@Theages,
Theages;69911 wrote:You can read an account of it in the Diogenes Laertius biography of Plato. I don't have a copy on hand, so I can't give specific citations, sorry.
He was a terrible man, a monster among the Athenians. He attempted to subvert every noble instinct in Hellas and he succeeded. Do you think it was a coincidence that he was educated by Egyptian mystics?
If the conclusion, supposedly of Socrates, that a man who does evil by choice is better than one who does wrong without thought, is true, then Plato was not better, because there was no intent to do harm...He was right to see that a form of democracy, or of life in general resting upon fate was bound to fail... Instead of trying to change the form -which is what always changes with human progress, he abused the Athenians for being human, and thought to improve them... You want to improve people??? Offer them forms that work, that gives them justice, and not just once, or today, but every day...It is a failure of Plato's metaphysics, that forms were considered perfect first principals that made him consider humanity with such contempt... We were not made from perfect models, and not made at all... We are only as good as we are, and all our forms should be made with that fact in mind, that they will never endure, and justly so- if humanity will endure..
.Consider the Spartan constitution... It was written by a man who swore his people to accept it, and not change it until his return, and then he left, and starved himself to death...It lasted for many many years, and was their strength and their weakness, and ultimately it doomed them to a sterile and mean existence... All forms fail, and all forms resist change... Build a renew date into the form, or an expiration date...If it does not have the full support of the people; start again...There is no point to a house divided...