Plato's Ideas of the Political: With Guest Melissa Lane

Guest Melissa Lane, class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton, joins us to discuss her book, Of Rule and Office: Plato's Ideas of the Political and Plato's politicial philosophies. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Face Paul America. I'm Beowolf Frocklin. Facepaulamerica dot com is where you can
find, as usual, more informationabout the show, interact with us on
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(00:31):
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zero two six five six six twoseven to one. You can message us
or you can call us. Leavea message. We'll get back to you.
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to interact with folks who listen tothe program, and we'd like to keep

(00:53):
up the old tradition of talk radio. So don't be afraid. We would
love to have you on the show. We'll do it way that's comfortable for
you. Two zero two six fivesix six two seven to one. I
have been trying, gosh for along time to make sense of current politics,
the way that government operates in theUnited States of America and in the

(01:14):
West, and I've I've found veryfew sources of information, very few political
models and ideologies that work that seemedto comprehensively grasp at what's going on.
And I look to history a lotwhenever I get a chance, and I
thought it would be interesting to goback as as far as you know,

(01:38):
ancient and classical philosophy goes uh.And there has been a book written by
the person we're speaking with today,Melissa Lane, called of Rule and Office
Plato's Ideas of the political I thoughtthis would be a good thing to investigate.
How did folks intakequity see politics.Is there something that we can learn

(02:04):
from that about how we should constructand organize our government and our politics today?
Melissa Laine, Welcome to Faceball America. Thank you so much for being
with us today. Thank you,Barewelf. I'm delighted to be here.
So if you could tell us alittle something, just just a very broad
overview. I never studied philosophy,at least, you know, not the

(02:30):
philosophy of antiquity of the Greeks andthe Romans, not of that era,
and so I don't know much aboutyou know, Plato in general. A
few tidbits here and there, butreally not much, particularly concerning his view
of government, the way that societyshould be organized. I know that a

(02:53):
lot of you know, Greek philosophycertainly informs the way the US government was
was constructed, and that Greek andRoman philosophies were very much in the minds
of the founding fatheries. But whatwas government like for Plato, like when
he conceived of government like, whatwas that for him? Let's just kind

(03:17):
of start with that basic context,if we could. Right. So,
Plato lives from the fifth into thefourth century, before the Christian or the
common era. So and he isborn an Athenian citizen at a time when
Athens was already the leading democracy inthe ancient Greek world. So Athens is

(03:39):
one of about a thousand different Greekcity states at the time, but it's
one of the big it's the biggestin terms of population, and it's you
know, the most one of themost significant. And so it's important that
Plato is living in a democracy,although it then suffers two brief periods of

(04:00):
kind of oligarchic revolution when he's ayoung man, and around that same time
he's befriended the philosopher Socrates, whois then put to death by the restored
democracy in three ninety nine after atrial, he's convicted and put to death,
and Plato, we think, startsto write in the wake of that

(04:20):
experience. So there's a lot alreadyon his political plate. There's democracy,
there's oligarchic revolutions and coups which havethen been overturned and the democracy has been
restored. And there's this kind ofconflict between what many people have come to
think of as democracy and free speech, or democracy and philosophy in the person

(04:41):
of Socrates. But I also liketo say that I think we should see
all of this in a broader context, which is that most of the ancient
Greek regimes at this time, whetherthey were democracies or they were oligarchies,
that was the main choice of governmentat this time, and it was really
a question of to what extent werethe poorest, free male citizens enfranchised or

(05:02):
not. So this is a timein which in all Greek city states there
are slaves. So there are peoplewho are enslaved, So we have to
acknowledge that upfront. And women havea kind of anomalist status where they're citizens,
but they are in these city statesin general, but they lack certain

(05:23):
political privileges. So in Athens,for example, the women. You can
describe a woman as an Athenian citizen, and she's a free woman, but
she doesn't have the right to vote, to participate in the assembly, to
hold office. But what I wantedto say, just to conclude this kind
of very general answer, is thatin the democracies as well as in the

(05:44):
oligarchies, there is what I thinkof as constitutional government in this period,
which means that there are office holderswho are chosen either through election or lottery,
They have defined terms of office,they have limited powers, and there
are end of term accountability audits thatare applied to them where they have to

(06:05):
give an account of how they haveused public money, and in Athens also
more generally, how they've used theirpublic powers. So I find that one
of the most interesting parts of ancientGreek government, and I think and I
and one of the things I arguein this book is that I think Plato
does too, although he wanted toimprove on it, arguably in ways that
we can explore. That's interesting thatthe concept of an exit interview that holds

(06:30):
accountability for someone that was in office, that certainly you could see how that
would have an impact if it wereimplemented currently, it might you know,
dissuade people, for example, fromjust hopping from public office to go into
industry and then using their connections tofacilitate the lobbying for particular corporations. It

(06:55):
seems to happen so often. Andjust to go back and clarify a little
bit, it sounds in some waysnot too dissimilar from how the United States
started, in the sense that thatthe that that okay, there was slavery
and and and women were were notallowed to vote. But am I understanding

