Long, long time ago…I read as much Plato as I could for reasons lost to time. I have now read The Republic. I’d never read it in full…just excerpts here and there.
Plato postulated five forms of governing–aristocracy. timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Plato, being of a certain class, advocated for the governance by an aristocracy who would be guided by a philosopher king. I don’t see much difference between timocracy and oligarchy. Timocracy is more of a warrior culture but driven by a hunger for spoils and riches and glory obtained by war and the oligarchs are mostly interested in wealth creation and retention at the expense of the lower classes. Greed drives both the Timocrats and the Oligarchs. I think even in Plato’s time they used the same methods to gain power in order to reach their ultimate goal of wealth. I think both, in the present, would be considered a junta.
Plato posits that a timocracy devolves into an oligarchy because of the clash of the classes that hold power in the timocracy. I think the need for stability by a group within the timocracy leads to that group taking control of the government. That group, who would be the oligarchs, are protecting their wealth. Wars cost money, and at some point, the ones who become the oligarchs see no benefit to continually financing war.
The oligarchs are eventually overthrown by the people they are exploiting. The oligarchs care nothing for the quality of life of the persons who are responsible for their wealth and eventually those who are being sorely used rise up and depose the oligarchs. They are what Plato names the democrats. Plato holds democracy in low esteem as he sees it as anarchy with no rules or laws that anyone is bound by. He doesn’t even posit a democracy with rules and laws that the people agree to abide by. Because of the chaos of democracy, the people then will turn to a strongman to restore order…the tyrant.
The tyrant will be surrounded by sycophants and advisors and eventually they will overthrow the tyrant and the cycle starts all over again, i.e., the advisors/sycophants, the aristocrats, will choose one of their own, the philosopher king, to be the face of the new order. As power corrupts, this philosopher king will be overthrown either by external or internal forces, but at the heart of this change, will be some of the sycophants/advisors who will betray this form of government for their personal benefit. (The only difference between a philosopher king and a tyrant is intent? Why wouldn’t a philosopher king devolve into a tyrant and then be overthrown?) So, there is a never ending cycle, with nothing better to be tried.
Plato, in creating his paradisiacal city, did make some good points regarding equality of men and women, but, make no mistake, Plato was an elitist who believed in a strict class system.
I did find interesting that he retold lore about a ring that would cause the wearer to become invisible. Is that where Tolkien got his idea about the one ring in his epic tale–Lord of the Rings? Plato would have been part of an Englishman’s classical education in Tolkien’s time.
One thing I’ve gotten from reading this is human nature has not changed. There has been no evolution in thought, solutions, etc. in the thousands of years since Plato lived. Technology has changed, but not our ability to think of solutions to better govern groups of people. That thinking has stagnated. And that is the reason the patriarchy must not continue. The patriarchy has created a box that humans refuse to open so that we can perceive new ways of doing things.
I wonder if any culture has a ritual memorializing when a matrilineal line ends? Even if the culture did not know it scientifically, it seems that psychically there would be a knowing. Would it be a cause for mourning or a ritual of acceptance? I wonder… After hundreds of generations, the matrilineal line, mother to daughter, on my maternal side has ended. No daughters had biological daughters in my generation. A long time ago, I remember reading an article written by a woman who could not have children. She mourned not for the end of the matrilineal line, but for her inability to bear a son. What a cruel brainwashing…but that is the patriarchy. Cruel because of the lack of awareness or caring of an ending…in our culture it is an ending that is not noted or even thought about. A minuscule branching that grows no more on a gargantuan tree that the tree doesn’t even notice?…just part of the life cycle of the tree.
In thinking about it, my paternal grandmother also has no direct female descendants after my generation. And, my great-grandmother, my grandfather’s mother on my mother’s side, she was the end of that matrilineal line.
This week I used something that has been taking up space since I moved into my home. The previous owners left behind a hammer, which I use, and some other stuff they had used in landscaping in preparation for the sale of this house. I don’t know if the grass seed is viable after all this time, but it has been sown, and some other things I didn’t think I’d ever have a use for are now being used. I suppose I should have gotten rid of all the things they left behind, but I inherited a tendency to be a packrat from my father. My father was a much neater packrat than I am. I don’t advocate for anyone to be a packrat. I believe to be a successful packrat, one must have some tolerance for disorder and a memory, vague though it may be, that the something one needs is in a box somewhere.
