, except Athens? We are, all of us, such scoundrels, rogues and romantics. How can we come to understand the truth of a man who could not conceive of life without his country?

We have absorbed Plato into our every pore. He has made us all – but we have forgotten how. We read him and can't help but admire and agree. But never did accord and admiration make a civilization great. In order to create anew, we must be rid of Plato. Living in his shadow, we can do nothing but recreate. Only if he dies, may we live once again.