Hitting Plato on the Head

Sometimes, when I desperately seek meaning and answers to ‘unanswerable’ life/state questions, I turn to philosophy. To a world where I am always right. I enjoy arguing with those long-dead greats, proving to them that my understanding of the world and its problems is just as accurate (unfortunately not historically valued) as theirs.

It is also easier to argue with the dead than with the currently ruling. Our government has shown that it does not recognize the argumentation of common sense, no matter how differently the new Prime Minister’s advisors think. Tired of the tug-of-war over the selection (always the same) names of ministers, vice presidents, advisors, and unrealistic expectations… I reached back to the beginnings, to Socrates and Plato. Unfortunately! There, Socrates philosophized: ‘Who is wise, who knows what is good – that one acts well. Good is the one who knows. It is impossible for someone to know what is good and do evil.’ I admit, I laughed heartily at that naivety. Well, he was lucky that in those times he could not stumble upon someone from the Croatian authorities. If he had, I am sure he would have changed his conclusion. I am convinced that everyone in our government knows very well that saving (in the right places!) is good. Consumption is evil. And yet it is spent.

Plato went much further. He wrote The Republic. Plato was, in fact, permanently preoccupied with the problem of moral, perfect social order. He wondered how to overcome the pronounced shortcomings of all existing forms of society? How to establish an order in which the nature of the individual and his abilities would serve the ideal of the common good of the community? The common good of the community? Well, yes, a similar phrase is also written in our Constitution. Plato builds his idea of an ideal society on the analogy with human nature. What is man in small, that is the state in large! And what is man but a soul? There are three parts of the soul: appetitive, spirited, and rational. A man is a true man when the rational leads to the other two, not the other way around. The state will therefore be a true state when it is led by the rational part. The great thoughts under which I stood ‘drenched’. Can you imagine Plato’s Croatia?

I cannot! Croatia, in fact, has a big problem. We have both appetitive and spirited, but not the most important, the rational part. It is not that we do not have experts. Such as those who say that swine flu can be avoided with a sauna, which then all doctors must refute. We also have a spirited minister, now with an even more responsible function, who knows exactly how the plus and minus stand in the state treasury. Nothing more than that. And yet he is now responsible for much more than that. We have willing, even rational, experts whose hands are tied by politics! Or they have, in fact, tied their own hands with self-censorship like more or less all speakers at the Opatija economists’ conference. While most defended the government’s failures with ordered presentations, others dared to say something more only when the top left the hall. The third were allowed to speak against, according to the schedule also only when the Prime Minister and her entourage moved on. Those with a little sense concluded that there was a real direction there with the aim: let it stay the same. Let’s move on! I am no longer surprised by that. After all, I can hardly imagine the Prime Minister, Škegr or Šuker lamenting about essence and the state. I have long lost illusions about what must be done, and what (cannot) be done and will never be. But, who knows, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to hit everyone in power with Plato on the head – just enough to remind them what the state is and what it should be!!