August 6, 2025 • 69 mins
In this episode of A Political Talk Show, host Dennis “Sonar” Greene takes listeners deep into Plato’s The Republic, one of the most influential works in Western political philosophy. Recorded as part of a larger series on the foundations of political thought, the discussion explores Plato’s central question: What is justice? Greene unpacks the famous debates between Glaucon, Thrasymachus, and Plato’s own vision of justice as an intrinsic good. He outlines Plato’s blueprint for the ideal city (Kallipolis), explaining the three social classes—producers, auxiliaries, and philosopher‑guardians—and the principle of specialization that keeps the city in balance. A highlight of the episode is the Allegory of the Cave, where Greene explains how Plato’s metaphor for ignorance and enlightenment still resonates today in debates about truth, education, and democracy. The episode also covers Plato’s warning about the cycle of regimes—from aristocracy through democracy to tyranny—and why his concerns about freedom turning into chaos remain strikingly relevant. Perfect for students, educators, and anyone curious about political theory, justice, democracy, and the history of ideas, this episode sets the stage for upcoming discussions on Aristotle, Augustine, Hobbes, and Tocqueville.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hello America, and good day to our friends around the world.
This is a political talk show here on wrm N.
It's good to have you here on the AM dial,
on the fourteen ten AM dial, or perhaps you're watching
on YouTube YouTube dot com. You can find us at
(00:52):
WRMN Radio. You can also ask your smart speaker about us.
You can say, hey, smart speaker, playwrm N fourteen to
ten and it will fire it right up. This is
a political talk show. My name is Dennis Son R.
Green here on a political talk show. We want to
make sure that this is a space for political discussion,
(01:16):
not right wing, not left wing, not I don't know,
divisive political discussion. What we're after is having at least
a good faith approach to it. Now, we might bust
each other's chops here and there. There's a couple of
people on former President Obama's birthday that sent me over
(01:37):
the text message of did they find the birth certificate?
So yeah, we can josh and harang each other a
little bit here or there, but at the end of
the day, we want to make sure that we are
approaching a way of discussiing discussing political topics in a
way that bring people to a solution. We're not just
(01:58):
here to point fingers at anything. We're not here to
just berate one side or another side, or a party
or all of the parties. And we are surely not
here to just be a gloom and doom show. We
don't want to do that because that's when we check out,
when something is just I don't know, graining and grating
(02:21):
and just nails on a chalkboard of just gloom and
doom and the whole world is collapsing stuff. We don't
want to do that. We don't want to run into
the chicken little side of things. But we also don't
want to be naive. There's a lot of times where
we default into being naive because naive. Being naive is comfortable, right,
(02:45):
Ignorance is bliss. So if I just lean on the
good of humanity and oh my goodness, everything will be
okay and karma and justice and everything, Yes, those are
great things to have. Hope, but realistic optimism I find
a bit sturdier optimism that we can look at each
(03:08):
other and look at the people that we're working alongside of.
There's a song called The First Day of My Life,
and one of the lyrics in there sticks with me.
It's a sappy love song or whatever it is, but
it says I would rather be working for a paycheck
than waiting around to win the lottery. And we can
(03:31):
all stand around and we can say, you know what,
it would be great if this and that and the
utopia of everything. But most realists don't believe in a utopia.
It makes them, makes them realists. And some of the
people that gave us a lot of our guardrails and
a lot of our citizen cynicism, bad feelings towards that
(03:53):
gave us those doubts in our leaders. Machavelli Madison to
jump in and yeah, yes, are they more of the
pessimistic side, cynical side. I guess this is the word
I was trying to get out of government, right. Machavelli
talks about if you had the choice between love and fear,
(04:14):
it is better to be fear feared. Madison tells us
that if men were angels, we wouldn't need a government,
and so, yes, that may be a pessimistic approach to everything,
but for me, what it does is that should be
our filter for things. People that don't want to operate
within the confines of the government. Should not be in
(04:37):
the government if you don't understand the guardrails, and maybe
that's why you made the decision or that's why you
did it. Again, it goes back to you probably shouldn't
be in the government now. Trust me, there are plenty
of things I do not know in the government. There
are plenty of things I don't know in general. It'd
be the first person to tell you that. But some
of the things that I do know come from politic philosophy,
(05:02):
I guess is the best way to put it. Or
even then you want to go more academic to it,
political science, where we can study history and study cause
and effect for things. And so I preface this in
this intro to the show because this is the direction
that we always want to try to face. We can't
(05:22):
be pessimistic to the point where we can't get anything
done right, getting locked into our own feelings, that choice
paralysis of what can we do? I could do everything,
but I can't do anything, and everything is so much
that fire hose of information. It's easy to be pessimistic
until it's easy to be optimistic and hopeful, not naive,
(05:47):
but hopeful, hopeful that we can regain control of leadership,
whether that leadership is within our own political parties, that
leadership is within our own local, state, federal glow direction.
The reason that we focus on the Constitution, and the
reason that we focus on the rule of law, and
(06:08):
the reason that we focus on Republicanism on this show
is because those paths are still in place. And when
we start to see those paths start to break down
or start to move in a different direction, or roadblocks
get put up, that's when we know that the Republic
is eroding and we need to open up those roadblocks.
(06:30):
The First Amendment lays out so many great things that
ensure that we are able to make our voices heard,
and we want to make sure that that is available
forever for future generations. The people that handed it to
us expected us to carry that torch, not to silence
each other, not to cancel each other, but to converse
(06:52):
with each other, to try to figure out where we
need to go for the future, and how do we
carry this torch of freedom of liberty. Justice for all
for all right doesn't say for Illinoians, doesn't say for Americans,
It doesn't say for citizens. It doesn't save for people
that live on this block, on this thing for all.
(07:13):
We said it every day, we can say it every
day growing up. We can enshrine it in our hearts.
We can look at symbols and have that in our mind.
Justice for all. And so when we talk about freedom,
or we talk about liberty, or we talk about justice,
or we talk about government infrastructure, where we talk about
(07:35):
the populists, or we talk about democracies or republics or
monarchies or any of these other things, yes we can
look at them through the lens of America because we
are Americans. This is who I am, this is where
we broadcast. But it's for all. We don't want to
(07:55):
just have morality for morality's sake here in the unitedl
it States. Thomas Paine puts it so eloquently. Quin See,
I'm working on my diction, He said, I am a
citizen of the world, and my religion is doing good.
And if we can't fall into at least that category,
(08:18):
do we deserve to call ourselves anything else? Do we
deserve to call ourselves patriotic towards freedom and liberty. Now,
I'm not saying we have to fund the world. I'm
not saying we have to control the world. I'm saying
we have to look at ourselves as people who live
in the world. The other side of it. We can
(08:40):
bring all the way back to Santa Claus. Good for
goodness sake, better watch out. Doesn't matter what omnipresent entity
that you're looking for, doesn't matter what non existent entity
you go for. Good for goodness sake. We could almost
take that directly from the Big Man himself. And so
(09:01):
that's what I want to do when we talk about
things here on the show. We want to make sure
that what we talk about comes from a place not
of despair and not of anguish, and not of just grumblings,
but marching towards the horizon of perfection. We can't make
(09:21):
it to perfection, we can't make it to utopia. There's
no way. Those things aren't there. But if I continue
to travel east, where I continue to travel west, I
never make it east or west. I chase the horizon.
Now north, I can go north, I can go south, north, south, Poles.
(09:41):
But imagine, and I know I take this from a
biblical reference. It goes for when you ask for forgiveness,
the Lord takes it your sin and separates you as
far as the east is from the west. Perfection is
as far from me as the east is from the west.
Utopia is as far from America as the east is
(10:07):
from the west. But when has that ever stopped you
from traveling? Don't let perfection and the chase of perfection
get in the way of excellence and goodness. I don't
mean good enoughness. We've had enough good enoughness. We need
goodness again for goodness sake. Not because you share my religion,
(10:30):
not because you share my race, not because you share
the soil that I sit on, sleep on together, good
for goodness sake, uniting together for each other. That's why
we built societies, That's why we lived in tribes. That's
why we are social creatures. And my goal of this
(10:51):
show is to extend that hand out to you, is
to turn around and say, look, we can argue over
political philosoph we can argue over tax rates, we can
argue over economics, we can argue over social issues. We
can argue and talk and communicate. But we can only
(11:12):
do that if we are willing to communicate. There are
too many of us that shut down when we hear
these things. And I understand time and place for everything,
but there are some of you out there that there's
no time and no place for any of these things.
To educate yourself, to listen, you have to make some
(11:33):
of that time. And so what I like to do
here at this time every day from four to six,
I invite you to spend that little bit of time. Now,
you don't have to do it every single day. I
don't expect you to do it please. You all have lives.
But what I do expect is for the citizen ry,
(11:55):
not just those citizens by definition of being saidens of
the United States. I want to talk to the citizens,
the people, the all that we talk about when we
say justice for all. As long as we are all
striving to make it justice for all, and as long
as we are looking towards inviting everyone here for justice
(12:19):
for all, there's always room at the table. The paradox
of tolerance, Right, if we all want to tolerate each
other and have a world where we can live a
little bit better. Right, we all tolerate and can live
and everything else. The only people that we cannot tolerate
(12:40):
are the intolerant, those that don't want to build society,
those that want to siphon from society, those that don't
care what you say, or you have or you are.
It's just them. We see these people every day. We
talk to these people. We vote for these people, we
(13:00):
work for these people. The intolerant, the ones that don't
see us as a collective, as citizens of the world.
Those we used to call nationalists, they call themselves patriots.
But true patriots are for the all, are for justice,
are for the rule in which we all agree to,
(13:26):
to the republic for which it stands. I know I'm
taking you back to grade school, but to the republic.
It's not to my religion, to my race, to my group,
to my generation, to my family, to the Republic. And
so I invite people onto this show. I invite you
(13:48):
to reach out to me. You can send us a
text five zero five nine two six fourteen ten. That
text line is still open. It's open twenty four hours.
So if you ever read something you're like, my goodness,
can somebody talk about this? Here's an article five zero
five nine two six fourteen ten, send me an email.
A couple people do sonar at WRMN fourteen ten dot com.
(14:09):
And why do I do this? I want to make
sure that unlike the other shows, or unlike the other stations,
or unlike whatever else that's out there. When people draw
the line in the sand and say, if you don't
believe this side of the line, you aren't allowed to
even talk. We're gonna brate you. We're gonna call you names.
They will, and they're proud of it. I'm not saying
(14:31):
I'm not gonna bust your chops. I'm not saying we're
not gonna joke around a little bit. But what I'm
saying is, here on a political talk show, we want
to make sure that this is a space that we
can discuss facts for fact's sakes and strive for goodness
for goodness sake, because there's too much division, there's too
(14:51):
much us and thems, there's too much. I don't like
that group of people, and I don't even want to
talk with them. In fact, I love it and relish
it when they suffer, and I can't abide that. I
can't abide any person cheering on the suffering of another.
