Plato, City & Common Good: Convergence vs. Divergence

Plato, City & Common Good: Convergence vs. Divergence


Ylli Permeti


Abstract


“Honour has a wealth that honour does not know, whereas wealth does not have an honour that honour does not know”.


To divide further the common good would be of a good purpose to compare our two institutions — that is, a family against the city or the polity. In a family everything in it is common for its members: Immovable property and movable property. The only property that is not common for a family, according to the west law is the ground bellow and the airspace which belongs to the crown or to the power. To examine therefore an immovable property we have to go back in time, by posing a question: Earth is our property or we are Her property? Without going further in our analysis, we may conclude that it is sure that we are her property and of course her offspring’s. We are thus, its inhabitants. As it is well-known, we expanded our population gradually onto the surface of our earth in the last three millennium ― which means that we may consider it as common, in the first instance. Common in this context has to do more with human actions than having the right to accrue wealth whenever and whatever from our earth. Thus the genealogy of common good lies on human actions with regard the acquired property. The acquired property therefore lies on the needs of human being with regard with the needs of other beings, such as animals and plants. It should be emphasised that this kind of muse has to do with rationality. Thus property seems according to our corollary to be the same time common and private. This is because human being lives for his own life not for the common. Additionally, human being acts privately with regards to common property. As nomads we were long time ago, we came together for the sake of the existence. Thus, in this way we created our cities. And as it is obvious our cities were first created for the sake of mutual assistance. With such a definition it is quite clear that earth is more common than private. Our actions therefore should be common.

Now, let us consider at this point the people of the city: What were they: Homonomic or heteronomic? Homonomic is the quality of being from a given matrix, i.e. a family. But this matrix in its essence is heteronomic, because parents are not from the same family. They would/will in time exchange their ideas and experiences and will “converge” into one. This is, however, a good point on which we have to think about it and consequently raising another question: The role of our parents towards their children, would it be dualistic? It is the convergence of mental that will give to a child non-dualistic thinking, and on the other hand, if the child is not under the “clash” of divergence ― in the context of a family ― how could/should such a child be irritated positively of what is truth and evidence in order to be ready in the further course of his/her life to talk about truths and logic, so that, to expand its consciousness? Therefore, convergence and divergence are at work when a child grows up.

However, it seems to be a difficult question when we discuss about convergence and divergence. But these are two dimensions that do not encounter any problem in our discussion; this is because, as we have said, knowledge is context-dependent and the dependence of the child is dependent on the knowledge of the parents. Though the child starts its life with two different parents in time the goal of our parents is to give independence to their child, the same as could be observed to our animals. Thus, our child does not concern us here, because, we are seeking the power of the parents who represent an extended power to their city, which is however, a power that seeks equilibrium and autonomy in the social domain. Equilibrium thus is the essence of consciousness. Therefore the power of our parents is always at work, so that, to empower their natural convergence. This kind of convergence would offer us the choice to choose between heteronomy and homogeneity. Thus, as the analysis shows, convergence has been part of our life because when we say I belong to that family we mean an entity in which we have grown our identity. Therefore convergence and divergence seems to be in refrain with two other notions of our life: Inductive and deductive, where inductive seems to coincide to convergence and deductive to divergence. But this phenomenon does not impede our investigation regarding the equilibrium of power. Thus homogeneity has an important impact to our property. A property does not belong to many people but to one, which in this context is our family. For if a property belongs to many then convergence does not affirm. The affirmation of convergence therefore is homogeneity. Homogeneity is the quality of the whole into one. Thus, the inhabitants of a city should and would have been homogenous as our nature predetermines but the same time heterogonous because they could not/cannot marry with the same blood — therefore they would have mix their homogeneity with other races (cities) in order to improve their race. Mixing homogeneity means that we will exchange in favour to our city our knowledge, too. But its basic concept has been homogeneity. In short, this is the history of human being as regards the genealogy of our homogeneity and heterogeneity.

Therefore, homogeneity is regarded in our context as a larger family in which has been cultivated the natural law, described above — that is, our family. We favour natural law because it is the most important part in our life. Natural law can be regarded as unwritten laws or laws that are written on the heart of each individual. Natural law therefore is more sustainable when derives from homogeneities’ societies. This is because it converges to cohesion in a society and because consciousness works honourably in its particular interests; and in this way, interests of the people will not intermingle or conflict with other interests. There would be one simple interest: The intrinsic interest of a society, which is the common good.

