Prophets and Predictors 75

Prophets and Predictors

2. THE PRIMACY OF PLATO
I. F. CLARKE writes about the first great utopia in human history and shows
how its authors social insights and power of thought have dominated the
literature of the ideal state for over two thousand years.
Plato is one of the rare original thinkers
in the history of philosophy. He shares
with St Augustine and with Kant an
exceptional quality of mind-a capa-
city for profound and productive
thought-that has made him a power-
ful influence in Western civilisation.
In the history of political theory he
maintains an unquestioned primacy:
he was the first to demonstrate how to
argue out the principles on which men
could construct a rational and just
society; and he was the first to ela-
borate an admirable dialectical method
for the analysis and communication of
ideas. The pattern and the practice of
the Platonic prototype are constants in
the long history of utopian literature;
for the Republic and the Laws are both
Genesis and Deuteronomy in the
political scriptures of the ideal state
and of their black opposites-the
dystopias.
In 388 BC Plato founded the first
university-the Academy-and al-
though the circumstances of human
society have gone through profound
changes since then, his design for an
ideal state is still central to the argu-
ment about the nature and direction
of society. In the Republic and the Laws
the great debate about the best social
Professor I. F. Clarke is Head of the English
Studies Department, University of Strathclyde,
UK.
system begins; and the discussion runs
from Plato to Marx, from More to
Orwell, all of them dealing in their
own ways with the permanent problems
of political order, social stability,
universal justice, and the happiness of
all citizens. The debate continues
today-often disastrously-because
there can be no end to it. Like Plato
we have not yet discovered any
satisfactory means of reconciling the
permanent division between the op-
posing interests of Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft : that is, between the benefits
of life in a closely related, intimate
community and the practical advan-
tages of the impersonal, bureaucratic
state.
The shaping factors at work in the
Platonic utopia were the system of life
in the cities of the Greek mainland and
the fearful experiences of the Pelopon-
nesian War. During the first twenty-
four years of his life the young Plato
had seen the worst effects of warfare in
constant slaughter, frequent epidemics,
famine, finally the collapse of Athens
and the subsequent terror of the
Thirty Tyrants. His conclusions were
a verdict against the political systems
of his time; for he describes how he:
finally saw clearly in regard to all
states now existing that without excep-
tion their system of government is bad.
Their constitutions are almost beyond
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76 Prophets and Predictors
redemption, except through some mira-
culous plan accompanied by good
luck. It followed, therefore, that:
the human race will not be free from
evils until either the stock of those who
rightly and truly follow philosophy
acquire political authority, or the class
who have power in the cities be led by
some dispensation of providence to
become real philosophers. On the
day when Tammany Hall transfers to
Harvard, the millennium will com-
mence.
The dialogue of the Republic opens
with a discussion about the nature of
justice; but the first statements on the
arrangement of an ideal state only
appear when the speakers go on to
consider the origin of the city. Adei-
mantus and Glaucon agree with
Socrates that the city must begin from
a primordial fact in nature: No one
of us is sufficient for himself, but each
is in need of many things. Since
economic advantage decides the founda-
tion of cities, and since men have
different talents and abilities, it is
clear that the communal economy
requires the division and specialisation
of labour, so that all citizens can
benefit from the multifarious activities
of the crafts, trades and professions. In
this Plato was, like all planners of ideal
states, very much a man of his times:
his theory grows out of his experience;
ethical and political considerations act
in parallel with an exceptionally acute
understanding of social development.
Plato sets out, therefore, to frame a
system of government that would avoid
wasting wars between cities and
anarchic factions within cities. For him
and for all Athenians of the fourth
century the city was the whole of
civilisation; it was the source and
guarantee of life, law and liberty. But
because Plato could not imagine any
other form of social organisation, he
accepted the basic facts of life in the
Greek polis-slavery, a rigid social
system, preparedness for war. His ideal
scheme reflects the physical and the
political conditions of a real city: it
lies within a river valley, close to the
sea, surrounded by enough arable land
to feed the citizens, with a river for fish,
and uplands that provide olives and
wood. As the city grows in size,
trouble follows; for the day will come,
says Plato, when the land which was
sufficient to support the first population
will be now insufficient and too small.
Then if we were to have enough for
pasture and ploughland, we must take
a slice from our neighbours territory.
The logic of Platos theory of history
demands a standing army for the
protection of the community; and
since the basic principle of specialisa-
tion directs every citizen to the one task
for which nature fitted him, it
follows that the defenders of the state
must be carefully selected for their
qualities of mind and body.