(07:19):
correctly that that even if you werewere poor and did not hold property,
you you as as a male inancient Athens, could could vote. Is
that correct? Yes? And thatwas the major democratic innovation in Athens.
And it comes about gradually, youknow. So there's a there's a range
of different changes and developments. Butone thing that's actually interesting to say is

(07:44):
it's not only a question of votingin the assembly. It was also a
question of being a juror in thelaw courts, which held sway over most
law cases. Not all there wereseparate courts for homicide, but for most
law cases there were no professional judges. So ultimately it was a jury that

(08:05):
could be composed of the poorest Athenians, you know, or a kind of
a randomly chosen group of Athenians.But then you would be chosen randomly to
be on the juror rolls. Butthen it was up to you to decide
whether you went to court on anygiven day and actually kind of participated in
a trial. So that was actuallyseen as one of the major leavers of

(08:28):
democratic power, was the power ofthe juror, and not only the power
to vote in the Assembly. Andthen there's a question about whether the poorest
people could also hold these offices,which were these one you know, typically
one year offices that ended with theaccountability audit that we mentioned. As far
as we can tell, probably mostmany or most of those offices might have

(08:52):
ultimately been opened up to the pooresthistorians, and for that our evidence isn't
one hundred percent clear about that.But certainly people could go to the assembly,
they could choose the people in officefor those who were elected, and
they could serve as jurors, andthose things were really important forms of democratic
power. Well, jury duty isvery much on my mind these days because

(09:13):
I have it coming up in afew weeks myself and it's all yeah,
And that's a great example, ifyou know, often people think, oh,
ancient Athenian democracy was so different fromour own, and it was different
and important in some important ways.They made much more use of lottery.
There was the sense that, youknow, these offices rotated more broadly,
but they had juries as we do. You know, they had the poorest

(09:37):
people in males, you know,in free in society being enfranchised as we
do. They had you know,terms of office as we do. So
you know, I think in thoseways there's actually more in common than we
sometimes think. And in terms ofthe property requirement, which which at the
beginning of the United States, moststates had a property requirement for being able

(10:01):
to vote, and so in alot in that sense, it seems like
it was freer than we were,at least at the start of our nation.
Yeah, I mean, actually,that's an interesting point. It actually
parallels in the sense that the greatAthenian lawgiver of the sixth century MBC.
Soln actually sets up for property classesand he officially reserves the offices for the

(10:28):
top three property classes, but hesets up these popular law courts and gives
the people power and also to servethen as the auditors who are then ultimately
going to you know, judge theofficers. So then there's this kind of
interesting thing where you may not havethe power to be in the office,
but if you get to sit injudgment on them, you know, that's
almost better in a certain way.And then there's a similar kind of you

(10:52):
know, gradual increasing of the powersof the poorest. So I think you're
paralleled to the United States, wherethere's a kind of gradual you know,
with with the Jacksonian era and soon, you know, kind of meaningful
enfranchisement of the of the poorest citizensis again poorest male citizens is again a
good comparison. It's it's interesting tome to think about what Plato thought about

(11:20):
this. What were what were hisobservations about government, what sort of government
did he advocate, and how didhe react to what was happening in his
time, especially in the context of, as you mentioned, a government that
had enacted capital punishment on someone whowas you know, his role model Socrates.

(11:46):
What what was what was his responseto this, What did he think
were the flaws and the benefits ofa governmental system like that, and what
did he envision as an ideal.Great. So there's a lot of questions
there that I think will give usa lot to talk about over the next
few minutes. So let me maybestart with Socrates, because I think it's

(12:07):
helpful to go back to that.And Socrates is a real historical figure.
A lot of what we know abouthim comes from Plato, but we also
have other contemporaries who wrote about him, such as Xenophon, for example.
So so we're kind of triangulating tofigure out about the life of Socrates.
And one of the things that Platocertainly presents Socrates as doing is challenging what

(12:31):
he takes to be this democratic ideathat there's no special political expertise, because
the thought is, if there's specialpolitical expertise, then we shouldn't be choosing
people by lottery or maybe even byelection, because we might get it wrong.
We should sort of, you know, just as we would. Socrates

(12:52):
gives these examples in Plato's writings,you know, just as we would call
in a carpenter to advise us oncarpentry, you know. So we to
find the true political expert and weshould get them to be in charge,
or at least to advise you know, rather than so this question of knowledge
and ignorance is the democracy kind ofassuming that there's no specialized expert knowledge that

(13:16):
is relevant to politics. That's kindof one of the main tropes that you
can see Plato kind of picking up. But my own work, and there
are different ways, maybe before Igo into the next bed, there are
different ways to respond to that.So the historian Josiah Ober, for example,
wrote a book called Democracy and Knowledgewhere he made a kind of Topevillian

(13:37):
argument in response to Socrates and platocritique, saying, actually, by participating
in these different civic institutions that wediscussed, the Athenian Democrats were kind of
educated through participating like the New Englandtown meeting or something like that. Right,
So he wanted to say, reallyit's a question of you know,
what do you mean by knowledge?But Plato and Socrates did have this very