Thus, when the individuals of a family go to interact with other families in their city they will consider them, their family — which in reality they are their family, because they will share the same values; and the result of it will be the perfect cohesion of the city. This is because our family will have the major impact in the city and as such family is the locus of our ground. In this context, the coveted social cohesion is unavoidable. Providing then in our city the values of our family which are almost the same, except the housekeeping which will differ in details and will not have any negative impact to the city, or will have an impact of emulation and therefore the improvement of the quality of the production and consequently of the real life ― its success thus is unavoidable. This is called today — tradition. Thus, in this way tradition have been [would be] our foundation of our cities. Therefore our city would be better based on our human values mixed with our traditions and not on our money, pure heterogeneity, and Roman doctrines — that is, Divide ut Regnes or whatsoever. On the other hand, heterogeneity was the basic component of ancient cities. Even in Athens cities were not based on homogeneities’ structures. Human being is predetermined by nature to mix its race therefore becoming in time heterogenetic. This can be observed even in our agriculture: “Grafting” it’s the basic proposition in order to improve production and quality. But to consider our city as common has its implications. This is because if we define truth in the whole or in the common certainty is nowhere. For, the “whole” tends to be transformed in a myth, in time, as in the case of kingdoms, as regards the pure consciousness, which gradually will contract. Being in these circumstances a consciousness, it will “oscillate” between the whole/common and the particular common, that is, our family. Thus, we must find out equilibrium in our consciousness. Such equilibrium is necessary in order to preserve and to “use up” our consciousness, during our life. On the other hand, if we find truth in the whole and we reduce our family’s truth then we favour society’s truth, creating the preconditions of diminishing our family; and if we find truth in our own introspection we exclude our city, which again contracts consciousness. Truth of consciousness therefore must be “in-full-measure” between these two domains in order to avoid implications. However, these implications will be scrutinised in the further course of our discussion, especially in economics, laws and regimes.

Now, let us consider at this point the spiritual incentive of the city. In other words, what was [would be] the central core of the city, its activity and its realisation? Of course, some would say Honour, but what is human Honour? Honour seems to be a value of identity. When we say, I honour my family we say it because I belong to that identity and I will protect it. Or when we say I honour myself we say it because we act consciously, which means that we fight for our own values and truths. Therefore honour has to do with complex actions that are the main transformer of our consciousness. In this way Honour is a notion that has to do mainly with feelings and respect toward what has been done in our family or in our own life, and we are the result of it. With this definition, honour can be regarded as the quality of a homonomic lore that has been taken as truth by the offspring’s of a family. “Truth” in this context has to do with our practical lore (science) which sometimes is homonomic and sometimes heteronomic. Or to put it otherwise: In order to improve our science of housekeeping we use our ideas, so that, inventing our little things we do inside our homes, but we copy other ideas from neighbours or from our city in order to accomplish our needs or our desires. Even if someone works completely independent in a given context h/she will be between two different “mental-activities”: The first one is a flashback in order to bring about deeds that have been done by other people, so that, to do the same (and when this phenomenon takes place we “inactivate” at once our own consciousness); and when these deeds does not come around, then we will force our self to invent something, which we called it elsewhere, tacit skills, because “practice has a logic which is not that of logic”, in the words of Bourdieu.

Thus, honour has to do with values and truth that a consciousness percept in its journey, so that, to complete itself. “Wealth”, on the other hand, might be considered equally important to someone who identifies itself with wealth. But when someone has wealth or has been grown up with sufficient wealth this is not the same as honour, because, wealth has to do with material not with human values. Again, in order to rebut it, one might say: In order to be wealthy someone, has to undertake proper actions and thus invention takes place. Invention therefore was a human action, so that, human becomes wealthy. It seems that we clash to a vicious circle in our corollary, but it is not so, because suppose: If we support the idea that we will feel honour because off our wealth that has been done by our parents then what would do their child in order to accomplish itself as a consciousness? It seems again by posing such a question that we are out of our vicious circle. Thus in order to complete itself a being has to be always under the challenges of truth, consciousness and self-realization. This explains plainly the big dilemma of wealthy parents who in order to cause happiness to their children they built up wealth and they destroy their own children’s consciousness or happiness: Their children would never be happy.

