B (9:25)
It is where. So all of these various cities are ruled by something that the people love. So when Plato says an aristocratic city, a timocratic city, he's not talking about an oligarchic City. He's not necessarily talking about the form of government. He's not saying like, all right, they wrote down on a piece of paper how they're going to organize their government. And that's. Here's a good one, here's a bad one. He's talking about more like a temperament or like a zeitgeist of the people that the majority of people, and the majority of people who are kind of like the cultural setters, the cultural pacesetters in society operate out of a certain kind of preference or an ordered loves. And the best city is ruled by those who love virtue, who love the good. They want to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. And they want to be ruled by. They don't care what people think about them. They don't care about money, they don't care about even their own lives or maintaining power. They just care about, you know, the pure good. And it's kind of unclear throughout the republic whether you even think that Plato or Socrates believes that that's possible. One, because the purely good city seems to be pretty like heavy handed and also just. Well, like, it also doesn't seem to be very functional. Like the leaders are willing to die to do the right thing. But if they're, you know, are they really gonna. Is it. Does that make them sort of preg. Are they gonna be pragmatic in the face of like gray moral decisions? Because Socrates himself, when he doesn't know what to do, he's just like, well, we shouldn't do anything. It's like that doesn't seem to be something that you can do as a city anyway. But you have the aristocratic city and it degrades into the timocratic city. And it does it because they neglect how to raise their children to be honor, to be virtue loving. He says that at some point you have, you sort of neglected to be able to pass down this love of virtue from, from the elite rulers or the founders or the people who operated out of this pure love of virtue. You're unable to fully pass that down to the next generation. And the next generation gets torn between love of the higher things and love of the lower things. So he talks about, so he uses this by talking about like, let's imagine a kid who grew up with an aristocratic father. His dad loved the good, and his dad only wanted to order his life based on the right thing to do and on virtue and didn't care about reputation. He himself was never going to do an injustice. When an injustice was done to him. And, and this is him. So he has a son. I'm going to read it. And he, the kid comes into being in such a way as this. He's the son of a good father who lives in a city that isn't well governed, who avoids honors office lawsuits and all such meddling in other people's affairs, and who is even willing to be put at a disadvantage in order to avoid trouble. So in other words, like, you had an aristocratic city, but it's very hard to create new aristocratic, like, prospects to rule that city. And so you're going to get, eventually you're going to get a city that doesn't. Isn't sort of maintaining this perfect government that's ordered by the love of virtue that it had. Had maybe a generation ago. And this kid, I think AJU called him Tim, the Timocrats, we'll call him Tim, grows up in the city. So he, his dad avoids honors office lawsuits and all such meddling in other people's affairs, and who is even willing to be put at a disadvantage in order to avoid trouble. Plato seems to think that, quote, lawsuits and, quote, meddling in people's affairs is essentially and almost by necessity not unjust in and of itself, but is a breeding ground for injustice because you win court cases not necessarily by appealing to what is right, but by convincing people through rhetoric. And so, and of course, in Socrates Died this way, Plato sort of has this concept that if you enter into public life, you are going to be. You are going to benefit from injustice at some point that, like, you know, some sort of bureaucratic error is going to be in your favor and you're going to benefit from it, but it is going to be unjust. And so people who really love justice say, you know what? I'm not going to meddle in and like lawsuits and public affairs because it's just a breeding ground for, like, moral quandaries. And I want to keep myself sort of pure and unstained. Another argument as to maybe why an aristocratic city can't exist. But anyway, so the dad doesn't involve himself in this. He kind of sticks to his lane and stays true to his, like, I don't know, philosophical project. And how does he, Tim, come to become democratic? Well, when he listens first to his mother complaining that her husband isn't one of the rulers and that she's at a disadvantage among the other women as a result, then she sees that he, the aristocratic husband, is not very concerned about money. He doesn't fight back when he's insulted, whether in private or in public, in the courts, but is indifferent to everything of that sort. She also sees him concentrating his mind on his own thoughts, neither honoring nor dishonoring her over much. Angered by all this, she tells her son that his father is unmanly, too easygoing. And all other such things that women repeat over and over again in such cases. Yes, Adamantis said it is like them to have many such complaints.