(14:01):
kind of They were very interested inthese forms of craft or professional knowledge,
medicine, navigation, that architecture thathad emerged, and their thought was,
you know, surely we should notjust leave politics to amateurs. We should
sort of try to see if wecould figure out what kind of knowledge would

(14:22):
genuinely be relevant to politics. Sothat's kind of step one, but there's
a few other steps, but letme just pause there for a minute.
Yeah, no, that's that's fascinating. You can see that like continue to

(14:43):
play out in the various advocates thatwe've had of you know, of a
sort of technocracy, and like theidea that you have an election, Well,
this person doesn't have any experience,and they shouldn't they shouldn't be you
know, trusted in in office anduh. And on the opposite end of
the spectrum, the idea that thisperson has nothing to do with government,

(15:05):
and government just stinks and so thisperson must, by dint of that like
be bound to do a better jobthan anyone who has had any association with
it. So it still plays playsout. And and I hadn't thought about
that idea because like, really Ithink it's I think that the reaction of

(15:26):
that that one scholar that that thatyou mentioned it is right because the engagement
really is the education that that like, like, by being involved in the
system and participating in it and becomingfamiliar with it. I mean, that's
really what you need in order toto to make it work, is to
is to know the process to toto be a part of it, and

(15:48):
that's when democracy works the best.And if you don't have that one way
or another, regardless of what youcall it, for all practical uh matters,
you're essentially talking about an oligarchy becausethe people who participate are going to
be the people who run it.And if there aren't enough people doing that,
or are not enough people allowed todo that, then then call it

(16:11):
what you will. You might sayyou're a democracy or a public or whatever,
but it amounts to an oligarchy ifonly a few people are engaged in
that process. So that's what Ifind fascinating about what you're saying. Well,
that's great, thank you. Sobased on that, you're not going
to like what I say next aboutClato. So yeah, so this is
a kind of interesting challenge. SoI'm in my book I've Rule and Office.

(16:34):
I lay out especially, I thinka new and distinctive reading of Plato's
one of his most famous works,which is we call the Republic in Greek.
Actually the Greek title is Politeia,which means constitution, which is interesting
in itself. But and he wroteat least two other really important works,

(16:59):
one called The Statesman, and onecalled the laws, and maybe we can
come onto those later, but letme focus for now in the republic,
because that gives an interesting contrast towhat you were just saying. So Plato's
Republic. Here's the received wisdom onthe republic. And then I'll in a
moment come to kind of how Iwant to challenge that. So the received
view of the republic, at leastone view that's been influential is that this

(17:22):
is the rule of philosopher Kings andphilosopher Queen. So Plato does make an
argument for the equality of women rulersin this dialogue, which is interesting in
itself, but the sort of receivedview is here. He wants to reject
democracy. He wants a kind oftechnocratic rule by a few elite experts.

(17:42):
And those experts are going to beuntrammeled in the powers that they have.
So those questions about term limits,accountability, all those terms of office,
all those things that we were talkingabout before. Plato, just this is
the general view, wants to throwthem out the window and just empower these

(18:03):
absolute rulers who ex HYPOTHESI I havethis knowledge of the good and have the
special political knowledge. And then andthen the critique of that is exactly what
you were saying, isn't this justoligarchy by another name? Why should we
trust these people? So my readingof the Republican of rule and office is
actually very different because I noticed thatactually Plato is using the vocabulary that his

(18:30):
ancient Greek contemporaries used to distinguish anykind of rule from a political office,
in this sense of being bounded,being accountable, having term limits, having
rotation, having limited powers, allthose things being scrutinized before you take it
up. All that is kind ofpart of his vocabulary when he's talking about

(18:52):
these philosopher rulers, these philosopher kingsand queens. And he also has a
kind of testing for who is reallyqualified to be in this So none of
these cohorts get to be self certifying. They actually have to be tested by
the people who come before them.And then the other big piece of it

(19:15):
is sort of what does he reallymean by this specialized knowledge? And I
argue that also we see explicitly inhis language it's about caring about what's good
for the society. So the knowledgeis not just a technocratic knowledge, it's
actually being oriented appropriately and tested tomake sure that in practice and experience,

(19:37):
as someone who might be entrusted withgovernment, you are going to demonstrate that
kind of care. So there's alot more to say about the details.
There's even wages involved for these rulers, which I think is a really interesting
point that we should talk about.But the sort of big picture story that
I want to give is Plato isbuilding this picture up out of the vocabulary
and the practices of accountability and care, and he does reconfigure them. He

(20:02):
is, you know, kind oftaking them farther than they were at the
time, but he's not turning hisback on accountability. He's actually trying to
make it more more real, tomake it apply more fully. I mean,
let me let me ask you afollow up question about digging a little
bit more into the specifics of whathe meant by this series of tests,

(20:23):
because it really seems to me thatone of the things that we have learned
as Americans, or should have learnedas Americans from the last several years,
is that you can have all therules and laws and you know parts of
the Constitution that you want, butif you don't have people who are dedicated