Wealth is good therefore, but how much? As we said above, if wealth keels full consciousness which deals with truths and self-realised values then wealth is not our point on which we can base our family or our society. This is why we favour a healthy mind in a healthy body in our second chapter. Honour therefore seems to be according to our analysis the highest spiritual level of human being. And this is in short our real journey of Honour, on which our cities have been based from the inception of life on earth. Thus, using the axiom of Flyvbjerg, as regards power and rationality, “Honour has a wealth that honour does not know, whereas wealth does not have an honour that honour does not know”. This is the finite conclusion of our discussion as regards “honour” and “wealth”. What would have been happen then with the wisest people of the city, which is called today — meritocracy? Again, Honour. And this is because, as we have said and rebutted above, we fulfil each-other in all our actions in the social domain. There is no doubt that this is the highest spiritual level of a being and the citizens that would live or would have lived in such a city would enjoy full consciousness. In addition, history tells us that honour is the finite realisation of human being. This definition therefore constitute our full rationality: If our society deals with respect, cohesion, love, tolerance, reason there will disappear once forever the lust for power, because there would not exist one, except the power of knowledge that will have been possessed by the citizens. With this definition we open a huge gate to social phenomena in order to reach social equilibrium.

This social claim and realisation, in the past, as is well known, has been achieved in part in the Athenian democracy and later on has been proclaimed by the communists’ parties, but they appropriated the notion of democracy, and instead, their main core was a central government. Both ― on the one side ― with the “conventional capitalism” that promotes to citizens “cyclical consumption”; and as have been stressed in the previous sections, underpinned by the “consumption of sensualism”; and on the other side, the allegedly socialist “central economy” (former Soviet Union, China etc,.) who promote regulations from the centre are indications that we have to abandon; because the former failed (and never would...) promote our values and being so they destroyed the planet earth for the sake of selfishness; and the latter failed to promote both our human rationalism and our values.

The consequences of it, is the “contraction” of rationalism or of phronesis in the social domain. Both of them fostered the idea that larger a country more powerful it is. This idea has been perceived profoundly wrong by our passed “knower’s” — and therefore this point will be discussed in another occasion, especially in the second chapter when we “clash” Plato vs. Montesquieu. However, in his dialog about democracy and republic Plato has observed, correctly in my view, that ‘larger democracies fail to permit sufficient voice for their citizens’ but he has not questioned that until now in all western politics or if you like — philosophy, has not been discussed, that is: How long could be the vector of democracy in space?

In other words, what is the geographical extension of rationalism? Or how could we apply rationalism having as basic concept — democracy? As far as my knowledge extend past philosophy has failed to question such a problem. However, rationalism can be applied according to human geographic spectre in space, which is according to our senses, i.e. eyes. How long is it? ― this issue, as well, will be a matter of another discussion. In addition to it, we can suggest the observation of Fotopoulos when he discusses the same question: That could be between 30,000 and 50,000. The question then that comes to my mind is: Why not more? Because more the population of a city less is exposed our rationality and less the population of a city more exposed is our rationality. Compare a large family with a small family.

On the other hand, past philosophy has created cyclopean-cities, larger than one could imagine. To claim democracy in these cities it’s like dreaming life on Mars, and this is because, they are based on the worst conception of human activity, that is, free trade. As I have argued elsewhere , such a system, seeks continues growing of the population, because it is based on growing economy, on which capital depends, and being so capital depends on the number of customers, and in order to secure such customers, such situation imposes to concentrate citizens in big cities with big population, so that, to ensure a considerable number of customers. This is another component that leads us on what we called earlier, “trap of the mind”. Thus, in conclusion, convergence would never succeed in a city if we operate in a huge divergence of interests. Plato’s common good is a basis on which we can deliberate about but it does not offer any solution in today’s big cities.

On the other side, in small cities it could be achieved, but it must be measured with another notion: Human desire. Desire in this context has to do with what someone would like to do for his own home? Common good therefore blocks such a notion and create the conditions of anger and later on of revolution. In order to avoid such conditions a city must consider one option in its operation: Half common/private property. This is after all the least noxious base on which consciousness will not be transformed in a dualistic consensus gentium. In order therefore to preserve our consciousness from such traps in the future our cities have to exclude from their operation the growing economy which is subject of the second chapter, and second, decentralisation of the population and afterwards keeping their population in a constant level. The question that comes to my mind is: If a society excludes the growing of the economy and the population grows again, how could solve a society the problem of the growing population and consequently of the demography? And if demography changes as a result of our trade how could we balance our being with other beings, that is, our ecology? Therefore, these subjects will be discussed in our next section.