Deep in my gut, I know that's wrong. You do too,
(15:14):
And so that's all I ask when you think about politics,
or you join our show, or you want to call in,
or you want to send us a message, or you
want to just meditate on the political philosophy with us.
I want you to take it from that perspective of Yes,
American patriotic constitution. I love it, the Republic MM so tasty,
(15:40):
But we have to look at things of why we
have this now. Obviously, when Plato wrote the Republic, he
didn't necessarily know what it would look like a thousand
years later, or how the United States would put it
together based off of so or any of the other
(16:02):
people that we're putting other political philosophy out. Why do
we have this, Why do we have this constitution when
all and everybody else doesn't? What makes our special? That
is the conversation that we have here. And once we
bring everything back to the foundation. You notice I didn't
(16:23):
say center. I'm not going to bring you back to
the center. I want to bring you back to the foundation.
I want to bring you back to the rule book.
I don't care what strategy you want to use. I
don't care what beliefs you have. I want to remind
you of the foundation of why we do these things.
(16:44):
Because if we're not here together, if we are not
here to make each other better and the world better,
then why aren't we all just living in the woods
hitting each other with rocks. Why do we build societies?
Why do we share resources? If it isn't to build
(17:08):
societies and share resources. Today we're going to talk about
Plato's Republic, and we're going to talk about the allegory
of the cave that you're seeing some people step out of.
(17:56):
Welcome back to WRMN fourteen ten. Now you can listen
live WORMN fourteen ten dot com, or you can turn
up that dial of WRMN fourteen ten AM broadcasting live
outside of the Fox River Valley. We kiss all the
(18:18):
way to the lake. Some people hear us all the
way in Wisconsin, but we broadcast live downtown the Fox
River Valley, downtown Elgin. In fact, right here on Douglas Street,
Studio fourteen outlooks the traffic. I hope you are doing
(18:38):
okay ten and two while you're driving, Please seat belt.
Today we're talking about the Republic. And we're not talking
about the Republic as kind of like this philosophical type
of thing. We're talking about the republic as as a
book Plato. Plato wrote the Republic. And so I'm working
(18:59):
on a series alongside the Constitutional series, which we'll get
to in the second hour. But I'm working on a
series right now where we go through some of the
core readings of just political not necessarily philosophy, but understanding
(19:20):
of principles, and to kind of just talk a little
bit about about the Holy books or anything like that.
I want to talk to you about the progression of knowledge. Now,
we always start small, right, maybe we know one or
two numbers or numbers. First, We've got to learn how
to speak. I'm still still learning myself. We learn how
(19:43):
to move, we learn how to move our mouth, we
learn how to vibrate our vocal cords, et cetera, et cetera.
Then based off of that knowledge, we learn how to
put together those sounds, and it builds on top of
each other. Same thing with love. When I read the Bible,
I at that same type of side of of of
(20:03):
of the evolution of love and then culminating into the
new covenant of thy neighbor as thyself. But even then,
if we look at the laws of uh in Leviticus,
and even going back even further of Adam and Eve,
it is a progression of love self, love being alive
(20:26):
and understanding everything, family love, then eventually love of each other,
not just romantically, and so political thought, excuse me, political
thought has a lot of progression in it as well,
because we have to first think about what what is fair?
What do I believe is fair? What do I believe
(20:47):
is just? Once I think about justice, well, what's liberty
so that I can have this justice? What's freedom? And
I understand that this is may seem I don't know, elementary,
it may seem the pedestrian or whatever other words that
you want to use to kind of put it back
down as I don't know, duh. We should all know
(21:10):
these things anyway. But do you what does freedom mean
to you? What are you free from? What are you
free to do when something bad happens? What is justice?
What's justice as far as your own personal side? What's
justice towards the community? And so what I think a
lot of times is we just take these words for granted.
(21:31):
We take these words because they've been.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Commercialized towards us real Americans by genes. If you don't
support this, you're not a patriot. Support the troops. American
freedom is number one. What does that mean? What does
that mean to you? What does that mean to us?
What does that mean to the world?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
When you actually say that or are you just saying
it to make yourself feel good, like a release valve,
like a parrot, like a propagandist that just wants to repeat.
And so when we look at the way that we
communicate with each other, there are a lot of times
where we just talk past each other. This needs to
(22:16):
happen because this is America. That's not freedom. I hate
to put my earl phips right. Some of those old
radio people we callup a miracle. I don't see if
I can find that. But I want to start with
the foundation. I am a civic republican. I believe in
civic republicanism. I believe in the branches of government. I
(22:39):
believe in putting people's ambition against other people's ambition and
putting up the guard rails that enshrine our freedom. Just
like any other beliefs, we have to be able to
have the benediction. And so what we're going to go
through in this series is we're going to go through,
(23:00):
well my scriptures, the political philosophy of things, and we're
going to start with Plato, Plato's Republic, of course, Plato
all the way from four hundred and twenty eight BCE
to three hundred and forty eight BCE. That makes sense
(23:20):
if you understand what bcees is ancient Greek philosopher studying
under Socrates, and he was the teacher of Aristotle. He
wrote The Republic at about three seventy five BCE, and
it was the first great attempt in Western philosophy. Now,
this is where we're starting, is with Western philosophy more
of the individual that controls the large. Eastern philosophy is
(23:44):
a little bit on the other side of that, the
large controls the parts. To oversimplify it, because we have
not enough time to break the differences to articulate these principles.
In the Republic, he wanted to put it into just
political ors or The Republic asked questions that echo through
the centuries. What is justice, what form of government best
(24:07):
promotes it? And how does human nature shape political life.
At the time, Plato lived in Athens. After the Pelopolynesian
War conflict between Athens and Sparta. The city was destabilized
by defeat, faction and the trial and execution of Socrates.
The execution is crucial. It persuaded Plato that democracy ruled
(24:31):
by the people, typically through voting, could be deeply unjust.
We didn't think that the political show would turn around
and called democracy unjust. Yeah, tyranny through the masses is
the way our founding fathers called it. But Plato's Academy,
the first and enduring institution of higher learning in the West,
was founded in Athens, and it became a model for
(24:55):
latter intellectual life. We begin with Plato because he sets
the instant intellectual architecture of political philosophy. Later thinkers, Aristotle, Augustine, Hobbes, Locke,
they all grapple with these questions, what is justice and
what form of government best promotes it? Justice? It's the
(25:19):
Greek term for righteousness moral order die quiahsi. I do
not speak Greek, and I apologize for anybody whose ears
that offended justice and master concept of the republic, the onset.
Socrates is pressed to explain whether justice is valuable in
(25:41):
itself or only as a means to something else. Glaucin
Plato's brother he plays the devil's advocate. They say that
to do in justice is naturally good, to suffer it bad,
but that the evil in suffering it so far exceeds
(26:03):
the good in doing it. That both have been experienced.
Men think that they ought to make a compact with
each other to neither do nor suffer injustice. It's in
book two, but it introduces a social contract, right, not
just a hey, it's bad for me to do injustices
(26:26):
to each other, but like, hey, let's let's verbalize that contract.
Those of you that have siblings, maybe you you you
didn't necessarily outright say hey, I'm not gonna punch you. Right,
Maybe you had to have a contract for traveling in
the car for long periods. We enter contracts all the
(26:47):
time in society, but three hundred something BC we have
to have the contract of, hey, yeah, it's it's wrong
for us to hurt each other. You don't hurt you,
don't hurt me. I won't hurt you. And then we'll
figure the whole thing out after that. Another sophist philosopher
Therah Matchus, if you're looking for the name T. H. R.
(27:09):
A ysmac Hus Thera Smatchus said justice is nothing else
than the advantage of the stronger. This reduces justice to
just being power. Whoever rules decides what is just. The
republic now must prove that justice is an objective good
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benefiting individuals in societies, and so Plato wrote The Republic,
but it's Socrates who speaks in it. And when we
come back, we are going to talk about that. Constructing
the ideal city. How do we make a place where
people have agreed that justice should rule, not just the powerful.
(27:58):
You're listening to w RMN political talk show. You're right back,
(28:32):
Welcome back. It is fifty two past the hour here
in the Fox River Valley. Thanks for being here again.
So we're talking about justice and we're talking about Plato's Republic.
We just got done talking about Glaucin, who brings up
(28:53):
to Socrates. Now, Plato wrote the book The Republic, but
it is through Socrates as the mouthpiece. Those of you
that have read Nietzsche and have read thus spoke Zarathrustra.
It's kind of that same thing, using a person or
an avatar to kind of speak through. And so to
(29:14):
clarify justice, Plato proposes examining it not in the individual way,
but with large in the city. This yields the quote
city in speech colapolis or Greek for beautiful city. And
so the city that's beautiful has three parts in it.
(29:39):
We have the producers. I'm talking about farmers, artisans, merchants,
those meeting material needs. This is the appetitive soul. This
is part of the human nature, concerned with desires and appetites.
The other piece of the triparte city is the auxiliaries,
the soldiers, the defenders, those those that are responsible for security,
(30:02):
the spirited soul of the city, part of the soul
linked to courage and honor. And then the guardians, the rulers,
the trained philosophers, the rational souls, the part of the
soul discerned with reason and truth. Each group mirrors a
part of the human psyche, and justice consists in harmony.
(30:25):
In Book four of the Republic by Plato, he says
justice means minding your own business and not meddling with
other men's concerns. Now, this principle of specialization, each person
doing the work suited to their nature, anchors Plato's concept
(30:45):
of justice, because back then it was more about your
job as a person, was your identity, your life, etc.
But Plato introduces this concept of the noble lie, the
myth of medals, a founding myth that citizens are born
with silver, gold, and bronze in their souls. This noble
(31:07):
lie that he puts in here fosters unity and acceptance
of one's role. But it raises into question to what
extent do regimes depend on those shared myths. If your
regime believes that the king and his family have the
noble lie heard of the silver spoon. If we believe
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that the rich, or we believe that those that are
in power are divinely in power and it is just
nature that they rule over us, then to what extent
can any society endure anything without them? We would think
the whole thing would collapse. And so in the republic,
(31:52):
this is where republicanism does start to flourish. Is what
happens when we step aside between the myth of why
somebody rules, or the myth of why somebody has power,
that they must be good, that they must be chosen,
that they must have pulled their bootstraps just a little
(32:15):
bit harder than you did. And these myths that we
have in society beget other myths that if obviously these
people that are in charge got there because of natural
selection and just the will of the world, then surely
you can be just as industrious, You can pull your
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bootstraps just as hard because the world lets you. This myth,
this noble lie, this silver spoon, this acceptance of one's
role as ruler or as leader. We need the principles
of a republic to make sure that is the will
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of the people, not the mysterious hand of the spirit,
or the markets or the lies that get people into power.