(20:45):
to the idea that this should workthis way. Who as you like,
essentially say, who care about itbeing a democracy and functioning as a democracy
as opposed to like just gaining therules to serve themselves, Then it does
not function. And I'm wondering didPlato have a specific set of tests or

(21:11):
a specific way that he proposed thatthat would function, so that you could
filter out people who were just goingto be self serving and a way of
determining, like how much you actuallycared about how much a democracy functioned.
Yeah, so he does have specifictests. But let me just underline I

(21:32):
think the importance of your point,because in a way, that's a perfect
encapsulation of what I argue in arule and office exactly that I think Plato
was giving us these two messages atthe same time. So one of them
is we actually can beef up ouraccountability mechanisms even more than we now have.
And I think that's part of whathe's saying. We need better laws

(21:56):
and stronger curbs on the potential forcorruption in politics. And I can talk
more about some of how that's supposedto work, which this idea of wages
is a certain way of applying wagesas part of that. So I think
on the one that he wants toreally strengthen those rules, but then on
the other hand, he exactly wantsto say what you said, which is,

(22:17):
you know, exactly, if youdon't have the people who actually care
in the right way about what thoserules are supposed to achieve, any rules
can be undermined, any rules canbe subverted. You know, no purely
procedural fix is going to be enough. And I think both sides of that
message are really important, you know, And I think we tend to only

(22:37):
want to hear one side or theother. And actually, you know,
kind of as a general rule,you might say, people on the left
want to strengthen the institutions and peopleon the right one of strength and virtue.
And I think Plato is actually tellingus, you know, civic virtue.
I think Plato is telling us weactually need to do both. You
can't do one without the other.Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interplay

(22:57):
of both. I think you haveto have because I mean, you need
you need structure, you like,you know, in order to have a
functioning body, you need you needbones, but you also need, you
know, muscles in order to toto carry everything out and you need things
that are that that that are verytangible, and things that are intan tangible
and and a little bit more youknow, flexible and fungible in order to

(23:19):
make the actual day to day processeswork. And I'm just fascinated by the
idea that that that Plato had anidea of of how to like deal with
this more uh, intangible side.So so if you could do go in
a little bit in more detail aboutwhat he thought the rules were for forgetting

(23:41):
at and and and and finding membersof this technocracy. Not that I necessarily,
you know, agree with his overalluh I you know, idea of
having a technolog I don't necessarily thinkthat that would work, but I think
it's a fascinating part of this isfinding finding people who would truly care about
the system. How did he proposeto do that? And what sort of

(24:03):
wage structure are you talking about here? That really interested me? Yeah?
Great, Well, let me talkabout the test first and then we'll come
back to the wages. So thetest, it's actually very interesting. He
sets out this whole set of teststhat should be performed on candidates from the
age of twenty all the way untilthe age of fifty and the people who

(24:26):
are older than them, So theolder age cohort at each point is doing
the tests, so the people who'vesuccessfully done it before them. And what's
really interesting to me about it isthat he thinks, even to kind of
get into that candidate pool, it'scrucial that you not only have intellectual capacities,
but you also have to have thekind of proto virtues. You have

(24:49):
to be not tempted or motivated excessivelyby the kind of bodily appetites that you
might then want to get money tobe able to fulfill right, you have
to have kind of so it's likehe's looking, you know, you have
to have a good memory, youhave to be kind of reliable. So
it's very interesting he has a muchmore than technocratic picture of what this is,

(25:11):
and it includes this being oriented appropriatelyto caring about the good of those
you're ruling, and not being temptedor even even having the possibility of being
tempted by certain kinds of things thatcould corrupt you. So that's where we'll
come back to the wages in aminute. And then the thought is that

(25:32):
you go through these different things insort of five or ten year kind of
cycle. So again there's something akinto term limits here, you know.
So you have an education where allof this is tested. Those who make
it through that education then spend fifteenyears and what Socrates, who's the character
speaking in the Republic, calls goingback into the cave. That's another famous

(25:56):
image from the Republic, and inthis case he's using it kind of metaphorically.
You have to go back into thecity and actually spend fifteen years ruling,
and then you're tested in how youperform in practice. So again I
think what's interesting about is it's notjust sitting the sat you know, it's
not just an intellectual test. It'sactually about, you know, do you

(26:17):
display the right dispositions, do youcare in the right ways and not in
the wrong ways, did you usepower appropriately? And only then do you
go back into the education for afinal stage, and then you sort of
get to be at the absolute top. And what I think is interesting is
that language of office is explicitly usedfor these people the fifteen years between thirty

(26:37):
five and fifty when they're actually doingthe ruling back in the city. Those
are the officeholders, and then thepeople above them, who I call the
complete guardians or the senior guardians.They're the ones their job is not to
be absolutist rulers. Their job isto kind of oversee this education and testing
of people who are actually holding office. It's again where I think Plato is

(27:00):
really accepting in a large way.There are there are caveats, there are
you know, things one has tosay, objections and caveats to this,
but he's accepting a large part ofthe thought that we want temporarily bounded office
holding. That's what good government is. But then we have to ensure that
we have the right people in it. And that's what the senior guardians do.