The Knowledge of the City & its Rationality: Deconstructing “Elites”

The Knowledge of the City & its Rationality: Deconstructing “Elites”


Ylli Përmeti



Abstract*


You grow up in a family and, thus, with this, you will construct the family knowledge in your mind, by both your parents — this is morals and natural law, therefore true knowledge. You grow up in a family and simultaneously later on in a society; and by this, you can picture in your mind both these domain — this is called city, therefore, this is as well true knowledge, called today — epistemology.


But what is the knowledge of the city? Can a doctor for instance be a doctor without a patient? Can a mother be a mother without a father? Or can a child be educated without parents? Or can a patient heal himself without a doctor? Or can be there a government without its crowd? To deal with all these questions one might cast a glance to “being and otherness” of Sartre or we can answer all of them with one sentence: “Being” is the result of otherness and otherness is the result of being; and as such they constitute the whole beings of the city. Being in this context has to do with the acquired knowledge by each individual not of what has been given by nature. And in order to acquire knowledge one has to use h/her mind. This quality belongs to them who have been endowed by nature with feelings and nous. Feelings and nous are exposed the same time into the consciousness of nature and into the consciousness of otherness. Thus we have to cope with two kinds of consciousnesses: Nature’s one and otherness’s one. These are the first two elements that someone will confront in h/her life, on the surface of the Planet Earth. Thus we are exposed simultaneously to otherness’s consciousness and to nature’s consciousness. We may add of course ― if we wish ― that we are exposed to our own consciousness, as well. This is called self-observation, as in the case of the doctor, who, in order to understand his/her art has to be inductive and deductive the same time. In short: Every art or knowledge is result of self-consciousness and simultaneously other-consciousness. No one can be excluded from this axiom. Thus each one does something for itself by using full-consciousness: Doctor wants to be a doctor just because he wants to heal others or for the maintenance of his family; and patient wants to be healed just because he wants to feel normal and healthy. And if there is something that doesn’t heal, the doctor will force himself to sort it out, just because his mission is to heal or he’s got the other way, to give up.

Thus, up to here, we constructed the figure of the doctor ― that is, his knowledge is because of otherness. If there doesn’t exist the “otherness” then doctor would never be a doctor but instead nothingness. On the other side, we do not have to forget the phrase of Plato, who says: Necessity is the real inventor in our life. (see chapter two when we discuss about virtues) But necessity for the doctor is nothing else than to be healthy and to survive, the same as his/her patient. Thus both have the same goal in their life: To keep each-other healthy. Doctor cannot feed himself with his art because he produces knowledge through his patients’; he does not produce real production or commodities. Commodities are probably part of patient’s life. Therefore they fulfil each-other in an absolutely necessary way of life. Of course we have to acknowledge at this point that a doctor in order to be a doctor has to devote energy and power to his tacit skills, that is, knowledge. At this stage, h/her knowledge it’s axiomatic and self-evident, which means that the goal of being a doctor is to maintain itself in vivo. This would result in problem solving for both the protagonist of the knowledge and for the society, where someone belongs. Therefore this is the first axiom that we have to extract from, that is, each one “fulfils” the other for the sake of the existence.


On the other hand, our doctor has got a wife who at the time the doctor was trying to heal the diseased she is struggling to keep her science in order, which is as I have argued elsewhere — the housekeeping. Therefore, both of them produce knowledge for the sake of the existence. Doctor will be paid therefore according to his needs; his needs are for the maintenance of his family, where in our context he’s got, say, two children and has been paid by money. This money goes to the member of the family for their needs. In his research to find out the remedy — because of a rare disease — that had infected other patients, he was very successful; and started to provide the same remedy to other patients with the aim, first to get some more money and second to heal them. His goal is very successful and he gets more money than he had previously; and therefore becomes richer. What he has done is called in a conventional jargon, epistemology or, science that can be applied in a greater number of beings. But, we don’t forget Derrida’s axiom, at this point, that is: The arbitrariness of the knower; which means, that it could be challenged later on by another doctor under the thinking of not being experimented to other beings and therefore have not been in advance objectivised. Or we do not extend our scenario to the steps taken by the doctor when produced the remedy, which is of course result of contextual and self-motivated actions.

