The Inversion of All Values

Here are some of the teachings of Plato.

• Idealism. The material world is determined by the noetic or ideal world. Mind is therefore more real than matter.

• The tripartite psyche. The human soul consists of three parts. These are the appetitive part, which controls the primal longings for food, sex, and so on; the spirited part, which governs the social emotions; and the nous or higher part, which includes the reason and the capacity for contact with the divine.

• Moral realism. Goodness actually exists, and in fact has a more real existence than material things, and is more real than evil. The particular virtues, especially Justice, Courage, Temperance and Wisdom, are also real. One becomes just by participating in real Justice.

• Beauty is real, and the beauty of virtuous actions is the same as the beauty we admire in a face or a landscape. All beautiful things participate in the form of Beauty, and become beautiful thereby. Beauty Itself emanates directly from God, and to be united to Beauty is to ascend to the divine. 

• True love consists of the love of soul for soul, and to truly love someone is to help them become better. Sexual attraction is merely a step on the road to real love, and we ought to practice sexual restraint.

• We can imagine an ideal form of government, in which all things are shared in common (Republic) and the working masses are governed by wise philosopher-kings. This, however, is only possible for gods and demigods (Laws), and so an actual constitution must be formulated with the needs of human beings in mind, including property and hierarchy. 

• Real governments may be produced by constitutions worked out by philosophers, and have as their highest priority the production of virtuous citizens and giving due honor to the gods.

• In political life, one cannot be both a partisan and a citizen.

• The goods of the soul are primary, those of the body secondary. Material goods, the possessions of the body, are tertiary. The goods of the body consist in health and strength. A fashionable appearance is a mere imitation of the actual good of the body. 

• The aim of government is to produce virtuous citizens. 

• After death, the soul goes to a place of judgment, and is rewarded or punished as it has been virtuous or vicious. Punishment for vice may include reincarnation in the body of an animal corresponding to the vice in question. 

By contrast, here are some of the teachings of modern philosophers, and the modern world generally. 

• Materialism. Nothing exists except for matter. To the extent that mental phenomena exist at all, they are entirely determined by the material substrate from which they emerge. 

• The tripartite psyche. The human psyche consists of three parts, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id, which controls the appetites, especially for sex, is always in control.  Contained in the superego are all the teachings of religion, but these are just coverups or sublimations of the desires of the Id. 

• Moral relativism. Ethics, insofar as it means anything at all, consists in a series of rules to help people get along better in society. In place of wisdom we have intelligence, which consists in being able to repeat large numbers of other peoples' ideas, provided those other people are unviersity professors. Justice is a word much used, and its definition currently is something like "Governments take revenge against a large population of their own citizens for imaginary crimes." Courage, which consists both in not acting through or being controled by fear, and not acting through or being controled by pleasure, is actively discouraged. Temperance, which consists in self-control and especially control of the appetites, is actively discouraged. Scientists teach that temperance consisting as it does in, acts of will, is impossible. 

• "Beauty" is a subjective state of preference of one object to another. This preference only exists because it enabled primitive organisms to outcompete other primitive organisms, for some reason. 

• Love is an epiphenomenon of human bonding hormones such as oxytocin and dopamine. To love someone is to experience sexual and emotional pleasure in their company, and to prefer it to others for the sake of that pleasure.

• We can imagine an ideal form of government, in which the working masses share all things in common and rule other classes in a dictatorship of the proletariat, and we should bring this government into existence in the real world through as much violence as necessary.

• In political life, one must be a partisan. 

• Material goods are primary, and a person's worth may be judged on his possession of them. Physical beauty, demonstrated by a fashionable appearance, is secondary. Goods of the soul, consisting in possession of the virtues, go unmentioned. 

• The aim of government is to produce wealthy citizens. 

• At death, the mind dissolves. A human person could never fall through vice into the form of an animal, but the form of an animal may evolve, through vice, into the form of a human being. 

It's interesting to note that the four great apostles of Modernity, viz. Darwin, Freud, Marx, and Nietzche, all taught exact inversions of Platonic philosophy. Freud taught the tirpartite soul of Plato's Republic, but made Epithymia the master and Nous a mere social convention. Marx taught the ideal society of the Republic but gave the dictatorship to the proletariat and demanded it be brought into being in the material world through force. Darwin taught that, rather than a human falling into animal form through evil, an animal may rise to human form through "reproductive fitness," which consists largely in succcessful acts of evil. The despicable maniac Nietzche, claiming "Plato is a coward," taught that virtues are nonexistent and that real morality consists in deliberately cultivating personal evil. 

A very large part of our political divide has, for a long time, consisted in whether one embraces Darwin and Nietzche on the one hand, or Freud and Marx on the other. The first gives us right-wing economics and the "libertarianism" of the late 20th century conservatives; the second left-wing economics and socialism. This has shifted a bit of late as Freud himself has fallen out of fashion. 

What are we to make of all of this? Rather than just shake my fist and curse the world-- as enjoyable as that can be at times-- I want to think about why we've been given this inverted reality and what we're meant to do with it. But that's a blog post for another day.