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The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato

Book by Karl Popper · 13 quotes · Platonism, Totalitarianism, Plato

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The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato Quotes

“It is clear that spiritual naturalism can be used to defend any ‘positive’, i.e. existing, norm. For it can always be argued that these norms would not be in force if they did not express some traits of human nature. [...] In fact, this form of naturalism is so wide and so vague that it may be used to defend anything. There is nothing that has ever occurred to man which could not be claimed to be ‘natural’; for if it were not in his nature, how could it have occurred to him? Looking back at this brief survey, we may perhaps discern two main tendencies which stand in the way of adopting a critical dualism. The first is a general tendency towards monism, that is to say, towards the reduction of norms to facts. The second lies deeper, and it possibly forms the background of the first. It is based upon our fear of admitting to ourselves that the responsibility for our ethical decisions is entirely ours and cannot be shifted to anybody else; neither to God, nor to nature, nor to society, nor to history. All these ethical theories attempt to find somebody, or perhaps some argument, to take the burden from us. But we cannot shirk this responsibility. Whatever authority we may accept, it is we who accept it. We only deceive ourselves if we do not realize this simple point.”

ResponsibilityHuman NatureEthicsPolitical PhilosophyMoral PhilosophyNature Vs NurtureMonismAvoiding ResponsibilitySpiritual NaturalismEthical Theories
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“Not only poetry but also music in the ordinary sense of the term are to be controlled by a rigid censorship, and both are to be devoted entirely to strengthening the stability of the state by making the young more conscious of class discipline, and thus more ready to serve class interests. Plato even forgets that it is the function of music to make the young more gentle, for he demands such forms of music as will make them braver, i.e. fiercer. (Considering that Plato was an Athenian, his arguments concerning music proper appear to me almost incredible in their superstitious intolerance, especially if compared with a more enlightened contemporary criticism. But even now he has many musicians on his side, possibly because they are flattered by his high opinion of the importance of music, i.e. of its political power. The same is true of educationists, and even more of philosophers, since Plato demands that they should rule.) The political principle that determines the education of the soul, namely, the preservation of the stability of the state, determines also that of the body. The aim is simply that of Sparta.”

MusicCensorshipPlatoTotalitarianismAthensClass WarfareSpartaPlatonismThe RepublicClass Structure
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“We see here that Plato recognizes only one ultimate standard, the interest of the state. Everything that furthers it is good and virtuous and just; everything that threatens it is bad and wicked and unjust. Actions that serve it are moral; actions that endanger it, immoral. In other words, Plato’s moral code is strictly utilitarian; it is a code of collectivist or political utilitarianism. The criterion of morality is the interest of the state. Morality is nothing but political hygiene. This is the collectivist, the tribal, the totalitarian theory of morality: ‘Good is what is in the interest of my group; or my tribe; or my state.’ It is easy to see what this morality implied for international relations: that the state itself can never be wrong in any of its actions, as long as it is strong; that the state has the right, not only to do violence to its citizens, should that lead to an increase of strength, but also to attack other states, provided it does so without weakening itself. (This inference, the explicit recognition of the amorality of the state, and consequently the defence of moral nihilism in international relations, was drawn by Hegel.)”

PoliticsNationalismTotalitarianismCollectivismDictatorshipsAmoralityState ViolenceAnti IndividualismAnti Democratic ThoughtState Oppression
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“How does Plato solve the problem of avoiding class war? Had he been a progressivist, he might have hit on the idea of a classless, equalitarian society; for, as we can see for instance from his own parody of Athenian democracy, there were strong equalitarian tendencies at work in Athens. But he was not out to construct a state that might come, but a state that had been—the father of the Spartan state, which was certainly not a classless society. It was a slave state, and accordingly Plato’s best state is based on the most rigid class distinctions. It is a caste state. The problem of avoiding class war is solved, not by abolishing classes, but by giving the ruling class a superiority which cannot be challenged. As in Sparta, the ruling class alone is permitted to carry arms, it alone has any political or other rights, and it alone receives education, i.e. a specialized training in the art of keeping down its human sheep or its human cattle.”

PlatoTotalitarianismClass WarfareEgalitarianismCaste SystemRuling ClassPlatonismSpartans
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“The communism of the ruling caste of his best city can thus be derived from Plato’s fundamental sociological law of change; it is a necessary condition of the political stability which is its fundamental characteristic. But although an important condition, it is not a sufficient one. In order that the ruling class may feel really united, that it should feel like one tribe, i.e. like one big family, pressure from without the class is as necessary as are the ties between the members of the class. This pressure can be secured by emphasizing and widening the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. The stronger the feeling that the ruled are a different and an altogether inferior race, the stronger will be the sense of unity among the rulers. We arrive in this way at the fundamental principle, announced only after some hesitation, that there must be no mingling between the classes.”