On the other hand, our wife continues to do the same job as previously, i.e. to maintain the members of the family, including of course, our epistemolog. But now he’s famous and he’s very busy; and he’s getting powerful and wants to be a politician. His wife agrees and he suddenly becomes a politician. His goal it’s first to keep his richness in preservation because the monetary system established does not offer certainty; and second, to be famous, as his nature predetermines. Behold, he’s already a politician; and he’s managing the money of the entire city. That’s all the story of the knowledge; and this is called in Derrida’s axiom, the ‘arbitrariness of the knower’. This constitutes our second axiom of our knowledge of the city. In other words, this is called the paradox of the knower. It is called a paradox because this knowledge was not under scrutiny of otherness, i.e. of the inhabitants of the city. Thus this kind of knowledge later on, as said above, could be challenged by another doctor in whose eyes the previous knowledge does not fulfil experimentation, that is to say, knowing a priory the results of the new application in human’s organism.

At this point, we have already forgotten that his knowledge is the result of the otherness or of necessity, as stated previously. Also, we didn’t examine his knowledge regarding the capability to manage the city. Either we examined the comparability with otherness’ rationality that derives from their context-knowledge. But despite this fact, we appreciate him for his arbitrary of knowledge; and we have him the coronation of our city. His wife is either in a corner of the city or she’s enjoying his money in different pubs of the city. But sometimes she’s getting abused by her husband because he has committed adultery many times with other women; and finally they divorced. And this happened because her husband lost his rationality through the possessed power.

Therefore, our third axiom: Power leads to immorality or corruption; or in other words, to irrationality. This is one scenario; there might be a positive one that would offer us a happy end, for the “knower” of the family, but there still remain the question: How could his wife predict a positive end for her family? This is unpredictable; and for this reason we have to operate in another way: Our city must be pure democratic and power-measured in all its operation in order to maintain rationality. And in order to be pure democratic or power-measured — our city — we have to introduce more rationality. Next section therefore will be dedicated on that part.

Thus, we extracted three different axioms in our research of knowledge, which is developed under a system that promote individualism and consumerism, without forgetting sensualism, and these are:

1.first axiom: Each one fulfils the other for the sake of the existence;

2.second axiom: Arbitrariness of the knower’; and

3.third axiom: Power leads to immorality or corruption; or in other words, to irrationality.


This insert proves that though we are born equal and we live together for the sake of the existence in time we change direction: We create a hierarchical society. We exclude therefore the first axiom in our societies, that is, each one fulfils the other. Thus the root of this mis-interpretation in our societies lies on the first axiom. As a conclusion, our universities have been established upside-down, that is, pyramidal institutions. Deans, Rectors, Professors, Philosophers, Presidents etc, sees themselves as a different class and today they call this class as an Elite. They differentiate themselves under the justification that our society is hierarchical and being so, they pose-accept the question: Why shouldn’t we be an Elite, since the whole social structures are based on this proposition? But can they justify themselves when we apply the above scenario? Of course, not! In the second axiom, no one can doubt about the arbitrariness of the knower. We don’t have to refer to adventitious discoveries which have been done in the past by different scientists in different fields, because knowledge, although not contested by Aristotle, is context-dependent, which on the other side, has been highlighted by Aristotle, as an Art, that can be done in one way or in another, or not done at all. Therefore, “knowledge” when is not under the scrutiny of the whole “limbs” of a society can be rejected easier than when produced by one person. On the third axiom of our journey we reached a point on which our societies are based on, that is, power, which starts from the first steps of our life to be mis-interpreted. At this point no one can deliberate about the social structures which have been created perpendicular because they would be considered rational given. And this is because social structures lack the “instigation” of applying value-rationality. This value-rationality has been highlighted by Flyvbjerg, following Aristotle, as phronesis. We will challenge this conception of human being, in order to be sure of what our society lacks and how to empower it. Also, we will challenge it in order to satisfy our wisdom, so that, to counter-measure our rationality.




*This is part of the first chapter of the book: Phronetic and Demotic Manifesto...