(27:22):
They don't rule in this kind ofabsolutist way. They actually make the
whole system work by ensuring that theright people go into the right roles.
Right, there's a whole educational superstructurein order to maintain the values that the
system has determined that it wanted.And here's another thing, because it really

(27:42):
seems to me that we've run intothis again and again, and I'm wondering
if Plato had a way of dealingwith this. People can say that they're
voted, devoted to the ideals ofdemocracy, and you could ask them about
it, and they can say,oh, yes, yes, I believe

(28:03):
you know, you know, allpeople are equal and blah blah blah blah
blah or whatever it happens to be, and they can lie about it.
And how do you tell if theyreally believe what they're saying. I mean,
we're the tests, like, youknow, did he account for that
in what he was doing or didhe not get to that level of specificity.

(28:25):
So that's where I think that it'svery interesting that there's this fifteen year
period where the test is really thispractical test. How are you performing in
practice in the office? Right,That's what's being observed. So it's really
about walking the walk, you know, at that point and then not right,
So it's ongoing testing at each point, and if you're not living up

(28:45):
to those standards, there's like aspecific like set of like people examining you
like by these pre established standards inorder to make sure you're on the track,
and they and presumably they would havethe power to say, well,
you're not doing this correctly, you'rejust self serving, and they would have
the power to take action at thatpoint exactly. And again, you know,

(29:06):
I think there are interesting parallels.You know, people have talked to
me about parallels which I think arethere to Confucian ideas of meritocracy and so
on. You know, one ofthe things that I think is important about
Plato is the standards are pre established, but they're also not sort of purely
technical or procedural, you know.So what you're always really trying to get
at is are they actually showing thatthey care in the right way for the

(29:30):
right things when they're governing, youknow, So it's not just it's never
box ticking or you know that isn'tto say that, you know, the
rock couldn't set in at some point, I mean actually later in the republic.
There is a kind of envisaging ofwhat could eventually go wrong in such
a society, and it would probablyeventually start to degenerate and go wrong.
So there's Plato isn't saying this iseasy or perfect or guaranteed or you know,

(29:56):
it's only as good, And Ithink it's important to say, like
in defending it, it's only asgood as it genuinely is. You know,
if people are lying and self serving, then the whole thing kind of
collapses, and the whole case forit kind of disappears, right, But
at least there's some like mechanism forsome accountability as long as there's like parts

(30:18):
of it that are are not infectedby that, you know. I mean
you can see the comparisons between thedifferent branches of government and how they're supposed
to, you know, hold oneanother accountable. Yeah, So actually that's
a great point. So in arule and office. Another thing that I
argue is that actually when he usesthe language of accountability, so where does

(30:42):
that language go? You know,I talked about we have this language of
offices for the thirty five to fiftyyear olds. Where's the actual same language
that's used for holding the people accountableat the end of their terms of office?
Where does that go? And oneof the places it goes is into
discussion, so that the highest guardiansare really tested in their ability to debate

(31:04):
with one another what is truly goodand some? And it used to be
that the sort of paradigm for thinkingabout Plato on the good was, oh,
this is these sort of forms.They're like in heaven. You know,
you just either you see them oryou don't. It's sort of but
more recent work by the late philosopherSarah Brody and others has really emphasized this

(31:26):
is Sarah Brody calls it the goodin interrogative mode. So the idea is
you're debating what is good, andyes, being a philosopher is about,
you know, being able to succeedin those debates. But that's the ultimate
test, is that you have thisgroup of people who are genuinely asking themselves
this question, you know, whatis genuinely good? What should the government

(31:48):
be aiming to do? And youknow that's in a way still the best
tests that we have. So again, it's not a democracy, but it
has some formal features that are Ithink in common with that. But should
we talk about wages for a minute, But that is also a fun piece
of it. No, I wouldplease do? Please do? Yeah?
Great. So one of the thingsthat I think so this is so we've

(32:08):
been talking about how do you getthe right people? But now let's go
back to what you call the bones, you know, as well as the
muscle. Right, So what arethe structures? And one of the things
that I find in our rule andoffice so fascinating is that explicitly in Plato's
Dialogue the Republic at the end ofbook three. In the beginning of book
four, he talks about he hasSocrates who is leading this conversation as a

(32:34):
character, although he was also areal life person. He has him say
the crucial thing is that these guardianshave to be deprived of any opportunity to
accumulate gold and silver, and theyshould be. They should in essence,
have no ability to accumulate private property, or certainly private property in land,

(32:57):
and you know, only very little, like they can have their own cups
and bedsteads, that sort of thing, but you know, they're not going
to be able to build up theirown holdings. And then he also has
a very extreme proposal that they shouldalso not even know who their familial kin
are because and the idea is,but what's so interesting about it is why
so they're bound to the republic asopposed to being bound to their family right

(33:20):
exactly. And the idea is,if you have those two measures, they
literally can't use their power in corruptways because they can't. And he actually
the verb is used, let's establishthis as a law. So this is
again something that people don't often takethis seriously in reading Plato. He says,
this should be a law. Thisis part of that bones structure institutional