Plato divided the tasks of work and
warfare between the labouring class-
the Artisans-and the Auxiliaries, a
warrior caste entirely dedicated to
military matters. And now what is the
next question?, asked Plato. Is it not
who of these citizens are to rule, and
who are to be ruled ? And Plato
completes his social structure by adding
a third supreme class-the Guardians-
who are selected from the best, bravest,
wisest and most devoted of the citizens.
Here, then, is the answer to the original
question about the nature of justice.
For the state can be said to be truly
just, when all three classes and all
individuals carry out their duties: that
is, when all act according to this
principle abiding in child and woman,
in slave and freeman and artisan, in
ruler and ruled, that each minded his
own business, one man one work.
This doctrine of social roles looks
forward to Karl Marx. Plato is saying,
in effect, from each according to
ability and to each according to the part
played in the social scheme. This
principle comes out with startling
clarity in the fifth Book of the Republic.
The passage should be required reading
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Top. The perfect circle equals the ideal city: the human eye can take in all the functions of the govern-
ment and all the occupations of the city.
Bottom. If Plato could have seen his ideal city from above, he would know that perfect town planning
expressed the social geometry of his utopia.
Above. The direction of all citizens is
the basic postulate in the Platonic
proposition: the heart of the ideal city
is the centre of all government and
social activity.
Left. The image of the perfect state as
a self-contained and enclosed com-
munity carried on from Plato into
modern times. In this illustration from
a seventeenth century utopia the
explorers make the journey to the
ideal commonwealth.
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Prophets and Predictors 79
for the Womens Liberation Army, the final analysis Platos grand design
since Plato is convinced that women- has its origin in a fake theology-a hoax
at least the women of the controlling about nature and nurture-that is
classes-are as good as men and that meant to make the state completely and
for the purposes of guarding the city eternally immutable. The fear of change
the nature of men and women is the is the inspiration of the first great
same. utopia in human history.
As the relentless logic piles up the
ordinances and regulations of the
Platonic paradise, political and ethical
principles complete the pattern of a
totalitarian state. For example, Plato
saves the citizen from the dangers of
self-centred thinking and private emo-
tions by bringing all men to the same
common denominator. He forbids
private property and proposes a
thorough-going communism; a careful
and compulsory system of education
induces a common attitude of mind;
and precise instructions govern sexual
relations in order that a sound mating
system will produce the best citizens
and that the rulers may as far as
possible keep the population at the
same level, having regard to wars and
diseases and all such ravages. The
direction of the state derives in every
way from established first principles: a
rigid censorship decides what the
young can read, and a benign system
of propaganda promotes social unity
with suitable lies, since it pertains to
the guardians of the city, and to them
alone, to tell falsehoods, to deceive
either enemies or citizens for the citys
welfare. In fact, the foundation of the
ideal state is to depend on one noble
falsehood, concocted with the set
purpose of consolidating the constitu-
tion. Plato proposed the creation of a
special myth in order to explain the
divine origin of the social system. The
obedient citizens are to be told: You
in this city are all brothers-so we
shall tell our tale to them-but God as
he was fashioning you, put gold in
those of you who are capable of ruling;
and hence they are deserving of most
reverence. He put silver in the Auxi-
liaries, and iron and copper in the
farmers and the other craftsmen. In
This suggests that the ideologue
constructs the ideal state in his own
image. In spite of the apparent objec-
tivity of the argument the perfect
social scheme is both the natural
product of theory and the practical
answer to social problems. The utopist
sets out to provide a blue-print for the
best of all possible worlds in order to wipe
out-at least in the imagination-the
disorder and injustice he finds in
society. The basic elements of his
social geometry are the views he holds
about mans place in nature; and for
this reason the Republic and the Laws
described a perfect, changeless city
state that was the mirror image of
Greek philosophy. The metaphysical
context of Platos propositions was his
theory of the Forms, those Ideas or
objective essences that are outside
space and time. Since these are perfect,
and since all material things are
imperfect copies of the ideal Forms, it
follows that all change must be a
movement away from perfection. Again
it follows that, since society is sick the
only true physician must be the
philosopher and the only adequate
remedy must prescribe for the eternal
and unchanging tranquillity of the city
state.
Plato earned his preeminence in the
history of utopias. His extraordinary
social insights and his exceptional
power of thought have dominated the
literature of the ideal state for more
than two thousand years. In the Refub-
lit Plato gave the world both a measure
with which to assess later utopias and a
method for the writing of utopias. In
terms of political enquiry the Republic
was the equivalent of the alphabet-a
communications device capable of
handling all the diverse and com-
FUTURES Mar c h 1972