Two Bits – Plato said it all

Having a contrary nature, I am rather enjoying the wholesale scrap over America’s new president, Donald Trump.
I can’t speak for the American people – well of course, the majority have spoken by choosing him, haven’t they! – but the media is generally portraying Trump as Darth Vader who is single-handedly going to destroy Western civilisation. Certainly, the protests in Washington last weekend were unprecedented for a presidential inauguration.
The media on the left of the political spectrum (and that’s most) would have us believe that he’s a liar, a philanderer, a racist and a woman-abuser – in short, a sinner. As a priest of my acquaintance pointed out, so are we all. Who are we to point fingers?
Love him or hate him, he’s the boss now. I look forward to watching whether he carries out his election promises, not so much because they are fair or righteous, but to see how far he can impose his will on the American political establishment. He called it right in accusing the political parties of being cosy old boys’ clubs, interested mainly in looking after themselves. Will he break the mould?
2016 was a fascinating year for the swing to the right borne out by Trump and the Brexit vote, and time will tell how much the movement gains ground in Europe. Theresa May is hustling over to Washington, no doubt to strengthen US-UK relations to make up for Europe’s hissy-fit over the UK’s leaving the Common Market. New times, new allegiances, and maybe new outcomes.
The pendulum of political outcomes was spelled out in the oldest political book known to us, Plato’s Republic, written in Athens more than 2 400 years ago. In a passage where Socrates and friends are discussing different political systems, how they can change over time and how one can evolve into another, Socrates says, “Tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.”
A recent BBC programme on Plato’s treatise pointed out that democracy is a system that maximises two ideals: equality and freedom. Everyone is equal and everyone can do whatever he or she likes. And the longer a democracy lasts, the more equal and free everyone becomes. It eventually becomes “a many-coloured cloak decorated in all hues”. Men are interchangeable with women and all their natural differences, forgotten.
Animals have rights and foreigners can enter the republic and work just like citizens. Children boss their parents around and teachers are afraid of their students. The rich are a favourite target so they try not to stand out and try to look just like the poor. Every kind of inequality is despised.
Socrates predicted that when a democracy reaches this point, it is ripe for the would-be tyrant to seize his moment. He makes his move by taking over a “particularly obedient mob” and riding on the backlash against the system, providing relief from the seemingly endless and confusing choices presented by a democracy. Then, Socrates said, as the people increasingly allow the leader to impose his will, tyranny becomes the order of the day.
Is this what the future holds for America? Are we far enough away to survive the fallout, I ask myself? I don’t wish for that outcome, but I refuse to live in fear and trembling that the world’s third-largest nation chooses that course for itself. On balance, it is unlikely, given that he has to deal with Congress and the Senate, that Trump will have complete free rein. Daily Show satirist Jon Stewart has this to say about his country: “Our culture is just a series of checks and balances. The whole idea that we’re in a battle between tyranny and freedom – it’s a series of pendulum swings.”
If 2016 was an interesting year, wait for 2017!
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Newspapers are a tough school. Perhaps I should say were, because nowadays kid reporters burst into tears if addressed too roughly and everyone is worried about their ‘feelings’. That and the appalling grammar being taught in our schools drive me up the wall.
No doubt many professions are tough on newbies, but many of the editors I have known took a particular delight in reducing one to a humiliated puddle for the tiniest mistakes. And you dared not talk back, or you’d get double next time. All for the good, because it made one a better journalist, even though it didn’t seem that way at the time.
So where do I pick the story up from? From whence do I pick up the story? Whence do I pick up the story? Alistair Cooke, the British journalist best known for his “Letter from America” for the BBC, once told comedian Stephen Fry that when he was a very young man contributing material for the legendary C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, he had submitted a piece of copy which included the phrase ‘from whence’.
‘Tell me, laddie,’ Scott had asked, tapping an angry pair of fingers on the offending phrase, ‘what does the word “whence” mean?’
‘Er … “from where”?’
‘Exactly! So, you’ve just written “from from where”- tautology: go and correct it.’
Cooke was foolish enough to stand up for himself.
‘Shakespeare and Fielding both frequently used “from whence”.’
‘Well they wouldn’t have done if they had written for the Manchester f***ing Guardian,’ said Scott.
* * *
I heard a report about a bad outbreak of the tummy bug. Apparently nine out of 10 people out there are suffering from diarrhoea. I can’t stop thinking about that tenth person who is apparently enjoying it.