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Sunday, June 7, 2020

The Urge To "Shut Down Social Media" To Protect Electoral Integrity & Plato's 5 Kyklos Regimes

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Dear F,

Thanks for your email.

According to the ancient Greeks, the Kyklos (the life cycle of governmental forms) always transited from Democracy to Tyranny, which is where we seem to be at this historical moment. 

Plato describes his "version" of the Kyklos in his work Republic, Book VIII and IX.[1] He distinguishes 5 forms of government: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny, and writes that governments devolve respectively in this order from aristocracy into tyranny. Plato's cycle of governments is linked with his anthropology of the rulers that come with each form of government. This philosophy is intertwined with the way the cycle of governments plays out.[2] An aristocracy is ruled by aristocratic people whose rule is guided by their rationality. The decline of aristocracy into timocracy happens when people who are less qualified to rule come to power. Their rule and decision-making is guided by honor. Timocracy devolves into olichargy as soon as those rulers act in pursuit of wealth; oligarchy devolves into democracy when the rulers act on behalf of freedom; and lastly, democracy devolves into tyranny if rulers mainly seek power. Plato beliefs that having a philosopher king, and thus having an aristocratic form of government, is the most desirable.[3]  

Here is a link that provides more detail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos#:~:text=The%20Kyklos%20(Ancient%20Greek%3A%20%CE%BA%CF%8D%CE%BA%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82,of%20governments%20in%20a%20society.&text=The%20concept%20of%20%22The%20Kyklos,Aristotle%2C%20and%20most%20extensively%20Polybius.  

In human affairs, I cannot overly stress the bedrock importance of 1.) "unintended consequences," 2.) the fact that "the profoundest truths are paradoxical," and 3.) the demonstrable fact that "the best (or "the perfect") is enemy of the good. 

You will notice that all three of these "phenomena" are quirky, counterintuitive, and -- in a fundamental way -- opposed to Common Sense. 

I am not playing with words.

I am convinced that I am "playing" with core metaphysical principles -- as important, and as applicable in their "domain," as the laws of physics are applicable to matter. (I will parenthetically note that the "predictable" methodological functioning of metaphysical principles is much more obscure and unpredictable when it comes particular personal, social, political and economic outcomes).

In any event, the transition from democracy to tyranny is a transformation that is clearly in process NOW - and may well be an unstoppable process because this transition is "required" by "The Nature Of Things." 

It is one thing to say "shut down social media" --- and even I think it would be tonic to shut down social media for the longest possible period of time prior to election day... 1 month? 2 months? 3 months?

But the devil is in the details.

And the fact is: "The People" WANT social media.

The DEMOCRATIC urge of the people has (perhaps) never been stronger or more unified than it is "around" the assumption that social media are divinely ordained rights and that only a tyrant would try to take them away.

And on this particular point the people would be right.

For Democracy will NEVER "shut down social media."

But tyranny could.

Tyranny might.

Once tyranny is established it can do any Goddamn thing it pleases.

Is Trump not perilously close -- already -- to doing any Goddamn thing he pleases?

So, you can insist that "social media be shut down."

But "the democratic aggregate of people" will not side with you.

Tyrants might.

But not democrats.

In the end, insisting that social media be shut down -- even though it's a GREAT IDEA -- is a policy that can only be enacted by a tyrant.

Paradoxically, what's best for the survival of Democracy will not be supported by "democrats."

And if social media were actually shut down, the unintended consequence of incurring the wrath of democrats is inevitable. 

Not to mention the need to enlist a tyrant to accomplish shutdown.

And, although "shutting down social media" is "The Best Idea," any real attempt to accomplish that end will only drive people -- and more people than ever before -- deeper into contempt for any democratic government that tries to shut down social media.

I should mention that a tyrant would probably not be interested in shutting down social media if only because social media is, by nature, the kind of epistemological swamp that favors -- and strengthens -- the autocratic impulse.

Finally, if Plato is right and "aristocracy" is the best possible governmental form (acknowledging that none of the five forms are perfect) then maybe there is no remedy but to go through tyranny to get back to the Aristos - based on the idea/virtue of Arete - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arete (Arete has always been the name of the Aquinas' yearbook.)

Having said all that...

We are still called upon to work on behalf of our beliefs -- hopefully beliefs consistent with an "informed conscience." I would add that "kindness" is the foundation of an informed conscience, and that cruelty is antithetical to informed conscience.

So, I will fight on behalf of democracy because I believe in freedom and not "power" which is the next stage of Kyklos.

“Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” Carl Jung

And power?

Republican presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, the living American who has served longest as a White House senior staff adviser, observed: “The Republican philosophy might be summarized thus: To hell with principle; what matters is power, and that we have it, and that they do not.” “Where the Right Went Wrong" 

Please pardon my French.

Fuck the Republican Party. 

And fuck every last sympathizer of the Republican Party.

By my lights, they are bad, unloving people except in the very limited sense that the Nazarene addresses: "If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for this? Even tax collectors love their friends." (See postscript.)

Love

A

PS In Israel at the time of Jesus, tax collectors were considered traitors because they worked for the Roman occupiers and took their salary by dipping into the taxes they collected on behalf of Israel's oppressors. 

PPS There is enough of the unitarian-universalist in me to assume that all humans will be saved and so my urge to fuck them is independent of their eventual salvation. On the other hand, I venture near unanimity among Republicans -- especially "Christian" "conservatives" (who are neither) -- that the prospect of your eternal damnation makes them giddy. 
I don't doubt that Jesus loves them all. 
I also don't doubt he thinks they're all assholes.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 11:49 AM FV wrote:

Shut down social media.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2020, 11:06 AM Alan Archibald <alanarchibaldo@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Jim,


Thanks for sending your email address. 

As it happens, it was already in my directory.

I encourage you to read "Tracking Down Deep Fake Videos" first.

Then read "Are Trump's Days Numbered?" - a recent communication with Fred Owens, a friend since we attended the University of Toronto in the late sixties.

Speaking of Canada moves me to include a third link about my experience of "our neighbor to the north" and how it changed my life.

"Tracking Down Deep Fake Videos"

"Frog Hospital's" Fred Owens Asks: "Are Trump's Days Numbered?"

"The American Revolution Was A Grave Mistake, Poisoning The Nation's Wellspring At The Source"


Pax tecum

Alan



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