We're continuing with the Republic written by Plato, using Socrates
(33:21):
as the mouthpiece. When we come back, we're going to
talk about the philosopher king and form of good. Those
of you that are paying attention, we are going to
walk next into the allegory of the cave. What happens
when you see behind the veil. You've seen the man
(33:45):
behind the curtain, and Oz isn't as powerful. Hello America,
(34:28):
and good day to our friends around the world. This
is a political talk show here on wrm N. We're
going through talking about the republic. Well, because I'm a
civic Republican. I believe that the republic is the best
(34:51):
form of government now a days. When people say you're
a Republican or a Democrat, or a libertarian or whatever else,
they automatically assume the party. I don't like parties. I'm
not a big fan. I recognize their purpose. Things exist
because they are able to exist right, it would be different.
(35:12):
It was supposed to be different. It would be different.
But republicanism from the idea of republic of rules. We
all agree that these are the rules in which we
will operate be a part of. And so on our
journey of learning how to be a better citizen of
(35:34):
a republic, we might want to listen, or read or
know a little bit more about what these words mean. Republic, democracy, justice, liberty, freedom.
You've used these words before, You've said these words before,
But do you know what they mean? Not not by
the definition. Necessarily, we do have to have definitions because
(35:56):
it's how we communicate the definition of what is. But
what it was one of them that Bill Clinton said, well,
depends on what the definition of is is right, if
you remember that. But what I mean by freedom and
justice and anything else that's there is do you know
what they mean to you? Sure, you can recite whatever
(36:19):
dictionary you want to, but what does freedom mean to you?
Can you explain what liberty means to you? And so
it's when we turn around and start thinking about these
things that are here, and we actually start looking at
these things and internalizing those words, that we can finally
have a conversation, and we invite all people into the
(36:40):
conversation because it's it's one of those things. You see
somebody who's doing something, and they if they just do
that one little trick, that one little thing, if they
just said this or that or knew this kernel of information,
would change their whole life. Teach a man to fish,
et cetera. If you think therefore you are, then you
(37:01):
should think more. And what is thinking but the exercise
of philosophy. So we're already into book five of Plato.
Plato's Republic. Now he sets it in the tone of Socrates,
and then in all good fashion he makes his his
(37:23):
brother Glaucan the the the devil's advocate in it right.
And so in books five through really seven, Plato claims,
only philosophers are fit to rule. Until philosophers become kings
in this world, or until those now called kings and
(37:46):
rulers really and truly become philosophers, there will be no
end to the troubles of states or of humanity itself.
Comes from book five. The philosoph o king, the ideal
ruler who loves truth and loves wisdom. Only that philosopher
(38:08):
king alone has the insight into the forms. Chief among
them is the form of good, the ultimate principle of
truth and reality. In Book six, Plato says, the good
is the intelligible realm what the sun is to the
(38:28):
visible realm. The good the source the light. The philosopher
king is the only one who strives for it. Maybe
that's why our founding fathers are so great. Maybe that's
why we constantly pull up the Federalist papers or the
articles of the Confederacy, or we look at the Constitution.
(38:49):
We look at our American philosopher kings, and we say,
in this age of enlightenment, they turned around and they
said justice is equality, and justice is the rule of
the people, by the people, through the republic. The philosopher
(39:11):
Kings threw away monarchy, which is what any good philosopher
king would do. And so this brings us to the
heart of the book for the republics Now we talk
about justice, we talk about it in that primordial type
of side. Remember this is this is BCE. It's about
(39:36):
three hundred and three ninety nine is what he wrote.
He wrote this sorry three seventy five BCE. So when
he wrote this, so justice or the the enlightenment period,
or even the fact that slaves had rights or justice
or anything like that was beyond them at this point.
(39:57):
And that's not because they were necessary the idiots. They
just did not have the moral structure that we have built.
They were the first rungs towards the Enlightenment age, and
even then the Enlightenment Age didn't solve anything either. Again,
(40:17):
goodness and perfection is not a destination, it's a direction.
It's a horizon. And because of this we get the
allegory of the Cave. Now, the allegory of the Cave
within the Book of the Republic remains strikingly relevant today.
At its core, the allegory dramatizes the distinction between the
(40:39):
appearance and reality, ignorance and enlightenment. What is the allegory
of the cave. Well, it's a metaphor. It depicts prisoners
chained to a cave and forced to watch the shadows
that are projected by firelight. These shadows are their whole reality, right,
think about just looking at just shadows on a cave.
(41:01):
You've never seen the outside, You've never you've never seen
another person other than the people within the cave themselves.
You've never seen an animal, for real, you've only seen
the shadows of one right, We've all done that before,
with a flashlight and a bed sheet, a couple twisted
(41:22):
fingers made the rabbits and different things like that. And
these prisoners, their whole reality is only the shadows of
the rabbits or the shadows of a tree. And one
prisoner is freed. And after painful adjustment of being blinded
by the light and seeing not just the shadows but
(41:43):
the reflections, and then seeing the living beings that put
it together, the progression of these stages of knowledge culminating
in the vision of the sun, the goodness, the thing
that it shines, all truth over everything. Last of all,
he will be able to see the sun, not mere
reflections in the water, but he will see it in
(42:07):
his own proper place, and not in another, and he
will contemplate it as it is. And what we get
here is there are so many people that only want
to watch the shadows. Because guess what happens to that
prisoner that comes back, that prisoner that tries to tell
the other ones who have only seen the shadows. Returning
(42:29):
the enlightened one meets hostility. The others resist liberation because
they only know the shadows. When you talk about a
deeper meaning, or you talk about those that are controlling
the shadows, or you talk about the truth to people
that only see the shadows of truth and are comfortable
(42:51):
with the shadows of truth, they will fight you to
keep their chains on. Hostility is what meets enlightenment. At
its core, the allegory dramatizes the distinction between appearance and reality,
ignorance and enlightenment. The prisoners mistake the flickering shadows for truth,
(43:12):
while only the philosopher who painfully ascends to the light
comes to grasp reality itself. This tension translates well into
modern context where individuals are often ensnared not by literal chains,
but by social, technological, and ideological forces. There's an old
(43:33):
Indian proverb about how it is harder to separate a
person from their delusions than it is to separate a
tiger from its cub and one obvious parallel to the
digital environment, the social media algorithms, curated news feeds, the
(43:54):
endless proliferation of images functions much like the puppeteers in
Plato's k offering shadows that seem authoritative yet may be
distortions of selective framings. What deals are we getting done?
What stats are we being seen? What pictures from AI
(44:15):
generated stuff are our leaders giving us, not just our
political leaders, our religious leaders, our business leaders. The danger
lies not merely in misinformation, but the complacency of those who,
like the prisoners, fail to recognize that what they consume
(44:38):
is not unmediated truth but a constructed projection. Even this
right here, what I tell you is my projection, is
my understanding. It's not yours. Could be, but it doesn't
have to be, and it shouldn't be yours just because
(44:58):
it's mine. I should be yours because it's yours. The
allegory of the cave also resonates in the domain of
consumer culture. Advertising industries manufacture desires and identities, often persuading
individuals to equate fulfillment with consumption. Here again, one might
(45:19):
argue that many live bound within the cave of commodified illusions,
rarely glimpsing the broader questions of meaning and justice or
quote good life, not the good life, a good life
yet Plato in the text, the challenge is not merely
(45:39):
recognizing the illusion. There are plenty of you out there
that recognize this illusion, you know who lies to you?
Are you willingly accepting the lie? Are you playing into
the theater? The challenge is not merely to recognize the illusion,
but to under the undertaking the arduous and often uncomfortable
(46:04):
process of liberation. Today, the assent may take the form
of cultivating media literacy, maybe some philosophical reflection upon yourself,
or even critical engagement with prevailing narratives. Question. There's a
reason why Plato asks for us to question. That is
(46:27):
because Plato uses the Socratic method. He learns from the best.
Like the freed prisoner who returns to the cave, those
who attempt to challenge entrenched views often face hostility or ridicule,
a dynamic observable in debates over climate change, systemic justice,
(46:51):
political corruption. Thus, the allegory enduring power lies in its
dual warning that human beings are prone to mistaking shadows
for truth, and that the authentic enlightenment requires both intellectual
courage and a willingness to bear the social cost of dissent.
(47:18):
When that person came back down, when that person challenged
the beliefs of the people that were there, they were
met with ridicule. They were met with hostility, they were
met with fear and unwillingness to cast off their own chains.
Jeff says, I'm fired, comes in on YouTube. Good to
(47:41):
see you over there. Brennan as well, I'm glad you
guys are sticking with us with this, and so this
is gonna mark me again. See I've got too many
sound drops. Karl Marx says, we have nothing to lose
but our chains. Now he met it more on an
economic term, but I think it fits here. Go ahead
(48:02):
and go to the call line right now. Eight four
seven ninety three one fourteen ten. If you'd like to
interrupt me, billo, Oh they went away, dang, just had somebody.
I didn't mean it by interrupting me, I meant contributing.
Because a lot of this stuff, you understand, you're following along,
you're bobbing your head, you're tapping on the steering wheel,
(48:23):
going yes, that's right. We are being lied to, we
are being misdirected. Everybody I tell thinks I'm crazy, and
then I should put on a tinfoil hat. I understand that.
But the truth is the truth, regardless of who recognizes
the truth. Do you think gravity cares if I don't
believe in it, Well, well, it's a non construct. So
(48:47):
beside the point do you think gravity changes if I
don't believe in it, we don't believe the truth. That
does not make the truth less truthy. And to even
take it in more of the uh more recent news,
not measuring things and not putting out the right data
does not mean that the data or the thing isn't there,
(49:09):
doesn't happen. We ran into this in the pandemic as well,
where the CDC stopped measuring as many tests right they said,
we're getting too many positives on these tests, will stop
doing so many tests. And so now here we go.
If we don't like the statistics that come out from
(49:32):
the government, then we'll just send good statistics out from
the government, regardless if they're accurate or not. If somebody
gets a job or somebody loses a job, if somebody
hires somebody, if somebody invests in a company, if somebody
loses their company, that thing happens, whether or not it
is observed. This isn't Schrodinger's economy. That person is affected,
(49:57):
that business is affected, regardless of what what shadows you
want to project, and so on. This pit stop through
Plato's republic. We have to look at Are we looking
at shadows or are we looking at the source that
the sun has put light upon? Truth has come out.
(50:20):
It's frustrating to hear people say statistics can say anything
they can, especially when you're the one that puts them
out and says, yeah, you know what, I like these
better than these numbers. The only cure for statistics is
more statistics. You don't like somebody doing a study. Well,
this is the best part about the Socratic method, the
(50:43):
best part about the scientific method. Recreate it, test it again.
It's not doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
It is doing the thing and expect that the theories
stay the way they are. The patterns are here, and
(51:08):
so I ask you again, are you looking at a
shadow or have you already escaped the cave. All I'm
saying is stop fighting the people who are trying to
point out the shadows we're walking through Plato's republic here
on a political talk show. We'll be right back after this.