PlatoTotalitarianismElitismCaste SystemRuling ClassPlatonism
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“In the present chapter, the doctrine of the chosen people serves only as an illustration. Its value as such can be seen from the fact that its chief characteristics are shared by the two most important modern versions of historicism, whose analysis will form the major part of this book—the historical philosophy of racialism or fascism on the one (the right) hand and the Marxian historical philosophy on the other (the left). For the chosen people racialism substitutes the chosen race (of Gobineau’s choice), selected as the instrument of destiny, ultimately to inherit the earth. Marx’s historical philosophy substitutes for it the chosen class, the instrument for the creation of the classless society, and at the same time, the class destined to inherit the earth. Both theories base their historical forecasts on an interpretation of history which leads to the discovery of a law of its development. In the case of racialism, this is thought of as a kind of natural law; the biological superiority of the blood of the chosen race explains the course of history, past, present, and future; it is nothing but the struggle of races for mastery. In the case of Marx’s philosophy of history, the law is economic; all history has to be interpreted as a struggle of classes for economic supremacy.”

FascismMarxismClass WarfareFar RightFar LeftHistoricismRacialism
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“According to Plato, internal strife, class war, fomented by self-interest and especially material or economic self-interest, is the main force of ‘social dynamics’. The Marxian formula ‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggle’8 fits Plato’s historicism nearly as well as that of Marx. The four most conspicuous periods or ‘landmarks in the history of political degeneration’, and, at the same time, ‘the most important … varieties of existing states’, are described by Plato in the following order. First after the perfect state comes ‘timarchy’ or ‘timocracy’, the rule of the noble who seek honour and fame; secondly, oligarchy, the rule of the rich families; ‘next in order, democracy is born’, the rule of liberty which means lawlessness; and last comes ‘tyranny … the fourth and final sickness of the city’. As can be seen from the last remark, Plato looks upon history, which to him is a history of social decay, as if it were the history of an illness: the patient is society; and, as we shall see later, the statesman ought to be a physician (and vice versa)—a healer, a saviour. [...] We see that Plato aimed at setting out a system of historical periods, governed by a law of evolution; in other words, he aimed at a historicist theory of society. This attempt was revived by Rousseau, and was made fashionable by Comte and Mill, and by Hegel and Marx; but considering the historical evidence then available, Plato’s system of historical periods was just as good as that of any of these modern historicists. (The main difference lies in the evaluation of the course taken by history. While the aristocrat Plato condemned the development he described, these modern authors applauded it, believing as they did in a law of historical progress.) [...] It is important to note that Plato explicitly identified this best and oldest among the existing states with the Dorian constitution of Sparta and Crete, and that these two tribal aristocracies did in fact represent the oldest existing forms of political life within Greece. Most of Plato’s excellent description of their institutions is given in certain parts of his description of the best or perfect state, to which timocracy is so similar. (Through his doctrine of the similarity between Sparta and the perfect state, Plato became one of the most successful propagators of what I should like to call ‘the Great Myth of Sparta’—the perennial and influential myth of the supremacy of the Spartan constitution and way of life.)”

TyrannyPlatoMarxismClass WarfareMarxRousseauPlatonismSocial DecayTimocracy
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“According to Plato, internal strife, class war, fomented by self-interest and especially material or economic self-interest, is the main force of ‘social dynamics’. The Marxian formula ‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggle’ fits Plato’s historicism nearly as well as that of Marx. The four most conspicuous periods or ‘landmarks in the history of political degeneration’, and, at the same time, ‘the most important … varieties of existing states’, are described by Plato in the following order. First after the perfect state comes ‘timarchy’ or ‘timocracy’, the rule of the noble who seek honour and fame; secondly, oligarchy, the rule of the rich families; ‘next in order, democracy is born’, the rule of liberty which means lawlessness; and last comes ‘tyranny … the fourth and final sickness of the city’. As can be seen from the last remark, Plato looks upon history, which to him is a history of social decay, as if it were the history of an illness: the patient is society; and, as we shall see later, the statesman ought to be a physician (and vice versa)—a healer, a saviour. [...] We see that Plato aimed at setting out a system of historical periods, governed by a law of evolution; in other words, he aimed at a historicist theory of society. This attempt was revived by Rousseau, and was made fashionable by Comte and Mill, and by Hegel and Marx; but considering the historical evidence then available, Plato’s system of historical periods was just as good as that of any of these modern historicists. (The main difference lies in the evaluation of the course taken by history. While the aristocrat Plato condemned the development he described, these modern authors applauded it, believing as they did in a law of historical progress.) [...] It is important to note that Plato explicitly identified this best and oldest among the existing states with the Dorian constitution of Sparta and Crete, and that these two tribal aristocracies did in fact represent the oldest existing forms of political life within Greece. Most of Plato’s excellent description of their institutions is given in certain parts of his description of the best or perfect state, to which timocracy is so similar. (Through his doctrine of the similarity between Sparta and the perfect state, Plato became one of the most successful propagators of what I should like to call ‘the Great Myth of Sparta’—the perennial and influential myth of the supremacy of the Spartan constitution and way of life.)”