(33:43):
side of how we're going to havegood government. And so the idea is
these people can't even begin to becorrupt because they can't accumulate good at gold
and silver, they don't have anyoneto give it to. And then on
the other side, we saw thatthey're also going to be tested, so
they don't even want to. Butone of the things that I find so
interesting is right. It's this beltembraces approach, as they say in the
UK, meaning you don't just puton a belt, but you also have

(34:06):
your suspenders. Right, you wantboth protections. It is safeguards as the
you know, founding fathers have right, And the idea is, these are
the people who we think are potentially, you know, the highest philosophers,
the most ethical people. They're goingto pass all the tests, and even
those people have to be subject,especially those people have to be subject to

(34:29):
this extreme set of legal measures toso you know, I've written something comparing
this to our ethical standards for theSupreme Court, and I think this goes
much farther than we go with theSupreme Court, who you might think have
very similar powers to those highest guardiansin Plato right, there's nobody else holding
them accountable other than themselves. Andyet Plato would say, you know,

(34:51):
it's not enough to have like ethicstandards that they enforce. You know,
why are they allowed to earn anythingbeyond their wages at all? And maybe
that's a good moment that in amoment we can also come to the wages
piece of it. Something that strikesme when you talk about this. I

(35:16):
think about the first governorship of Californiaof Jerry Brown and knowing especially that he
was a student and got a degreein classics, the fact that, like
in the nineteen seventies when he wasgovernor of California, he didn't live in
the gubernatorial mansion. He had ayou know, just an apartment. He

(35:39):
drove an older car instead instead ofa limousine. And I wonder if he
had this in mind when he envisionedhimself as governor, as being sort of
like an acetic guardian, and whetherthat was his model of trying to be

(36:00):
governor, you know, and obviouslyit was very different the second time.
And you know, it's not aperfect analogy, but I wonder if he
had that in the back of hismind. It's so interesting I would love
to look into that. I actuallygrew up in California in that era,
so I remember that governorship and it'sa really interesting example and it exactly captures

(36:21):
the spirit. So actually, exactlythe Greeks and Plato among them, but
not uniquely, really give us thislanguage of public servant, like that's become
such a cliche, but actually it'smeaningful for them. It's literally, you're
not the master, you're the servant. And that's a very interesting and uncomfortable

(36:43):
role for a Greek who, youknow, a male Greek who would maybe
have had slaves. Not all ofthem would have, but you know they
could have those who were wealthy enough. And so you know, you're you're
a servant. You're not in charge, you're actually I mean, I think
it's a paradox. I think it'smeant to be a parents in one way.
Of course, you are in chargeexercising public powers, but you're meant
to exercise them, as you said, in this sort of ascetic you know,

(37:06):
servant guardian role and so okay,so here's the wages part of it.
So if so on one level,this just becomes necessary if the guardians
are not for Plato going to beallowed to accumulate private property to even have
any meaningful private property. They can'thave gold and silver, so how are
they going to live? Right,So in a way, they have to

(37:27):
be paid wages in order to live. But what's very interesting is again Plato
has Socrates go farther than that inthe republic and actually say, ideally,
the rulers should what should how shouldthey think of the people? What should
they call them? They should callthem their pay masters and providers, And

(37:49):
he uses the same word that youwould use for someone who's paying a mercenary
soldier or you paying a day laborer. So literally they're supposed to think of
the wages being paid to the peopleso that they're doing a job on their
behalf. It's like the stereotypical,you know, angry citizen saying I pay
your salary. And they had thisan agree. That's a really interesting paradox

(38:14):
though, is that on the onethat he wants the rulers to think that
way about the people. He wantsto think they're paying my salary. You
know, I have to actually actaccordingly and serve their good. But he
doesn't want to have the people sayingI pay your salary. But the people
should say is they should say,oh, the rulers are kind of safeguards

(38:37):
and guardians. And I think that'sactually very interesting because I think he's a
little bit there thinking the way thatwe might think about elected judges, you
know, where when we have electedjudges, in one way, as we've
seen in more recent years, itkind of undermines the function of judges for
people to really politicize that and say, you know, we're going to recall

(38:58):
them every time they make a decisionthat we don't like. In a way,
of course, you want the electedjudges to think of themselves as serving
the people and as you know,answerable to the people. But in another
way, there's a sense in whichit shouldn't be that transactional, that sort
of one off a kind of popularcontrol. And I think that's what Plato
is actually thinking about, is it'sactually a very delicate balance. Edmund Burke

(39:22):
would much later talk about this,as you know, do you want your
representatives to be delegates or trustees?Right? And there's something good in both
of those conceptions, but it's kindof a delicate balance. If you go
all the way down the delegate route, you know, I pay your taxes.
In a way, you rob therulers of the chance to use their
knowledge and competence and insight and justtheir powers, you know, for the

(39:46):
you know, for the public goods. So so I think it's a it's
a fine line, exactly. Andif they do it too much, they're
they're they're too removed from you know, the actual needs of the people.
But if you only like cater towardsthat, then you end up not really
employing any independent judgment, but justgo on the you know, the most

(40:08):
I don't know, they might referto it as the most base instincts of
the mob or what have you.So, yeah, you have to balance
that. Something else that comes upto me is the idea of ethics.
And it seems to me that thereis a lot of talk. I know,

(40:29):
my wife is taking a class ithappens to be in data analysis,
and I know this is true inother classes, other college classes, other
fields of endeavor, where there isa section that's dedicated to it on ethics
and what the proper you know,how you're supposed to engage in this.