(52:06):
Welcome back to a political talk show here on w
rm N. You know you can find the podcast out
there in the world that is a political talk show.
Great podcast. I try to post as often as I can,
but there are some things that are pretty evergreen over
(52:27):
there too. One of my favorite episodes, and it seems
to be one of your favorite episodes too, is the
earth Day episode that we did back in April. That
one is probably I think it's in the top ten
of the episodes that I've got that are sitting over there.
It was all about how earth Day has their own
(52:48):
protest songs. We spent it with a great protest singer,
Malvina Reynolds. Those of you that may have seen the
show Weeds, that was the opening song for that Little Boxes.
She wrote that born in nineteen hundred, Yeah, nineteen hundred
ot just the flat so when she was singing in
(53:10):
the sixties and seventies, she was in her sixties and seventies.
Great songs, great episodes, they're all right over there. While
you're there, check out a few of the other podcasts.
One of them that's growing, probably the number one podcast
on our network right now is of Course Somebody Knows Something.
That is the one all about the City of Elgin's
(53:34):
Cold Case Department. Lots of you from the city of
Elgin specifically listen to that one. I get to see
all the analytics for it, and there are a couple
thousand of you that listen right here in the Fox
River Valley. It's great. I appreciate that show some support
for them. I think there was a couple hundred that
(53:56):
were just Elgin specific, right, and by a couple hundred
that's only from a single episode. So if you would
like a podcast, if you would like to reach hundreds
thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, yeah, it's available to them,
but let's get a good following for you. You can
always reach out to sales or information. Both of them
(54:17):
are at WRMN fourteen ten dot com. Sales at WRMN
fourteen ten dot com or info at WRMN fourteen ten
dot com. Speaking of shows, we've got a whole bunch
of them that are going to end up on that
podcasting platform two, so stick around. One of them in particular,
one of my favorite, if not my favorite sports show
(54:41):
out there, Big Top Sports with the Ringmaster Derek Geyer.
He's coming on tonight. It's gonna be a good time
here in the Fox River Valley listening to Big Top
Sports breaking down some of the great sport news, both
from baseball or football or hockey, or those one sports
(55:04):
where they just punch each other in the face. I
can never figure out the point system. It's like, if
you punch harder, do you get more points? I don't know.
Maybe he'll tell me right here on WRMN. It comes
on after me. Six to eight is when it happens,
and during that time I believe will have a socks game. Eventually.
(55:26):
If we don't have a socks game, then that's where
you can find big top sports right here. He also
fills in from time to time on the WRMN Morning
Show because it's just a fun time to be over there.
Lots of different things that are happening. One of the
best things that I want to talk to you about is,
of course, America's First Responders Fest Saturday, September twentieth, downtown
(55:49):
Hampshire from one to six thirty. WRMN is going to
have a stage tribute for first responders here in the area.
Speaking of here in the area, Gilbert Eagle Club ten
forty seven going to be putting on the classic car
show Gilbert's Eagle Club ten forty seven. A great Eagles
(56:11):
club over there. Go ahead and find them, you know.
In Gilbert Live band, Rick Lenny and the Wild Ones
and Canyon Aero Light with Tim and Joe. Of course,
there'll be live broadcasted on WRMN fourteen ten dot com
and the YouTube, food and Beverage trucks, kids activities, market style,
vendor booths and more information. You guessed it at WRMN
(56:36):
fourteen ten dot com. There's still time to be a sponsor,
so again, head over to sales at WRMN fourteen ten
dot com send a message over there. We've got a
whole bunch of different price points where you will not
only be on the merchandise in the signage for America's
First Responders Fest, we will make sure that you are
(56:56):
also mentioned as we are giving tribute. And then we
also have put in some packages for airtime and commercials
here on WRMM, so reach out to that. When we
come back, we're going to talk about the cycle, Plato's
political cycle. This is where we get it from when
(57:17):
all of the other people like Rousseau or Locke, or
even our founding fathers of Jefferson and Madison. This is
where we talk about how we move from a anarchy
into a tyranny and back into that anarchical cycle. Tomorrow,
I am actually putting together a anarchist type of side.
(57:43):
You didn't know how diverse anarchy was until I told you. Yeah,
it's odd, mostly because I'm a little frustrated. I don't
like political ideals that don't line up with you know,
the political ideals that they say and do, and that
maybe I'm boiled as a Republican of how I can
(58:03):
use republicanism in almost any side of society, and Democrats
or libertarians or any of the other people they can't.
Eventually their system of government becomes non functional just the
way it works. The only way a republic gets torn
apart is by the people inside of it not following
(58:24):
by the rules. But if I followed all the rules
of democracy, or I followed all the rules of libertarianism,
or I followed all the rules from there, they don't
stand up. So the reason why we've had this republic
in this one for so long, Stick around and find
out why and where the cycle moves here. On a
political talk show, WRMN systems run everything, government, economy, media, justice.
(58:49):
They shape your choices, your opportunities, your future. But do
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(59:09):
challenge the loopholes, and demand accountability that starts with knowledge.
That starts here. Join us weekdays from four to six
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(59:33):
four to six on WRMN, The Talk of the Town.
(01:00:08):
Welcome back to a political talk show. We're talking about
Plato's Republic. It's one of the foundations of most political philosophy.
Philosophy in general too. If you want to talk about
the cave, the allegory of the cave is one of many.
I don't know. It's rudimentary, elementary, primordial, it's that baseline.
(01:00:37):
We like to bring everything back to the foundations, right
the founding fathers, the foundations of philosophy, the foundations of economics,
all of the different things. Because I agree with Einstein
when he says that if you can't explain something simply,
you don't truly understand it. And now, yes, he says
that as he continues to talk for two hours about
(01:01:01):
a book. Hopefully I am breaking it down for you
in a way that we can all understand. It helps
me understand as well. Doing a lot of this research,
I like to recheck my bias for things, and a
lot of times I'm like you, I don't remember everything completely.
There's times and pockets and go, ah, okay, that's why
(01:01:22):
this and that and those, And it's all about growing.
It's all about remembering. It's all about experiencing and political
philosophies and political structures, experience Plato's political cycle. He outlines
it in the Republic, but it presents a topography of regime,
I guess degeneration. It maps the descent from the ideal
(01:01:47):
governance where he talks about the philosopher kingship, where the person,
and by philosopher he means somebody who tries to bring
out truth and wisdom in that side, a philosopher fur
that's what they're they're after. They're after truth, regardless of
what it is, and so you end up getting that.
Jeff says, I know nothing. I'm just a peasant in
(01:02:12):
a sea of peasants. Well, sure, at a certain extent,
that's what we all are. A famous robot calls us
meat bags, and that's what we are. We just walk
around and eat and I don't know, move and sweat
and excreet and form and push and shout and all
of the other things that we do just because we're
(01:02:34):
corporeal beings. And at the end of the day, we
have to acknowledge that, right everybody puts their pants on
the same way, or at least similarly, and so would
we look at it that way, and we don't use
it as a shame side of it, uses it like like, yeah,
(01:02:55):
that person used to be a baby too, that person
used to to not know anything. All people used to
not know anything. What are you doing right now? Anything
that you're doing right now, you did not know it
a breathing maybe, But all of the things that you
do throughout your day, throughout your life, the things that
(01:03:17):
you know, you did not know when you came here.
It was a growth, it was a cycle. It was
building on top of another concept to bring us back
to the original opening segment, and that's where we run
into things of we have to look at these patterns
because we don't know anything. I have no clue what
(01:03:40):
happened before I was here, Before I experienced it, they
told me two plus two was four. I believed two
plus two was four until I understood that two plus
another two gives me four. Now I can memorize that fact,
I can look at that fact. But until I internalize
(01:04:02):
that two things plus another two things equals four things,
all it is is just me being a parrot. I'm
a shadow of myself. I must admit that I know nothing.
As Jeff is letting us all know in there. I
think he's trying to get that number one spot. I
think it's what's happening. The more you chat in the
(01:04:22):
chat there, the more points you get. He's trying to
take for that number one spot there. So this is
the cycle. Plato's cycle often outlined in The Republic book
seven and nine. It shows a map of dissent from
the ideal governance to tyranny. Now a lot of people,
even Aristotle eventually brings this in a little bit more
(01:04:47):
in our next book of the series, but we'll worry
about that when we get there. And so with Plato,
he talks about aristocracy, the rule of the best. Now,
you and I don't necessarily like this. Now, the rule
of the best wasn't the best economically, which is how
(01:05:10):
we understand aristocracy. Now, aristocrats right the best. But that
was the philosopher king side. This is Plato's ideal polity,
ruled by the philosopher kings who govern through reason and
for the sake of the common good. It is just,
(01:05:30):
It is harmonious in an order in which each class
performs its natural function class it's still classiest. And the
concept of the philosopher king is what we need to
take from this, the concept of that we are all
philosopher kings. When we put it in through the lens
of the American Revolution and the American Constitution, our American
(01:05:56):
Republic says that we are all the philosopher kings. Jefferson
and Madison and Hamilton and Adams and everybody else wanted
us to be the best, ruled by the best within
the rule of law. Aristocracy usually degrades into a regime
(01:06:17):
driven militarily. Plato calls it a democracy timocrct where the
guardian's rule. We treat this as a military coup. We
call that nowadays sometimes an aristocracy also leads to an
oligarchy the love of wealth, but we call it the
(01:06:40):
aristocracy because they're the best at accumulating the wealth. This
produces a regime of radical a regime of radical freedom.
I'm sorry, I'm reading the other side. This a regime deteriorates.
The oligarchy deteriorates, be the rule by the rich, political
power is restraint to a few. The city becomes divided.
(01:07:04):
Plato believed that the oligarchy would then fall into the democracy,
where the impoverished masses eventually overthrow the oligarchs, producing a
regime of radical freedom and equality. While superficially attractive, Plato's
viewed democracy with suspicious lacking. Yeah, because they killed his friend.
(01:07:26):
They voted to kill his friend Socrates. And that proves
yet again of Benjamin Franklin's wise, wise words that a
democracy to wolves and a lamb deciding what to have
for lunch, and the heretic Socrates was executed. That democracy
(01:07:47):
then moves into a tyranny because of out of control,
unrestrained freedom. Looking at you libertarians, looking at you anarchists.
We need rule rules, we need guard rails to maintain freedom.
Otherwise you guessed it tyranny, and out of the chaos
(01:08:09):
of unrestrained freedom, the most extreme and lawless individuals rise,
and a tyrant who possesses the order but rules through fear, coercion,
and self indulgence. This is the crux of political life,
a perservision, a perversion rather of both justice and liberty. Now,
(01:08:32):
it isn't a deterministic theory, it isn't inevitable, but it
is a critical lens in which we need to look
at ourselves. Thanks for listening, Thanks for watching. Thanks for
being a part of the show today, even if it
was just with your noggins. I appreciate you being here.
