"Plato is less important than he was a hundred years ago. Democratic higher education, relativism, historicism, multiculturalism, laziness and love of novelty have all taken their toll. There are more significant things to consider than the irrelevant, antidemocratic, or foolishly dogmatic writings of dead Greeks.
Plato also is more important, however, because the few who do read him take him seriously philosophically, not just culturally, and seek his (and Aristotle's) moral and political guidance. He is not imbibed as part of a casual cocktail of teachings that support quasi-aristocratic habits, but instead, is examined for guidance in supporting what is worthwhile in liberalism."
The above quoted language from Blitz's review provides a caution to all of us who read, attend lectures and generally engage in what has been referred to as the life of the mind. There is (at least for me, and perhaps for others) a constant tension between study as a guidance in a quest for the truth and study to enable one to sound smart and emanate the appropriate trust cues to others at the next social gathering. One's position in life (butcher, baker, candlestick maker, bricklayer, lawyer, physician, distinguished professor of mathematical physics and Heideggerian philosophy at pseudo-elite U.) has no relation to one's ability to benefit from the Socratic dialogues if (i) one has had a reasonably good high school education in which one has developed decent information processing skills and (ii) one is willing to look relentlessly inward and outward without judgment (or fear or favor as to how one's quest will affect one's social position) in all of one's experiences. Without this relentless searching, academic study will not progress beyond providing "merely a vocabulary for communicating impressions one has deeply felt even before knowing that they were a shared and studied phenomenon" (see the comment by "Jillian" on the post The Problem of All Problems).
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There is a constant tension between study as a guidance in a quest for the truth and study to enable one to sound smart and emanate the appropriate trust cues to others at the next social gathering.
-Nunway
It seems that we are at the heart of, as Pilate famously said, quid veritas est.
May I suggest that if a man is torn between seeking the truth and seeking the approval of his peers, the truth will be kept from him. From reading the remainder of your column, and knowing the moral law, your own conscience validates what I have written here.
Fear not what your peers think of you, fear what God thinks of you. Your peers have no power over you, God has complete power over you. If you trust in God, you never have to fear the judgment of men.
If you take positions based on what others will think of you, their approval is the only reward you will ever receive. Instead ignore the success and advancement of the self and take positions based on moral conscience. If you seek truth, this is where you will find it.
Mark Blitz's comments on Plato are troubling. I wouldn't proclaim the death of Christian (Western) Civilization just yet. This is what we are talking about after all, not just Plato. I do agree that the traditional liberal arts cirriculum, including the canon of historical and philosophical works that make us who we are as a people, is indeed under seige.
American universities, the guardians of our intellectual birthright, are charged with a sacred duty to teach the next generation of American elite of their noble obligation to preserve our treasury of knowledge. Perhaps this is what Blitz means when he refers to "democratic" higher education, but all you will find in our universities today are young people seeking to advance their own pleasures and profits.
John Winthrop, leader and governor of our wise and pious Puritan ancestors, warned us in 1630, at the very beginning of this noble experiment in liberty and self-government, about failing to uphold our obligations before God and one another:
... If we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.
In Chapter 5, Section 1, Article 1 of the Massachusetts Constitution, John Adams states the mission of Harvard University, founded in 1636 as an institution to train Puritan ministers. Even 144 years later, in anno Domini 1780, the mission of the University is still quite clear:
Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great eminence have, by the blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences, which qualified them for public employments, both in church and state: and whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America ...
Blitz later says that Plato is no longer "imbibed as part of a casual cocktail of teachings that support quasi-aristocratic habits." It seems that Blitz, in a quasi-Marxian way, is not really talking about aristocratic habits, but about Christian Civilization itself.
Men are not given equal abilities; God has given each man a special purpose known only to Him, a purpose not to be determined under a man's own power, but made known to us by grace through faith. Therefore, it is essential to have those men with particular talents in this area, a quasi-aristocracy to wit, preserve our birthright as Americans.
From our first day in the womb, our purpose is foreordained by God. As Plato would argue, this is to so that God may unite us in the bonds of harmony and justice. At the very beginning of his famous sermon Christian Charity, John Winthrop explains three reasons for differing abilities among men:
GOD ALMIGHTY in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission.
The Reason hereof:
1st Reason. First to hold conformity with the rest of His world, being delighted to show forth the glory of his wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures, and the glory of His power in ordering all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole, and the glory of His greatness, ...
2nd Reason. Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of his Spirit: ... in the regenerate, in exercising His graces in them, as in the great ones, their love, mercy, gentleness, temperance etc. ...
3rd Reason. Thirdly, that every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection. From hence it appears plainly that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy etc., out of any particular and singular respect to himself, but for the glory of his Creator and the common good of the creature, man. Therefore God still reserves the property of these gifts to Himself ...
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