DemocracyTyrannyPlatoMarxismClass StruggleClass WarfareRousseauPlatonism
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“The internal disunion of human nature, the schism of the soul, leads to the schism of the ruling class. And as with Heraclitus, war, class war, is the father and promoter of all change, and of the history of man, which is nothing but the history of the breakdown of society. We see that Plato’s idealist historicism ultimately rests not upon a spiritual, but upon a biological basis; it rests upon a kind of meta-biology of the race of men. Plato was not only a naturalist who proffered a biological theory of the state, he was also the first to proffer a biological and racial theory of social dynamics, of political history.”

PoliticsRacismPlatoPolitical PhilosophyTotalitarianismAuthoritarianismFar RightPlatonismRacial TheoryIdealist Historicism
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“At the same time, the reader is led to identify individualism with the views of Thrasymachus, and to think that Plato, in his fight against it, is fighting against all the subversive and nihilistic tendencies of his time. But we should not allow ourselves to be frightened by an individualist bogy such as Thrasymachus (there is a great similarity between his portrait and the modern collectivist bogy of ‘bolshevism’) into accepting another more real and more dangerous because less obvious form of barbarism. For Plato replaces Thrasymachus’ doctrine that the individual’s might is right by the equally barbaric doctrine that right is everything that furthers the stability and the might of the state.”

NationalismIndividualismPolitical PhilosophyTotalitarianismCollectivismPlatonismAnti IndividualismAnti Democratic ThoughtState Oppression
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“From the point of view of totalitarian ethics, from the point of view of collective utility, Plato’s theory of justice is perfectly correct. To keep one’s place is a virtue. It is that civil virtue which corresponds exactly to the military virtue of discipline. And this virtue plays exactly that rôle which ‘justice’ plays in Plato’s system of virtues. For the cogs in the great clockwork of the state can show ‘virtue’ in two ways. First, they must be fit for their task, by virtue of their size, shape, strength, etc.; and secondly, they must be fitted each into its right place and must retain that place. The first type of virtues, fitness for a specific task, will lead to a differentiation, in accordance with the specific task of the cog. Certain cogs will be virtuous, i.e. fit, only if they are (‘by their nature’) large; others if they are strong; and others if they are smooth. But the virtue of keeping to one’s place will be common to all of them; and it will at the same time be a virtue of the whole: that of being properly fitted together—of being in harmony. To this universal virtue Plato gives the name ‘justice’. This procedure is perfectly consistent and it is fully justified from the point of view of totalitarian morality. If the individual is nothing but a cog, then ethics is nothing but the study of how to fit him into the whole.”

OppressionAlienationTotalitarianismCollectivismOrganizational CultureTop DownAnti IndividualismHierarchical SystemsCog In The MachineState Oppression
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“But we must realize that even this tendency to restrict the exploitation of class privileges is a fairly common ingredient of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is not simply amoral. It is the morality of the closed society—of the group, or of the tribe; it is not individual selfishness, but it is collective selfishness.”

SelfishnessNationalismAltruismTotalitarianismEgoismCollectivismTribalismIdentity PoliticsGroupthinkAnti Individualism
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“This ground-plan, conceived by a great architect, exhibits a fundamental metaphysical dualism in Plato’s thought. [...] In politics, it is the opposition between the one collective, the state, which may attain perfection and autarchy, and the great mass of the people—the many individuals, the particular men who must remain imperfect and dependent, and whose particularity is to be suppressed for the sake of the unity of the state (see the next chapter). And this whole dualist philosophy, I believe, originated from the urgent wish to explain the contrast between the vision of an ideal society, and the hateful actual state of affairs in the social field—the contrast between a stable society, and a society in the process of revolution.”

IdealismPlatoSocial ChangeConservatismPolitical PhilosophyAuthoritarianismCollectivismPlatonismImmutabilityAutarchy
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