(01:08:55):
It's always a great time to have a participation of
those in the the YouTube side of things and a
few other places stick around. Big Top Sports is coming
right up here on w rm N. That's with your
ringmaster Derek Geyer. He's going to walk you through all
(01:09:18):
of the latest sports news and facilitate proctor even some
sports discussions. Thanks for being here. I'll be back tomorrow
at four. That is of Elliott Serrano doesn't hijack my
show too, See guys tomorrow.
Hello America, and good day to our friends around the world.
This is a political talk show here on wrm N.
It's good to have you here on the AM dial,
on the fourteen ten AM dial, or perhaps you're watching
on YouTube YouTube dot com. You can find us at
(00:52):
WRMN Radio. You can also ask your smart speaker about us.
You can say, hey, smart speaker, playwrm N fourteen to
ten and it will fire it right up. This is
a political talk show. My name is Dennis Son R.
Green here on a political talk show. We want to
make sure that this is a space for political discussion,
(01:16):
not right wing, not left wing, not I don't know,
divisive political discussion. What we're after is having at least
a good faith approach to it. Now, we might bust
each other's chops here and there. There's a couple of
people on former President Obama's birthday that sent me over
(01:37):
the text message of did they find the birth certificate?
So yeah, we can josh and harang each other a
little bit here or there, but at the end of
the day, we want to make sure that we are
approaching a way of discussiing discussing political topics in a
way that bring people to a solution. We're not just
(01:58):
here to point fingers at anything. We're not here to
just berate one side or another side, or a party
or all of the parties. And we are surely not
here to just be a gloom and doom show. We
don't want to do that because that's when we check out,
when something is just I don't know, graining and grating
(02:21):
and just nails on a chalkboard of just gloom and
doom and the whole world is collapsing stuff. We don't
want to do that. We don't want to run into
the chicken little side of things. But we also don't
want to be naive. There's a lot of times where
we default into being naive because naive. Being naive is comfortable, right,
(02:45):
Ignorance is bliss. So if I just lean on the
good of humanity and oh my goodness, everything will be
okay and karma and justice and everything, Yes, those are
great things to have. Hope, but realistic optimism I find
a bit sturdier optimism that we can look at each
(03:08):
other and look at the people that we're working alongside of.
There's a song called The First Day of My Life,
and one of the lyrics in there sticks with me.
It's a sappy love song or whatever it is, but
it says I would rather be working for a paycheck
than waiting around to win the lottery. And we can
(03:31):
all stand around and we can say, you know what,
it would be great if this and that and the
utopia of everything. But most realists don't believe in a utopia.
It makes them, makes them realists. And some of the
people that gave us a lot of our guardrails and
a lot of our citizen cynicism, bad feelings towards that
(03:53):
gave us those doubts in our leaders. Machavelli Madison to
jump in and yeah, yes, are they more of the
pessimistic side, cynical side. I guess this is the word
I was trying to get out of government, right. Machavelli
talks about if you had the choice between love and fear,
(04:14):
it is better to be fear feared. Madison tells us
that if men were angels, we wouldn't need a government,
and so, yes, that may be a pessimistic approach to everything,
but for me, what it does is that should be
our filter for things. People that don't want to operate
within the confines of the government. Should not be in
(04:37):
the government if you don't understand the guardrails, and maybe
that's why you made the decision or that's why you
did it. Again, it goes back to you probably shouldn't
be in the government now. Trust me, there are plenty
of things I do not know in the government. There
are plenty of things I don't know in general. It'd
be the first person to tell you that. But some
of the things that I do know come from politic philosophy,
(05:02):
I guess is the best way to put it. Or
even then you want to go more academic to it,
political science, where we can study history and study cause
and effect for things. And so I preface this in
this intro to the show because this is the direction
that we always want to try to face. We can't
(05:22):
be pessimistic to the point where we can't get anything
done right, getting locked into our own feelings, that choice
paralysis of what can we do? I could do everything,
but I can't do anything, and everything is so much
that fire hose of information. It's easy to be pessimistic
until it's easy to be optimistic and hopeful, not naive,
(05:47):
but hopeful, hopeful that we can regain control of leadership,
whether that leadership is within our own political parties, that
leadership is within our own local, state, federal glow direction.
The reason that we focus on the Constitution, and the
reason that we focus on the rule of law, and
(06:08):
the reason that we focus on Republicanism on this show
is because those paths are still in place. And when
we start to see those paths start to break down
or start to move in a different direction, or roadblocks
get put up, that's when we know that the Republic
is eroding and we need to open up those roadblocks.
(06:30):
The First Amendment lays out so many great things that
ensure that we are able to make our voices heard,
and we want to make sure that that is available
forever for future generations. The people that handed it to
us expected us to carry that torch, not to silence
each other, not to cancel each other, but to converse
(06:52):
with each other, to try to figure out where we
need to go for the future, and how do we
carry this torch of freedom of liberty. Justice for all
for all right doesn't say for Illinoians, doesn't say for Americans,
It doesn't say for citizens. It doesn't save for people
that live on this block, on this thing for all.
(07:13):
We said it every day, we can say it every
day growing up. We can enshrine it in our hearts.
We can look at symbols and have that in our mind.
Justice for all. And so when we talk about freedom,
or we talk about liberty, or we talk about justice,
or we talk about government infrastructure, where we talk about
(07:35):
the populists, or we talk about democracies or republics or
monarchies or any of these other things, yes we can
look at them through the lens of America because we
are Americans. This is who I am, this is where
we broadcast. But it's for all. We don't want to
(07:55):
just have morality for morality's sake here in the unitedl
it States. Thomas Paine puts it so eloquently. Quin See,
I'm working on my diction, He said, I am a
citizen of the world, and my religion is doing good.
And if we can't fall into at least that category,
(08:18):
do we deserve to call ourselves anything else? Do we
deserve to call ourselves patriotic towards freedom and liberty. Now,
I'm not saying we have to fund the world. I'm
not saying we have to control the world. I'm saying
we have to look at ourselves as people who live
in the world. The other side of it. We can
(08:40):
bring all the way back to Santa Claus. Good for
goodness sake, better watch out. Doesn't matter what omnipresent entity
that you're looking for, doesn't matter what non existent entity
you go for. Good for goodness sake. We could almost
take that directly from the Big Man himself. And so
(09:01):
that's what I want to do when we talk about
things here on the show. We want to make sure
that what we talk about comes from a place not
of despair and not of anguish, and not of just grumblings,
but marching towards the horizon of perfection. We can't make
(09:21):
it to perfection, we can't make it to utopia. There's
no way. Those things aren't there. But if I continue
to travel east, where I continue to travel west, I
never make it east or west. I chase the horizon.
Now north, I can go north, I can go south, north, south, Poles.
(09:41):
But imagine, and I know I take this from a
biblical reference. It goes for when you ask for forgiveness,
the Lord takes it your sin and separates you as
far as the east is from the west. Perfection is
as far from me as the east is from the west.
Utopia is as far from America as the east is
(10:07):
from the west. But when has that ever stopped you
from traveling? Don't let perfection and the chase of perfection
get in the way of excellence and goodness. I don't
mean good enoughness. We've had enough good enoughness. We need
goodness again for goodness sake. Not because you share my religion,
(10:30):
not because you share my race, not because you share
the soil that I sit on, sleep on together, good
for goodness sake, uniting together for each other. That's why
we built societies, That's why we lived in tribes. That's
why we are social creatures. And my goal of this
(10:51):
show is to extend that hand out to you, is
to turn around and say, look, we can argue over
political philosoph we can argue over tax rates, we can
argue over economics, we can argue over social issues. We
can argue and talk and communicate. But we can only
(11:12):
do that if we are willing to communicate. There are
too many of us that shut down when we hear
these things. And I understand time and place for everything,
but there are some of you out there that there's
no time and no place for any of these things.
To educate yourself, to listen, you have to make some
(11:33):
of that time. And so what I like to do
here at this time every day from four to six,
I invite you to spend that little bit of time. Now,
you don't have to do it every single day. I
don't expect you to do it please. You all have lives.
But what I do expect is for the citizen ry,
(11:55):
not just those citizens by definition of being saidens of
the United States. I want to talk to the citizens,
the people, the all that we talk about when we
say justice for all. As long as we are all
striving to make it justice for all, and as long
as we are looking towards inviting everyone here for justice
(12:19):
for all, there's always room at the table. The paradox
of tolerance, Right, if we all want to tolerate each
other and have a world where we can live a
little bit better. Right, we all tolerate and can live
and everything else. The only people that we cannot tolerate
(12:40):
are the intolerant, those that don't want to build society,
those that want to siphon from society, those that don't
care what you say, or you have or you are.
It's just them. We see these people every day. We
talk to these people. We vote for these people, we
(13:00):
work for these people. The intolerant, the ones that don't
see us as a collective, as citizens of the world.
Those we used to call nationalists, they call themselves patriots.
But true patriots are for the all, are for justice,
are for the rule in which we all agree to,
(13:26):
to the republic for which it stands. I know I'm
taking you back to grade school, but to the republic.
It's not to my religion, to my race, to my group,
to my generation, to my family, to the Republic. And
so I invite people onto this show. I invite you
(13:48):
to reach out to me. You can send us a
text five zero five nine two six fourteen ten. That
text line is still open. It's open twenty four hours.
So if you ever read something you're like, my goodness,
can somebody talk about this? Here's an article five zero
five nine two six fourteen ten, send me an email.
A couple people do sonar at WRMN fourteen ten dot com.
(14:09):
And why do I do this? I want to make
sure that unlike the other shows, or unlike the other stations,
or unlike whatever else that's out there. When people draw
the line in the sand and say, if you don't
believe this side of the line, you aren't allowed to
even talk. We're gonna brate you. We're gonna call you names.
They will, and they're proud of it. I'm not saying
(14:31):
I'm not gonna bust your chops. I'm not saying we're
not gonna joke around a little bit. But what I'm
saying is, here on a political talk show, we want
to make sure that this is a space that we
can discuss facts for fact's sakes and strive for goodness
for goodness sake, because there's too much division, there's too
(14:51):
much us and thems, there's too much. I don't like
that group of people, and I don't even want to
talk with them. In fact, I love it and relish
it when they suffer, and I can't abide that. I
can't abide any person cheering on the suffering of another.
Deep in my gut, I know that's wrong. You do too,
(15:14):
And so that's all I ask when you think about politics,
or you join our show, or you want to call in,
or you want to send us a message, or you
want to just meditate on the political philosophy with us.
I want you to take it from that perspective of Yes,
American patriotic constitution. I love it, the Republic MM so tasty,
(15:40):
But we have to look at things of why we
have this now. Obviously, when Plato wrote the Republic, he
didn't necessarily know what it would look like a thousand
years later, or how the United States would put it
together based off of so or any of the other
(16:02):
people that we're putting other political philosophy out. Why do
we have this, Why do we have this constitution when
all and everybody else doesn't? What makes our special? That
is the conversation that we have here. And once we
bring everything back to the foundation. You notice I didn't
(16:23):
say center. I'm not going to bring you back to
the center. I want to bring you back to the foundation.
