Rest in Peace, Mr. Hall

http://opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110010121

We would enrich our lives if we would master an activity removed from our regular roles in life. Whether it is becoming THE expert on the Lincoln assassination (as with Mr. Hall), raising guppies, tending a garden, becoming an expert marksman or mastering chess, we all have the time. We may or may not have the will. If we can develop that will, we will have built ourselves our own internal vacation home, a home that will refresh us when we become weary of being the butcher, baker, candlestick maker, student, family member, pillar of the community, or whatever roles we regularly play in our lives. And when we return to those regular roles, refreshed from our journey (which journey might be simply to our study or to our yard), we most likely will be a better butcher, baker or candlestick maker, more studious student, more loving family member, and stronger community pillar.

Socrates on the 2008 US Presidential Election

Imagine that the United States is a ship owned by the voters, that the President of the United States is the ship's pilot, that the presidential candidates are the sailors who in theory answer to the shipowner (the voters) and that the art of being President of the United States is akin to seamanship. The voters have the power to determine who will run the ship of state, but have a limited knowledge of seamanship. The sailors never really learned seamanship either, but they employ artful advisors to convince the owner that they are expert in piloting, beg for campaign funds to pay for the advisors and other expenses of their campaigns, and will do just about anything to convince the owner to turn the rudder over to them (that is, elect one of them President over the others). The charms used by the sailors include phony campaign promises (generated by the advisors who are skilled in advising their own sailor on convincing the owner that the sailor is the best at seamanship, but who are unskilled at educating the sailor on the art of seamanship). No sailor thinks it is possible to learn both how to convince the owner to appoint him or her pilot and to learn the true piloting art. So each sailor seeks out those artful at artifice but with no piloting knowledge. Anyone who devotes his or her life to acquiring knowledge about the true piloting art is considered useless by the sailors (and also by the owner).

Does this sound like a plausible description of the current campaign? Well, it was a description developed about 2,000 years ago in Plato's Republic 488a-489a, in which passage Socrates makes the same analogy in the context of who would be the finest ruler of a Greek city-state.

So, returning to 2008, given that Barack the O, Hill, Rudy G, Mitt Baby et al take us for the foolish shipowner and will devote the next several months to everything but a discussion of the art of ruling and who would be finest at that art, what should we the poor shipowner (the voters) do? Is it possible that we DESERVE being treated this way? Oh, yes, we're all too busy with our own lives to take the time to think through and study what the art of leading a large indirect democracy is all about. So why should the sailors treat us other than as clueless? Perhaps we the voters could view ourselves as detectives searching for all the clues as to who would be the best pilot, not simply couch potato consumers ingesting the pablum fed to us by the sailors. Any suggestions on how to bring the investigative art to the process of finding the best pilot for our ship of state?

I realize that devotees of Plato and Socrates may argue that the true ruler, the philosopher, would never run for political office. Perhaps that is the case; we nonetheless have the obligation to find the best of the lot. Let the investigation begin!