Plato operates with his feet planted in the ground.

In order to do that, you need companions to

corroborate the fact that the ground has traction. His whole approach starting school in Athens,
in the academy, he did not operate alone. The Dialogues are sequestered from the rest of
community—colleagues, professors, and students. Plato may never travelled the places he
talked about in the laws. But he spoke things he got from persons who were there. These were
reliable. He got these from his companions.
Plato was truly a man among men because he was deeply embedded in the community.
He has many students in the academy. He was the director in the Academy. This is to prove that
the Cretan colony that Plato established was not communistic. Today the role of religion is
more spotty. The global pandemic has made that an obvious fact with ministry shut down,
church is closed. The main way to have church services is through Zoom. What is interesting
about the nocturnal council is that there is tradition. They have gone abroad and lived abroad
for a while. Not to enjoy themselves, although they did at some extent, but because they would
go back to the Cretan colony. Thus, the Cretan colony was not isolated from the world. Citizens
of the Cretan colony were purposely sent by the colony to discover and bring back information.
What is also interesting about the nocturnal council is that it is plural, it included women and
the young. In the laws, he says, women generally esp who has children ought to stay in their
homes. And then when their children grows enough, women could exactly be like the man,
serve in all administrative posts, even become soldiers if they wanted to. So you can imagine
that women are included in the Cretan colony. So they could also become lawyers, they could
go to law school to develop their talents in lawyering at an age more advance than their male
counterparts. There’s no reason why a woman could not become an educator. But what Plato
does is to make the Cretan colony intergenerational. The elderly in the council made important
contributions based on their experience. The young are also expected to make contributions
based on their aspirations for the colony, grounded in their plausible aspirations as compared
to their fantastic aspirations.
What also is interesting about the nocturnal council is that the council had no legislative powers
and yet it is the highest policy making body. So how did it imposed its assessments? So if they
went back to their successive offices, the summations in their heads of the assessments of the
nocturnal council, they definitely affect how the city run. They basically rule not through decree
but because of prestige.
Another governance of the Cretan colony is to be collaborative. Plato talked about the mixed
constitutions. These consist of the constitutions of Crete, Sparta and Athens. Plato’s mixed
constitution was also catholic. Plato knew that if is bound by Athenian customs and traditions
would make the same mistakes. But if it consists of an amalgamation of those of Sparta, etc, it
would be better. In Sparta, you have a double kingdom. There are two royal houses. To balance
out these royal houses, you have the council of elders in the city of Sparta. And if the council of
elders be in collusion with the double kingdom, there is a third organ, there is the ephors. He
incorporated that in his mixed constitutions in which he basically understood that part of the
constitution which opened up to monarchy, he understood monarchy not strictly in terms of
monarchy or nobility, but he simply understood monarchy in terms of the hegemony, the
power of talent acquired in school. So you go back to the Republic. The cultivation of which is
virtue. You learn it mainly in school.
In his mixed constitution, he talks about artistocracy. He talks about the Cretan colony’s ability
to bring the best result. The Cretan colony was a community of farmers who had learned the
best farming techniques, those ideas they learned in school. He spoke therefore of the
agricultural aristocracy. So Plato could not have done this if he has lived a sequestered life. So
Plato in that sense is a philosopher of the political who has immersed himself with the people.
Plato was a believer of a communal law.