I want to bring you back to the rule book.
I don't care what strategy you want to use. I
don't care what beliefs you have. I want to remind
you of the foundation of why we do these things.
(16:44):
Because if we're not here together, if we are not
here to make each other better and the world better,
then why aren't we all just living in the woods
hitting each other with rocks. Why do we build societies?
Why do we share resources? If it isn't to build
(17:08):
societies and share resources. Today we're going to talk about
Plato's Republic, and we're going to talk about the allegory
of the cave that you're seeing some people step out of.
(17:56):
Welcome back to WRMN fourteen ten. Now you can listen
live WORMN fourteen ten dot com, or you can turn
up that dial of WRMN fourteen ten AM broadcasting live
outside of the Fox River Valley. We kiss all the
(18:18):
way to the lake. Some people hear us all the
way in Wisconsin, but we broadcast live downtown the Fox
River Valley, downtown Elgin. In fact, right here on Douglas Street,
Studio fourteen outlooks the traffic. I hope you are doing
(18:38):
okay ten and two while you're driving, Please seat belt.
Today we're talking about the Republic. And we're not talking
about the Republic as kind of like this philosophical type
of thing. We're talking about the republic as as a
book Plato. Plato wrote the Republic. And so I'm working
(18:59):
on a series alongside the Constitutional series, which we'll get
to in the second hour. But I'm working on a
series right now where we go through some of the
core readings of just political not necessarily philosophy, but understanding
(19:20):
of principles, and to kind of just talk a little
bit about about the Holy books or anything like that.
I want to talk to you about the progression of knowledge. Now,
we always start small, right, maybe we know one or
two numbers or numbers. First, We've got to learn how
to speak. I'm still still learning myself. We learn how
(19:43):
to move, we learn how to move our mouth, we
learn how to vibrate our vocal cords, et cetera, et cetera.
Then based off of that knowledge, we learn how to
put together those sounds, and it builds on top of
each other. Same thing with love. When I read the Bible,
I at that same type of side of of of
(20:03):
of the evolution of love and then culminating into the
new covenant of thy neighbor as thyself. But even then,
if we look at the laws of uh in Leviticus,
and even going back even further of Adam and Eve,
it is a progression of love self, love being alive
(20:26):
and understanding everything, family love, then eventually love of each other,
not just romantically, and so political thought, excuse me, political
thought has a lot of progression in it as well,
because we have to first think about what what is fair?
What do I believe is fair? What do I believe
(20:47):
is just? Once I think about justice, well, what's liberty
so that I can have this justice? What's freedom? And
I understand that this is may seem I don't know, elementary,
it may seem the pedestrian or whatever other words that
you want to use to kind of put it back
down as I don't know, duh. We should all know
(21:10):
these things anyway. But do you what does freedom mean
to you? What are you free from? What are you
free to do when something bad happens? What is justice?
What's justice as far as your own personal side? What's
justice towards the community? And so what I think a
lot of times is we just take these words for granted.
(21:31):
We take these words because they've been.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Commercialized towards us real Americans by genes. If you don't
support this, you're not a patriot. Support the troops. American
freedom is number one. What does that mean? What does
that mean to you? What does that mean to us?
What does that mean to the world?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
When you actually say that or are you just saying
it to make yourself feel good, like a release valve,
like a parrot, like a propagandist that just wants to repeat.
And so when we look at the way that we
communicate with each other, there are a lot of times
where we just talk past each other. This needs to
(22:16):
happen because this is America. That's not freedom. I hate
to put my earl phips right. Some of those old
radio people we callup a miracle. I don't see if
I can find that. But I want to start with
the foundation. I am a civic republican. I believe in
civic republicanism. I believe in the branches of government. I
(22:39):
believe in putting people's ambition against other people's ambition and
putting up the guard rails that enshrine our freedom. Just
like any other beliefs, we have to be able to
have the benediction. And so what we're going to go
through in this series is we're going to go through,
(23:00):
well my scriptures, the political philosophy of things, and we're
going to start with Plato, Plato's Republic, of course, Plato
all the way from four hundred and twenty eight BCE
to three hundred and forty eight BCE. That makes sense
(23:20):
if you understand what bcees is ancient Greek philosopher studying
under Socrates, and he was the teacher of Aristotle. He
wrote The Republic at about three seventy five BCE, and
it was the first great attempt in Western philosophy. Now,
this is where we're starting, is with Western philosophy more
of the individual that controls the large. Eastern philosophy is
(23:44):
a little bit on the other side of that, the
large controls the parts. To oversimplify it, because we have
not enough time to break the differences to articulate these principles.
In the Republic, he wanted to put it into just
political ors or The Republic asked questions that echo through
the centuries. What is justice, what form of government best
(24:07):
promotes it? And how does human nature shape political life.
At the time, Plato lived in Athens. After the Pelopolynesian
War conflict between Athens and Sparta. The city was destabilized
by defeat, faction and the trial and execution of Socrates.
The execution is crucial. It persuaded Plato that democracy ruled
(24:31):
by the people, typically through voting, could be deeply unjust.
We didn't think that the political show would turn around
and called democracy unjust. Yeah, tyranny through the masses is
the way our founding fathers called it. But Plato's Academy,
the first and enduring institution of higher learning in the West,
was founded in Athens, and it became a model for
(24:55):
latter intellectual life. We begin with Plato because he sets
the instant intellectual architecture of political philosophy. Later thinkers, Aristotle, Augustine, Hobbes, Locke,
they all grapple with these questions, what is justice and
what form of government best promotes it? Justice? It's the
(25:19):
Greek term for righteousness moral order die quiahsi. I do
not speak Greek, and I apologize for anybody whose ears
that offended justice and master concept of the republic, the onset.
Socrates is pressed to explain whether justice is valuable in
(25:41):
itself or only as a means to something else. Glaucin
Plato's brother he plays the devil's advocate. They say that
to do in justice is naturally good, to suffer it bad,
but that the evil in suffering it so far exceeds
(26:03):
the good in doing it. That both have been experienced.
Men think that they ought to make a compact with
each other to neither do nor suffer injustice. It's in
book two, but it introduces a social contract, right, not
just a hey, it's bad for me to do injustices
(26:26):
to each other, but like, hey, let's let's verbalize that contract.
Those of you that have siblings, maybe you you you
didn't necessarily outright say hey, I'm not gonna punch you. Right,
Maybe you had to have a contract for traveling in
the car for long periods. We enter contracts all the
(26:47):
time in society, but three hundred something BC we have
to have the contract of, hey, yeah, it's it's wrong
for us to hurt each other. You don't hurt you,
don't hurt me. I won't hurt you. And then we'll
figure the whole thing out after that. Another sophist philosopher
Therah Matchus, if you're looking for the name T. H. R.
(27:09):
A ysmac Hus Thera Smatchus said justice is nothing else
than the advantage of the stronger. This reduces justice to
just being power. Whoever rules decides what is just. The
republic now must prove that justice is an objective good
(27:33):
benefiting individuals in societies, and so Plato wrote The Republic,
but it's Socrates who speaks in it. And when we
come back, we are going to talk about that. Constructing
the ideal city. How do we make a place where
people have agreed that justice should rule, not just the powerful.
(27:58):
You're listening to w RMN political talk show. You're right back,
(28:32):
Welcome back. It is fifty two past the hour here
in the Fox River Valley. Thanks for being here again.
So we're talking about justice and we're talking about Plato's Republic.
We just got done talking about Glaucin, who brings up
(28:53):
to Socrates. Now, Plato wrote the book The Republic, but
it is through Socrates as the mouthpiece. Those of you
that have read Nietzsche and have read thus spoke Zarathrustra.
It's kind of that same thing, using a person or
an avatar to kind of speak through. And so to
(29:14):
clarify justice, Plato proposes examining it not in the individual way,
but with large in the city. This yields the quote
city in speech colapolis or Greek for beautiful city. And
so the city that's beautiful has three parts in it.
(29:39):
We have the producers. I'm talking about farmers, artisans, merchants,
those meeting material needs. This is the appetitive soul. This
is part of the human nature, concerned with desires and appetites.
The other piece of the triparte city is the auxiliaries,
the soldiers, the defenders, those those that are responsible for security,
(30:02):
the spirited soul of the city, part of the soul
linked to courage and honor. And then the guardians, the rulers,
the trained philosophers, the rational souls, the part of the
soul discerned with reason and truth. Each group mirrors a
part of the human psyche, and justice consists in harmony.
(30:25):
In Book four of the Republic by Plato, he says
justice means minding your own business and not meddling with
other men's concerns. Now, this principle of specialization, each person
doing the work suited to their nature, anchors Plato's concept
(30:45):
of justice, because back then it was more about your
job as a person, was your identity, your life, etc.
But Plato introduces this concept of the noble lie, the
myth of medals, a founding myth that citizens are born
with silver, gold, and bronze in their souls. This noble
(31:07):
lie that he puts in here fosters unity and acceptance
of one's role. But it raises into question to what
extent do regimes depend on those shared myths. If your
regime believes that the king and his family have the
noble lie heard of the silver spoon. If we believe
(31:31):
that the rich, or we believe that those that are
in power are divinely in power and it is just
nature that they rule over us, then to what extent
can any society endure anything without them? We would think
the whole thing would collapse. And so in the republic,
(31:52):
this is where republicanism does start to flourish. Is what
happens when we step aside between the myth of why
somebody rules, or the myth of why somebody has power,
that they must be good, that they must be chosen,
that they must have pulled their bootstraps just a little
(32:15):
bit harder than you did. And these myths that we
have in society beget other myths that if obviously these
people that are in charge got there because of natural
selection and just the will of the world, then surely
you can be just as industrious, You can pull your
(32:36):
bootstraps just as hard because the world lets you. This myth,
this noble lie, this silver spoon, this acceptance of one's
role as ruler or as leader. We need the principles
of a republic to make sure that is the will
(32:58):
of the people, not the mysterious hand of the spirit,
or the markets or the lies that get people into power.
We're continuing with the Republic written by Plato, using Socrates
(33:21):
as the mouthpiece. When we come back, we're going to
talk about the philosopher king and form of good. Those
of you that are paying attention, we are going to
walk next into the allegory of the cave. What happens
when you see behind the veil. You've seen the man
(33:45):
behind the curtain, and Oz isn't as powerful. Hello America,
(34:28):
and good day to our friends around the world. This
is a political talk show here on wrm N. We're
going through talking about the republic. Well, because I'm a
civic Republican. I believe that the republic is the best
(34:51):
form of government now a days. When people say you're
a Republican or a Democrat, or a libertarian or whatever else,
they automatically assume the party. I don't like parties. I'm
not a big fan. I recognize their purpose. Things exist
because they are able to exist right, it would be different.
(35:12):
It was supposed to be different. It would be different.