(40:53):
And you know, there's also theethicist of the New York Times who deals
with ethical ethical issues. And andwhile those things exist, maybe more so
than in a formal way in certainareas of our society, it seems like
the the ambient level of ethical concernin our society has diminished over the past

(41:21):
couple of generations in a way that'sthat's disturbing and and and I'm wondering how
what we can learn from philosophers likePlato to to sort of reinspire that.
I know that you know, religion, certainly, like you know, since
the Christian era, has has beena big, you know, ethical guide

(41:45):
you know, you know, orwhether it's Christianity or Judaism or or is
or Islam. But but how ina culture like like ours do you reinvigorate
the idea of ethics and working thatinto every day society so that the base

(42:10):
candidates that you rise up, youknow, according to according to Plato,
statue structure or whatever governmental structure thatyou have, are going to be invested
with these to begin with, andnot have to be just kind of superficially
like you know, inculcated with withwith something nominal. Once you're you're already

(42:34):
in the process of like being beingformally educated, what did Plato have to
say about that with respect to buildinga good government? Great, it's a
great question. So let me tryto answer it in two different directions.
So the first thing would be tosay, I think Puto would say,

(42:55):
actually, people always are concerned withethics in a way, but they may
have a flawed understanding or or orkind of a self contradictory understanding. And
so, you know what, whatSocrates was famous for doing was tackling people
who said, I know what justiceis, I know what courage is.
You know, I know what selfdiscipline, their moderation is, I know

(43:19):
what wisdom is, and he wouldinterrogate those people and often they would they
would contradict themselves, and it wouldturn out that they actually didn't really have
an understanding. And then the sortof Socratic answer is, which I think
also then merges into the Platonic answeris you have to go on questioning so
that so, you know, Ithink Plato's idea of the good is the
sense you know, we all actuallydo care about good good, good air

(43:44):
to breathe, you know, goodmedicine. We don't want to take bad
medicine. We want good food toeat. We don't want to have bad
food. So we then we askourselves what is good food? Now,
then we might give the wrong answer, right, We might think, oh,
you know, good food is youknow, I don't know, you
know. We might come up withall kinds of answers that aren't exactly right.
But the point is slow whatever.But the point is then you say,

(44:04):
well, really, okay, whatmakes it good? You know,
well, if that's what makes itgood, you know, is there something
better? Like what is there someway that we can refine that? And
I think that's what Plato was doingwith these ideas of accountability. He was
saying, we want accountability, butthe problem with these end of term audits
is people can get through the net. You know, people can do a
lot of damage. So we needwe need to double down on that and

(44:25):
find a better way of doing it. And that and that's I think what
he would say about ethics. Inone way, he would say, actually,
people do care, but there maybe lazy or they're imbibing received ideas
from the culture. And what weneed is to foster this culture of questioning
and discussion and analysis and you know, and and and you know, which
by another name is research and education, Right, I mean, that's but

(44:51):
then the other side of it,which is interesting is the Republic is also
dedicated in some ways even more broadlythan its political emphasis, which I've been
and explaining, But it's also dedicatedto the idea that actually there isn't a
fundamental tension between self interest or likeone's own personal advantage and doing what is

(45:14):
just or kind of more broadly ethical. So actually the whole challenge of the
Republic is that it starts off withsome of Plato's actually brothers, who he
also makes into characters, and someother people are portrayed as challenging why should
I bother being? Just why shouldn'tI simply free ride? In effect,

(45:34):
you know what's in it for me? Right, So again it's really addressing
these questions that are alive in ourown culture. And the kind of answer
of the Republic ultimately is if youpush that idea to its limit, you
become someone who can't trust anyone,and nobody can trust you, and so
you can't have any friends, andyou really can't enjoy life because you can't

(45:55):
trust anyone. And the kind ofultimate image of this is the tie,
right, the person who's always afraidthey're going to be poisoned by their bodyguards.
Right, they can't enjoy their food, even if it's good food,
because maybe it's poisoned, Right,they can't actually And so Plato's kind of
ultimate answer is, you know,that sort of suspicious, self interested what's

(46:15):
in it for me disposition if itgoes too far, and you could say,
you know, in modern American societyit's at risk of having gone too
far in these ways. It actuallyundermines our ability to actually find joy and
meaning and fulfillment in our civic andpersonal relationships. And so I think that's

(46:35):
kind of Plato's deeper answer is don'tthink of ethics as this external thing.
It's not abstract. It's very practicalbecause if you follow it down that path,
then then you're hurting yourself. Thisis not it has an application to
your life, because if you tryto make this happen, then ultimately,