NASA is doing a flyby of the moon. One of the astronauts is a Black male, Victor Glover. He is the pilot on Artemis II. Artemis I did not have a crew, but was launched in 2022 by NASA. Artemis is the name of NASA’s program that will launch crews to the moon and then to Mars. However, under the current administration, I doubt that NASA will receive the required funding. But that opens the door for the billionaires doesn’t it? Especially, since their rockets to spread their greed into space seem to crash at a greater rate than NASA’s rockets. If it comes to that, their money, at the back end, will buy them first dibs on extracting wealth from what our tax dollars has funded.
I have a bare spot in my daylily bed. The daylilies don’t like that particular spot as the day lilies have spread nicely to fill up most of their bed. So, I have decided to try the flowering weeds in my yard and see if any of them like that particular spot. Today, I transplanted some wild daisies to the bare spot and, in the last couple of weeks, I transplanted another flowering weed to the bare spot. Wonder how the weeds will do. I shall see!
I was scrolling and saw a reference to The Moynihan Report (1965 Patrick Moynihan). In the past, I have read about the findings in The Moynihan Report, but I had never read the report. Also, in scrolling, I found The Moynihan Report Revisited (2013 Urban Institute founded in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson). Moynihan’s educational background was primarily in history, sociology, and economics. I take issue that he was qualified to meaningfully write about the Black community in the United States. Why? He was white and part of the white supremacist structure and, therefore could not critically think of the affect of white supremacy on Blacks in America. One can see that by the programs suggested by the report.
White supremacy’s goal was and continues to be a caste system in the United States with Blacks on the lowest rung. Another goal has been the continued monetization of Black bodies to increase and retain white wealth. Job training programs and education do nothing when success is dependent on a society controlled by white supremacists. (Seems like white so-called experts are always promoting guarantees. If you do X, Y is bound to follow. No one is asking for a guarantee…only that the systemic racism of white supremacy be eradicated.) At least, Moynihan realized that a welfare program that was a disincentive to marriage or to having a contributing male in the household, whether married or not, would not benefit the Black community.
Job programs and higher education were salves that white liberals/do-gooders could point to and say look at the ones who followed the program we set out. They conveniently never said that was the purpose…divide and conquer. House Slave versus Field Slave… Always allow a few to have more than the others, so the liberals/do-gooders could tsk, tsk that something must be wrong with you if you have not succeeded. The underlying system must never be compromised or changed.
Moynihan did say there was nothing wrong with the matriarchal structure, except it did not comport with Western society. Therefore, it was a detriment to Black advancement. However, what advances that have been made in this patriarchal society have occurred while Blacks, by necessity, were more of a matriarchy. Moynihan did mention the Black middle class that did have stable male female relationships. However, white supremacy made it nigh impossible to maintain generationally stable relationships. If a Black family was perceived as too successful, especially in the South, the male was subject to being lynched and/or his property stolen by the white supremacists. Sometimes, the female was lynched. In the North, predatory whites, especially with regard to real estate and housing, preyed on the Black community with the intent of insuring that the Black community owned nothing.
In the Northern cities, low paying jobs, often involving physical labor that was dangerous was all that was available because of white supremacy. With non-existent health care, the male was often unable to work because of injury and/or illness caused by the work environment. My point is that nothing in these reports addressed the underlying evil of white supremacy. And the band aids suggested by such reports do nothing to assist in the healing of the wound. The band aids allow the wound to fester and worsen.
The point made in the report about the Black female being favored for education. A white person cannot understand that one way to protect Black females from rape, abuse, and so much more from white males and females was education. With education, the Black female could have a better life away from the abuse so common in the South.
I don’t know what group the persons who wrote 2013 report belong to. But their sops, for example–education about the benefits of diversity…we see where that’s gotten us. Nothing new under the sun…same old same old in 2013. So disappointed —2013 and a lament that things were worse than in 1965 and the prediction that things were not getting any better. The 2013 update was truly a waste of paper.
It rained! It’s been a couple of weeks and I was waiting for it to rain before I fertilized my outdoor plants.
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When the world’s at peace, will it still be in one piece? (When the world is at peace)
I pray for the day when the bombs and the bullets cease (Yeah, yeah)
Come let’s make a change, or leave the world in dust (When the world is at peace)
Excerpt from When the World’s At Peace by the O’Jays
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