But republicanism from the idea of republic of rules. We
all agree that these are the rules in which we
will operate be a part of. And so on our
journey of learning how to be a better citizen of
(35:34):
a republic, we might want to listen, or read or
know a little bit more about what these words mean. Republic, democracy, justice, liberty, freedom.
You've used these words before, You've said these words before,
But do you know what they mean? Not not by
the definition. Necessarily, we do have to have definitions because
(35:56):
it's how we communicate the definition of what is. But
what it was one of them that Bill Clinton said, well,
depends on what the definition of is is right, if
you remember that. But what I mean by freedom and
justice and anything else that's there is do you know
what they mean to you? Sure, you can recite whatever
(36:19):
dictionary you want to, but what does freedom mean to you?
Can you explain what liberty means to you? And so
it's when we turn around and start thinking about these
things that are here, and we actually start looking at
these things and internalizing those words, that we can finally
have a conversation, and we invite all people into the
(36:40):
conversation because it's it's one of those things. You see
somebody who's doing something, and they if they just do
that one little trick, that one little thing, if they
just said this or that or knew this kernel of information,
would change their whole life. Teach a man to fish,
et cetera. If you think therefore you are, then you
(37:01):
should think more. And what is thinking but the exercise
of philosophy. So we're already into book five of Plato.
Plato's Republic. Now he sets it in the tone of Socrates,
and then in all good fashion he makes his his
(37:23):
brother Glaucan the the the devil's advocate in it right.
And so in books five through really seven, Plato claims,
only philosophers are fit to rule. Until philosophers become kings
in this world, or until those now called kings and
(37:46):
rulers really and truly become philosophers, there will be no
end to the troubles of states or of humanity itself.
Comes from book five. The philosoph o king, the ideal
ruler who loves truth and loves wisdom. Only that philosopher
(38:08):
king alone has the insight into the forms. Chief among
them is the form of good, the ultimate principle of
truth and reality. In Book six, Plato says, the good
is the intelligible realm what the sun is to the
(38:28):
visible realm. The good the source the light. The philosopher
king is the only one who strives for it. Maybe
that's why our founding fathers are so great. Maybe that's
why we constantly pull up the Federalist papers or the
articles of the Confederacy, or we look at the Constitution.
(38:49):
We look at our American philosopher kings, and we say,
in this age of enlightenment, they turned around and they
said justice is equality, and justice is the rule of
the people, by the people, through the republic. The philosopher
(39:11):
Kings threw away monarchy, which is what any good philosopher
king would do. And so this brings us to the
heart of the book for the republics Now we talk
about justice, we talk about it in that primordial type
of side. Remember this is this is BCE. It's about
(39:36):
three hundred and three ninety nine is what he wrote.
He wrote this sorry three seventy five BCE. So when
he wrote this, so justice or the the enlightenment period,
or even the fact that slaves had rights or justice
or anything like that was beyond them at this point.
(39:57):
And that's not because they were necessary the idiots. They
just did not have the moral structure that we have built.
They were the first rungs towards the Enlightenment age, and
even then the Enlightenment Age didn't solve anything either. Again,
(40:17):
goodness and perfection is not a destination, it's a direction.
It's a horizon. And because of this we get the
allegory of the Cave. Now, the allegory of the Cave
within the Book of the Republic remains strikingly relevant today.
At its core, the allegory dramatizes the distinction between the
(40:39):
appearance and reality, ignorance and enlightenment. What is the allegory
of the cave. Well, it's a metaphor. It depicts prisoners
chained to a cave and forced to watch the shadows
that are projected by firelight. These shadows are their whole reality, right,
think about just looking at just shadows on a cave.
(41:01):
You've never seen the outside, You've never you've never seen
another person other than the people within the cave themselves.
You've never seen an animal, for real, you've only seen
the shadows of one right, We've all done that before,
with a flashlight and a bed sheet, a couple twisted
(41:22):
fingers made the rabbits and different things like that. And
these prisoners, their whole reality is only the shadows of
the rabbits or the shadows of a tree. And one
prisoner is freed. And after painful adjustment of being blinded
by the light and seeing not just the shadows but
(41:43):
the reflections, and then seeing the living beings that put
it together, the progression of these stages of knowledge culminating
in the vision of the sun, the goodness, the thing
that it shines, all truth over everything. Last of all,
he will be able to see the sun, not mere
reflections in the water, but he will see it in
(42:07):
his own proper place, and not in another, and he
will contemplate it as it is. And what we get
here is there are so many people that only want
to watch the shadows. Because guess what happens to that
prisoner that comes back, that prisoner that tries to tell
the other ones who have only seen the shadows. Returning
(42:29):
the enlightened one meets hostility. The others resist liberation because
they only know the shadows. When you talk about a
deeper meaning, or you talk about those that are controlling
the shadows, or you talk about the truth to people
that only see the shadows of truth and are comfortable
(42:51):
with the shadows of truth, they will fight you to
keep their chains on. Hostility is what meets enlightenment. At
its core, the allegory dramatizes the distinction between appearance and reality,
ignorance and enlightenment. The prisoners mistake the flickering shadows for truth,
(43:12):
while only the philosopher who painfully ascends to the light
comes to grasp reality itself. This tension translates well into
modern context where individuals are often ensnared not by literal chains,
but by social, technological, and ideological forces. There's an old
(43:33):
Indian proverb about how it is harder to separate a
person from their delusions than it is to separate a
tiger from its cub and one obvious parallel to the
digital environment, the social media algorithms, curated news feeds, the
(43:54):
endless proliferation of images functions much like the puppeteers in
Plato's k offering shadows that seem authoritative yet may be
distortions of selective framings. What deals are we getting done?
What stats are we being seen? What pictures from AI
(44:15):
generated stuff are our leaders giving us, not just our
political leaders, our religious leaders, our business leaders. The danger
lies not merely in misinformation, but the complacency of those who,
like the prisoners, fail to recognize that what they consume
(44:38):
is not unmediated truth but a constructed projection. Even this
right here, what I tell you is my projection, is
my understanding. It's not yours. Could be, but it doesn't
have to be, and it shouldn't be yours just because
(44:58):
it's mine. I should be yours because it's yours. The
allegory of the cave also resonates in the domain of
consumer culture. Advertising industries manufacture desires and identities, often persuading
individuals to equate fulfillment with consumption. Here again, one might
(45:19):
argue that many live bound within the cave of commodified illusions,
rarely glimpsing the broader questions of meaning and justice or
quote good life, not the good life, a good life
yet Plato in the text, the challenge is not merely
(45:39):
recognizing the illusion. There are plenty of you out there
that recognize this illusion, you know who lies to you?
Are you willingly accepting the lie? Are you playing into
the theater? The challenge is not merely to recognize the illusion,
but to under the undertaking the arduous and often uncomfortable
(46:04):
process of liberation. Today, the assent may take the form
of cultivating media literacy, maybe some philosophical reflection upon yourself,
or even critical engagement with prevailing narratives. Question. There's a
reason why Plato asks for us to question. That is
(46:27):
because Plato uses the Socratic method. He learns from the best.
Like the freed prisoner who returns to the cave, those
who attempt to challenge entrenched views often face hostility or ridicule,
a dynamic observable in debates over climate change, systemic justice,
(46:51):
political corruption. Thus, the allegory enduring power lies in its
dual warning that human beings are prone to mistaking shadows
for truth, and that the authentic enlightenment requires both intellectual
courage and a willingness to bear the social cost of dissent.
(47:18):
When that person came back down, when that person challenged
the beliefs of the people that were there, they were
met with ridicule. They were met with hostility, they were
met with fear and unwillingness to cast off their own chains.
Jeff says, I'm fired, comes in on YouTube. Good to
(47:41):
see you over there. Brennan as well, I'm glad you
guys are sticking with us with this, and so this
is gonna mark me again. See I've got too many
sound drops. Karl Marx says, we have nothing to lose
but our chains. Now he met it more on an
economic term, but I think it fits here. Go ahead
(48:02):
and go to the call line right now. Eight four
seven ninety three one fourteen ten. If you'd like to
interrupt me, billo, Oh they went away, dang, just had somebody.
I didn't mean it by interrupting me, I meant contributing.
Because a lot of this stuff, you understand, you're following along,
you're bobbing your head, you're tapping on the steering wheel,
(48:23):
going yes, that's right. We are being lied to, we
are being misdirected. Everybody I tell thinks I'm crazy, and
then I should put on a tinfoil hat. I understand that.
But the truth is the truth, regardless of who recognizes
the truth. Do you think gravity cares if I don't
believe in it, Well, well, it's a non construct. So
(48:47):
beside the point do you think gravity changes if I
don't believe in it, we don't believe the truth. That
does not make the truth less truthy. And to even
take it in more of the uh more recent news,
not measuring things and not putting out the right data
does not mean that the data or the thing isn't there,
(49:09):
doesn't happen. We ran into this in the pandemic as well,
where the CDC stopped measuring as many tests right they said,
we're getting too many positives on these tests, will stop
doing so many tests. And so now here we go.
If we don't like the statistics that come out from
(49:32):
the government, then we'll just send good statistics out from
the government, regardless if they're accurate or not. If somebody
gets a job or somebody loses a job, if somebody
hires somebody, if somebody invests in a company, if somebody
loses their company, that thing happens, whether or not it
is observed. This isn't Schrodinger's economy. That person is affected,
(49:57):
that business is affected, regardless of what what shadows you
want to project, and so on. This pit stop through
Plato's republic. We have to look at Are we looking
at shadows or are we looking at the source that
the sun has put light upon? Truth has come out.
(50:20):
It's frustrating to hear people say statistics can say anything
they can, especially when you're the one that puts them
out and says, yeah, you know what, I like these
better than these numbers. The only cure for statistics is
more statistics. You don't like somebody doing a study. Well,
this is the best part about the Socratic method, the
(50:43):
best part about the scientific method. Recreate it, test it again.
It's not doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
It is doing the thing and expect that the theories
stay the way they are. The patterns are here, and
(51:08):
so I ask you again, are you looking at a
shadow or have you already escaped the cave. All I'm
saying is stop fighting the people who are trying to
point out the shadows we're walking through Plato's republic here
on a political talk show. We'll be right back after this.
(52:06):
Welcome back to a political talk show here on w
rm N. You know you can find the podcast out
there in the world that is a political talk show.
Great podcast. I try to post as often as I can,
but there are some things that are pretty evergreen over
(52:27):
there too. One of my favorite episodes, and it seems
to be one of your favorite episodes too, is the
earth Day episode that we did back in April. That
one is probably I think it's in the top ten
of the episodes that I've got that are sitting over there.
It was all about how earth Day has their own
(52:48):
protest songs. We spent it with a great protest singer,
Malvina Reynolds. Those of you that may have seen the
show Weeds, that was the opening song for that Little Boxes.
She wrote that born in nineteen hundred, Yeah, nineteen hundred
ot just the flat so when she was singing in
(53:10):
the sixties and seventies, she was in her sixties and seventies.