(46:55):
like you destroy what makes it possiblefor a good life, and that's you
know, relationships and people helping oneanother in a coordinated way, which is
the basis of a society. Ifyou don't have a society, then you
just have you know, individuals inconflict and and you don't get like a
lot of the basic things that thatmost people you know say that they want

(47:19):
with food and and and and shelterin an organized way, not to mention
all the amenities that you know,modern society and civilization has. So yeah,
no, absolutely and and and andto me, like you're absolutely right
on and and and Plato certainly iswhen when he says, go on questioning
and that and the and the dialoguehas to take place and you have to

(47:42):
keep like discussing it and and engaginglike in a real and direct way in
order for anything to succeed. Youcan't have just if you have stasis,
then inevitably you have death. Youhave to keep discussing, evolving the ideas
and trying to and constantly checking andcounter checking in order to make sure this

(48:06):
works in a thousand different ways,because otherwise things will will crumble and fall
and you need to constantly, youknow, repair and update all different parts
and structures of society and particularly youknow, governmental ones. And it sort
of puts me in a state offear knowing that for two generations now,

(48:28):
like we've been in a state ofpolitical stasis in this country to where what
it was it was the nineteen seventies, I think the last time the Constitution
was amended, and that we canand that we can't, that we can't
make basic changes to what we have, and that the dialogue has become so

(48:49):
difficult, as we've seen with thediscussions about political dialogue and interaction and the
lack of it across the political divide, and that ends up with things being
I think ultimately so ossified that weget to a very dangerous situation. And
I'm really glad that we've learned.Hey, there are a few things here

(49:14):
from the ancients that they've been ableto like bring to us in Plato,
you know, despite his flaws.You know, maybe we don't want a
huge technocracy, and maybe we don'twant it like so removed from from people,
but there are a few pretty goodideas here that we should probably be
paying attention to. And and MelissaLane, I'm so glad that you were

(49:38):
here to bring this to us anddiscuss it and engage in a dialogue,
because that really is the essence Ithink of keeping this going. Again,
we've been speaking with of rule andoffice, Plato's ideas of the political Melissa
Lane, thank you, Thank youso much. I know we spent a
lot of time on this. Wetook almost a whole hour, and I

(49:59):
know there's so much more that wecould get into and I would love to
do that, maybe revisit this atsome point. But thank you so much
for being with us and spending thetime that you have today with us on
Face Paul America. Thank you.It was a great pleasure. We will
be back in just a moment withsome messages from you the listener. This
is face paulm America. I'm BeowolfRocklin, Face Paul America. I'm Beowulf

(50:32):
Rockland and I wanted to let youknow you know this. I say this
from time to time that you cana message or call us at two zero
two six five six six two sevenone, and I wanted to read a
couple of your messages. I'm waybehind. This is from a week or
so ago, but I wanted tomake sure that you guys got your messages

(51:00):
across. So this is from Jackin New Jersey. Jack says, I
just listened to our friend Glenn Kershner'spodcast on Trump's reduction of bond required to
one hundred and seventy five million dollars. I don't have Glenn's contact information other
than social media, which I'm noton, so I'm reaching out to you.

(51:21):
By the way, if you don'tknow, I do some of the
announcements and do some voice work formy friend Glenn Kershner's podcast, and I
encourage you to listen to Justice Matterswith Glenn Kershner. He has probably the
best updates on Trump's ongoing legal situationsthat you can find out there. I

(51:43):
encourage you to listen. Here's whatJack continues with. I am actually relieved
bond was reduced. Don't get mewrong. I believe Trump should pay all
he owes, but at six hundredmillion dollars plus, I have no doubt
he would have had to go toforeign actors that amount. Trump is already
a clear and present danger. Ibelieve Trump is already indebted to Russian and

(52:05):
other foreign actors. I believe Trumpmay be able to swing the one hundred
and seventy five million dollars, butno way the six hundred million dollars plus.
Let New York clean him out afterthe appeals are over in the fall.
I will pass that along to Glennthat thought, and thank you so
much, Jack, for listening.Also wanted to convey another message from Bob

(52:30):
from San Jose, a regular listener. The Rethuglicans have been trying to blame
President Biden for a bad economy andlots of inflation. That's why I am
expecting them to put as much sandinto the gears of the federal government aiding
the port and people of Baltimore asthey possibly can. That of course referring

(52:52):
to the collapse of the Francis ScottKey Bridge, and that's a good point,
Bob. I think that we willsee a lot of sand thrown in
the gears. I don't think theRepublicans will be at all helpful when it
comes to actually paying for that,because they want as many problems under democratic
control as possibly they can get.And then that will completely change once they

(53:16):
are in power. We've seen itbefore, it will definitely happen again.
I want to thank you for listeningtoday. Thank you so much. I
realize that you spend time in yourday on a lot of different things,
and the fact that you're listening tothis is Hey, that's time that you
could be doing something else, andI really appreciate that you take the opportunity

(53:38):
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and Rosabel Hine who are the producerof the producers of the program. And
until next time, enjoy the day.