The Real Damage Behind Plato's Philosopher King Thesis

The Real Damage Behind Plato's Philosopher King Thesis

By: Erreh Svaia

Caprine Dispersion

“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.”

Karl Popper

Something really puzzles me in recent times, as much as some of us are worried by systems, check and balances, and transparency matters within our governments, some others are worried in finding a “prodigious” person, who almost in a magical way will bring “justice” and lead us into a heaven on earth, sort of paradise, for me, is a little bit like giving up adulthood and waiting for daddy to solve your problems, and to get back to a defenseless, almost infancy state, give that messiah all the power and let´s take a rest, as he will surely take good care of everything, is this some sort of twisted joke? Well, no, just consider what Greek philosopher Plato wrote about the philosopher king on his immortal The Republic, were the utopist Plato seemed tired of those power hungry wolves (as politicians have always been), and proposed instead a system of government based on knowledge, up to that point, it kind of looks like a great idea, let the wise men rule, take the power hungry wolves and the cretins out of power, great, but the question here, is how do you get your “philosopher king”? how do we get sure he is the right one? Are we going to handle him all the power? Who is he going to respond to? Who guards the philosopher king?

Plato considered philosophers, because of their love for knowledge and wisdom, as the ideal individuals to lead the republic, he considered democracy a flawed system because it left minorities defenseless and the republic in hands of the mass dictatorship, the problem with Plato argument is that in moving away from those obvious democratic flaws, he took refuge in something even more scary, the rule by a minority, the rule by and individual, the rule by an elite; power put in the hands of the few, leaving us too close to the world of authoritarianism and of course, totalitarianism, just as another philosopher, Karl Popper, would signal centuries later.

Yes, Plato was an idealist man, and a utopist, he believed a wise man would make the perfect ruler, but as we have learned, power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts absolutely, and even a “philosopher king” would not be extent of falling into this trap, and considering the enormous amount of power concentrated in one single man, the possibility of failure is too large, the chances that what literally would be a “benevolent dictator” would turn out into an undemocratic nightmare is a clear risk, impossible not be perceived, we already had chances of watching such utopic thesis going down, ending sometimes in cults of personality, authoritarianism, totalitarianism and in the massive loss of human lives and the total erosion of democracy, history has given us examples in the lives and history of despots like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong among others, rulers seen like saviors, to whom complete power was handled by the people (in the case of Hitler, democratically), and regimes that have ended with terrible results.

But as Karl Marx stated, history (or humans) tends to repeat again and again (first as tragedy, second as a farce...the third time…who knows), as we are unable to break the cycle, we have seen Russian Czar Vladimir Putin been handled supreme power as a result of him been perceived as the savior and restorer of Russian national pride after the collapse of the USSR and the early disastrous ventures of Russia into capitalism, we have witnessed more recently the rise of modern authoritarians under the disguise of “philosopher kings”, like Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who emerged as the only figure capable of keeping Turkey safe in the middle of terrorism and migration crisis in the Middle East, or someone like current China president Xi Jinping who at the moment keeps concentrating a big amount of power in his persona, at levels previously unseen since Mao, or Indian ruler Narendra Modi who keeps getting more and more authoritarian, people gave this characters powers, in the middle of fear or convenience they decided to give up civil power and let these rulers became omnipotent, eroding democracy, giving up their rights to decide, to be free, to become adults, instead, people are deciding to give up democracy and to handle powers for other to decide.

Of course, there are some exceptions, I’m not sure of if Plato envisioned someone like Lee Kuan Yew (leader of Singapore), the closest thing to a “benevolent dictator” I have ever witnessed (Tito, once the ruler of the defunct Yugoslavia might be another candidate or Atatürk in Turkey), perhaps Singaporeans might have a very different opinion, if Lee was or not benevolent, many jailed dissidents might surely be against my argument, but Lee was able to make a small island lacking resources into a global champion (on the other side, you have Cuban dictator Fidel Castro), but Lee is one in a million, a story we haven’t ended analyzing, today you have someone like Emmanuel Macron, a man with wide knowledge both in finance and in philosophy as another modern experiment of the “philosopher king” thesis, Macron didn’t receive boundless power from the French people, but he was granted whole confidence and he is making lots of risky moves, putting on the edge the political capital he won after elections, only time will tell if the Macron phenomena will succeed and led to other more “knowledge and wisdom” loving rulers been elected.

The “philosopher king” thesis is still a dangerous matter, it could easily lead us into a dangerous position and into the loss of freedom and democracy (in Iran, for example, it has lead into theocracy, where the “philosopher king” becomes the voice of god on earth, in the now defunct USSR, it lead, after Stalin, into technocracy), I still see it as a backwards move, a way to go right into an infancy state and a way to give up responsibility and adulthood, whereas a someone like Putin or Erdogan act like an abusive father telling you what to do and what to don’t and pushing you, on the other side, someone like Angela Merkel keeps acting like a conciliatory mother protecting their children and pampering them, both sides are dangerous as they deviate a route of responsibility that should be leading us into maturity and adulthood, it´s not about figures, philosophers, messiahs or kings, it´s about systems, check and balances, that´s where we should be headed to.