Great songs, great episodes, they're all right over there. While
you're there, check out a few of the other podcasts.
One of them that's growing, probably the number one podcast
on our network right now is of Course Somebody Knows Something.
That is the one all about the City of Elgin's
(53:34):
Cold Case Department. Lots of you from the city of
Elgin specifically listen to that one. I get to see
all the analytics for it, and there are a couple
thousand of you that listen right here in the Fox
River Valley. It's great. I appreciate that show some support
for them. I think there was a couple hundred that
(53:56):
were just Elgin specific, right, and by a couple hundred
that's only from a single episode. So if you would
like a podcast, if you would like to reach hundreds
thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, yeah, it's available to them,
but let's get a good following for you. You can
always reach out to sales or information. Both of them
(54:17):
are at WRMN fourteen ten dot com. Sales at WRMN
fourteen ten dot com or info at WRMN fourteen ten
dot com. Speaking of shows, we've got a whole bunch
of them that are going to end up on that
podcasting platform two, so stick around. One of them in particular,
one of my favorite, if not my favorite sports show
(54:41):
out there, Big Top Sports with the Ringmaster Derek Geyer.
He's coming on tonight. It's gonna be a good time
here in the Fox River Valley listening to Big Top
Sports breaking down some of the great sport news, both
from baseball or football or hockey, or those one sports
(55:04):
where they just punch each other in the face. I
can never figure out the point system. It's like, if
you punch harder, do you get more points? I don't know.
Maybe he'll tell me right here on WRMN. It comes
on after me. Six to eight is when it happens,
and during that time I believe will have a socks game. Eventually.
(55:26):
If we don't have a socks game, then that's where
you can find big top sports right here. He also
fills in from time to time on the WRMN Morning
Show because it's just a fun time to be over there.
Lots of different things that are happening. One of the
best things that I want to talk to you about is,
of course, America's First Responders Fest Saturday, September twentieth, downtown
(55:49):
Hampshire from one to six thirty. WRMN is going to
have a stage tribute for first responders here in the area.
Speaking of here in the area, Gilbert Eagle Club ten
forty seven going to be putting on the classic car
show Gilbert's Eagle Club ten forty seven. A great Eagles
(56:11):
club over there. Go ahead and find them, you know.
In Gilbert Live band, Rick Lenny and the Wild Ones
and Canyon Aero Light with Tim and Joe. Of course,
there'll be live broadcasted on WRMN fourteen ten dot com
and the YouTube, food and Beverage trucks, kids activities, market style,
vendor booths and more information. You guessed it at WRMN
(56:36):
fourteen ten dot com. There's still time to be a sponsor,
so again, head over to sales at WRMN fourteen ten
dot com send a message over there. We've got a
whole bunch of different price points where you will not
only be on the merchandise in the signage for America's
First Responders Fest, we will make sure that you are
(56:56):
also mentioned as we are giving tribute. And then we
also have put in some packages for airtime and commercials
here on WRMM, so reach out to that. When we
come back, we're going to talk about the cycle, Plato's
political cycle. This is where we get it from when
(57:17):
all of the other people like Rousseau or Locke, or
even our founding fathers of Jefferson and Madison. This is
where we talk about how we move from a anarchy
into a tyranny and back into that anarchical cycle. Tomorrow,
I am actually putting together a anarchist type of side.
(57:43):
You didn't know how diverse anarchy was until I told you. Yeah,
it's odd, mostly because I'm a little frustrated. I don't
like political ideals that don't line up with you know,
the political ideals that they say and do, and that
maybe I'm boiled as a Republican of how I can
(58:03):
use republicanism in almost any side of society, and Democrats
or libertarians or any of the other people they can't.
Eventually their system of government becomes non functional just the
way it works. The only way a republic gets torn
apart is by the people inside of it not following
(58:24):
by the rules. But if I followed all the rules
of democracy, or I followed all the rules of libertarianism,
or I followed all the rules from there, they don't
stand up. So the reason why we've had this republic
in this one for so long, Stick around and find
out why and where the cycle moves here. On a
political talk show, WRMN systems run everything, government, economy, media, justice.
(58:49):
They shape your choices, your opportunities, your future. But do
they work for you or against you? On a political
talk show, we break them down, not to destroy, but
to understand because if you don't see how the system works,
you won't see when it's being manipulated or who's benefiting
from it. Power belongs to those who know the rules,
(59:09):
challenge the loopholes, and demand accountability that starts with knowledge.
That starts here. Join us weekdays from four to six
pm as we uncover what's really happening behind the headlines,
so you can decide for yourself what's fair, what's broken,
and what needs to change. A political talk show breaking
down the systems to build them up together. Right here, weekdays,
(59:33):
four to six on WRMN, The Talk of the Town.
(01:00:08):
Welcome back to a political talk show. We're talking about
Plato's Republic. It's one of the foundations of most political philosophy.
Philosophy in general too. If you want to talk about
the cave, the allegory of the cave is one of many.
I don't know. It's rudimentary, elementary, primordial, it's that baseline.
(01:00:37):
We like to bring everything back to the foundations, right
the founding fathers, the foundations of philosophy, the foundations of economics,
all of the different things. Because I agree with Einstein
when he says that if you can't explain something simply,
you don't truly understand it. And now, yes, he says
that as he continues to talk for two hours about
(01:01:01):
a book. Hopefully I am breaking it down for you
in a way that we can all understand. It helps
me understand as well. Doing a lot of this research,
I like to recheck my bias for things, and a
lot of times I'm like you, I don't remember everything completely.
There's times and pockets and go, ah, okay, that's why
(01:01:22):
this and that and those, And it's all about growing.
It's all about remembering. It's all about experiencing and political
philosophies and political structures, experience Plato's political cycle. He outlines
it in the Republic, but it presents a topography of regime,
I guess degeneration. It maps the descent from the ideal
(01:01:47):
governance where he talks about the philosopher kingship, where the person,
and by philosopher he means somebody who tries to bring
out truth and wisdom in that side, a philosopher fur
that's what they're they're after. They're after truth, regardless of
what it is, and so you end up getting that.
Jeff says, I know nothing. I'm just a peasant in
(01:02:12):
a sea of peasants. Well, sure, at a certain extent,
that's what we all are. A famous robot calls us
meat bags, and that's what we are. We just walk
around and eat and I don't know, move and sweat
and excreet and form and push and shout and all
of the other things that we do just because we're
(01:02:34):
corporeal beings. And at the end of the day, we
have to acknowledge that, right everybody puts their pants on
the same way, or at least similarly, and so would
we look at it that way, and we don't use
it as a shame side of it, uses it like like, yeah,
(01:02:55):
that person used to be a baby too, that person
used to to not know anything. All people used to
not know anything. What are you doing right now? Anything
that you're doing right now, you did not know it
a breathing maybe, But all of the things that you
do throughout your day, throughout your life, the things that
(01:03:17):
you know, you did not know when you came here.
It was a growth, it was a cycle. It was
building on top of another concept to bring us back
to the original opening segment, and that's where we run
into things of we have to look at these patterns
because we don't know anything. I have no clue what
(01:03:40):
happened before I was here, Before I experienced it, they
told me two plus two was four. I believed two
plus two was four until I understood that two plus
another two gives me four. Now I can memorize that fact,
I can look at that fact. But until I internalize
(01:04:02):
that two things plus another two things equals four things,
all it is is just me being a parrot. I'm
a shadow of myself. I must admit that I know nothing.
As Jeff is letting us all know in there. I
think he's trying to get that number one spot. I
think it's what's happening. The more you chat in the
(01:04:22):
chat there, the more points you get. He's trying to
take for that number one spot there. So this is
the cycle. Plato's cycle often outlined in The Republic book
seven and nine. It shows a map of dissent from
the ideal governance to tyranny. Now a lot of people,
even Aristotle eventually brings this in a little bit more
(01:04:47):
in our next book of the series, but we'll worry
about that when we get there. And so with Plato,
he talks about aristocracy, the rule of the best. Now,
you and I don't necessarily like this. Now, the rule
of the best wasn't the best economically, which is how
(01:05:10):
we understand aristocracy. Now, aristocrats right the best. But that
was the philosopher king side. This is Plato's ideal polity,
ruled by the philosopher kings who govern through reason and
for the sake of the common good. It is just,
(01:05:30):
It is harmonious in an order in which each class
performs its natural function class it's still classiest. And the
concept of the philosopher king is what we need to
take from this, the concept of that we are all
philosopher kings. When we put it in through the lens
of the American Revolution and the American Constitution, our American
(01:05:56):
Republic says that we are all the philosopher kings. Jefferson
and Madison and Hamilton and Adams and everybody else wanted
us to be the best, ruled by the best within
the rule of law. Aristocracy usually degrades into a regime
(01:06:17):
driven militarily. Plato calls it a democracy timocrct where the
guardian's rule. We treat this as a military coup. We
call that nowadays sometimes an aristocracy also leads to an
oligarchy the love of wealth, but we call it the
(01:06:40):
aristocracy because they're the best at accumulating the wealth. This
produces a regime of radical a regime of radical freedom.
I'm sorry, I'm reading the other side. This a regime deteriorates.
The oligarchy deteriorates, be the rule by the rich, political
power is restraint to a few. The city becomes divided.
(01:07:04):
Plato believed that the oligarchy would then fall into the democracy,
where the impoverished masses eventually overthrow the oligarchs, producing a
regime of radical freedom and equality. While superficially attractive, Plato's
viewed democracy with suspicious lacking. Yeah, because they killed his friend.
(01:07:26):
They voted to kill his friend Socrates. And that proves
yet again of Benjamin Franklin's wise, wise words that a
democracy to wolves and a lamb deciding what to have
for lunch, and the heretic Socrates was executed. That democracy
(01:07:47):
then moves into a tyranny because of out of control,
unrestrained freedom. Looking at you libertarians, looking at you anarchists.
We need rule rules, we need guard rails to maintain freedom.
Otherwise you guessed it tyranny, and out of the chaos
(01:08:09):
of unrestrained freedom, the most extreme and lawless individuals rise,
and a tyrant who possesses the order but rules through fear, coercion,
and self indulgence. This is the crux of political life,
a perservision, a perversion rather of both justice and liberty. Now,
(01:08:32):
it isn't a deterministic theory, it isn't inevitable, but it
is a critical lens in which we need to look
at ourselves. Thanks for listening, Thanks for watching. Thanks for
being a part of the show today, even if it
was just with your noggins. I appreciate you being here.
(01:08:55):
It's always a great time to have a participation of
those in the the YouTube side of things and a
few other places stick around. Big Top Sports is coming
right up here on w rm N. That's with your
ringmaster Derek Geyer. He's going to walk you through all
(01:09:18):
of the latest sports news and facilitate proctor even some
sports discussions. Thanks for being here. I'll be back tomorrow
at four. That is of Elliott Serrano doesn't hijack my
show too, See guys tomorrow.
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