/philosophy/ - Philosophy

>>108
Locke4lyf
However there are many powerful insights in The Republic that are still as valid as they were back then.

>>108
Locke, because I can't see how a society could raise children to become productive adults without the family unity, because muh freedoms, and because muh equality under law.

>>108
First of all: don't put words in Socrates' mouth; this is Plato's idea of the perfect society, using Socrates as a mouthpiece for them.

Locke and his Enlightenment ideals were certainly a step in the right direction insofar as they wrestled more individual autonomy away from the master classes of human society, but Locke and his Enlightenment ideals are also stale and not compatible with Late Capitalism - something which has evolved vastly beyond the scope of the free mercantile markets of Locke's time.

Placing "protective power" in the hands of the government is also a foolish idea; the minute you give them that power, you've already lost. The so-called "checks and balances" that were implemented by governments founded on Enlightenment ideals have one fatal flaw: they are part of the very system that they are supposed to control. There's nothing stopping the people in charge from making changes to or outright violating these checks and balances and overstepping their bounds, so long as the masses remain ignorant, which is exactly what has happened in the United States - the greatest testament to the eventual failure of Enlightenment ideals.

The question itself, however, is a poorly-formed one in any event, because the idea of a perfect, static society is fundamentally wrong. It would imply that human nature is static and monolithic, that there is a perfect society to house it that we simply haven't figured out yet, which goes against history. Human nature and human history are necessarily organic and evolving, and thus the 'perfect' society is a non-society, since every society by definition is static and relies on abstracted, generalized, and inadequate myths of human nature as a standard by which to decide what is right and wrong for its subjects.

No Hobbes?

People need that Leviathan, homes.

>>114
Good post.

>>112
op is referring to platos republic, right? the idea is that a child is raised with with everyone in the community being a big ol' happy family.

one of the things mentioned is that a society/community shouldn't be so large that each person is unable to know every other person. this is pretty hard to comprehend when you imagine trying to know everyone in your neighborhood, then town, then state… and then saying that the whole united states is the same fucking team and we are all in this together (even if you aren't from the u.s. its the same in your country most likely).

if you only lived with 100 people, for example; you could easily recognize all the adult males as your fathers, woman as mothers, all your peers as siblings.

its all kind of a thought experiment, though, and shouldnt be taken literally. its an interesting idea, none-the-less.

Hegel was right.

>>108
Both are based on the unsupported idea that man must be ruled.

>>114
All very well-said with one exception:
>Locke and his Enlightenment ideals were certainly a step in the right direction insofar as they wrestled more individual autonomy away from the master classes of human society
Actually Locke and the Enlightenment blokes were building a justification for having some structure of sovereignty over man. Prior to this sort of thought, there was actually greater individual autonomy, despite the popular misrepresentation of society at the time as a top-down authoritarian structure. The kings of the time actually had rather less legal power over the average person than our modern officials do For instance, there are documented cases of people being excused from paying taxes on account of the fact that they did not wish to. Try that today.

>>117
Substantiate.

>>148
It seems they took an understandably short-sided view of social organization. Certainly social enforcement of norms is much easier in smaller social units, but there are a number of practices which allow for much more efficient and voluntary peacekeeping in large societies; practices with which full-time philosophers were probably not familiar.

>>247
*Short-sighted
My bad.

>>111
>The republic
>Socrates or Locke

No. Go read a book nigger.