Plato and the Order of the Soul and Society

The stability of the free society depends on how much we are open in creating order. We need to ask “what is the order of human existence?” I am (and have always been) driven by and attracted to two philosophical ideals and realities: order and beauty. I firmly believe that these two great realities contain guiding principles for man to live ethically and spiritually.

Currently, we are in the state of disorder. Perhaps I am going a bit too far on this point: every age seems to be convinced that it is the worst and that the previous age or epoch was in a much better state. Setting this one-sided and skewed vision aside, the facts of today’s life point towards a denial of tradition, virtues, imagination and responsible citizenship. The ideals and realities so brilliantly presented by Plato and Aristotle of what order of the society and civic duty represent are shunned, ignored and worse, rejected without any attempt at understanding the principles found in this ancient wisdom.

Leo Strauss wrote about the “battle between the ancients and moderns.” Nowadays, the battle against the ancient (and medieval) wisdom is fought with utter indifference. In other words, current trends in “political thought” are disregarding the wisdom of our predecessors, attempting to create ex nihilo. This is, of course, the ultimate in man’s egotism.

It would seem to me that the public (or collective) order of society depends largely on the private (individual) order of one’s soul. Eric Voegelin has written on Plato and order. The order of the soul and the order of society are existing on “parallel” planes, or put another way, these two particular orders are always intertwined in some form or another.

The present time we live in persists with the notion that there is no such thing as the order of things but this is simply a lie. If we look at Plato’s construction of order (that of the soul and the society), we shall see that “anthropology is rounded out by classification of ordering powers in the soul, of virtues. The ordering powers are wisdom (sophia), courage (andreia), temperance (sophrosyne), and justice (dikaiosyne)” [Eric Voegelin, Order and History: Plato and Aristotle, volume III, p. 162].

It is my firm belief and position that in order to move ourselves from the tyranny of relativism, we need to look to the first principles of order that Voegelin (Plato) lists here. This is not a question of moving “beyond” anything, including relativism. “Beyond” implies a constant need for change, which in itself has a Marxist character. What I am proposing is waking up from the dream-state we are finding ourselves in, and recall or remember the wisdom of our philosophical predecessors. Recalling the Parable of the Cave: “The prisoners see nothing but the shadows as well as the shadows of the objects protruding above the wall. To the prisoners truth would be nothing but the shadows of themselves and the objects.” Not seeing and acknowledging reality is a great offense we can perpetrate on the state of our soul and as a result, this inability to see will translate into the public life.

To be sure, politics (and political philosophy) has its limits. It does not provide the salvation of man: only God is capable of that. However, politics, which is grounded in a Being higher than ourselves and in virtues will certainly provide a vision of society resting on truth, rather than a lie.