Living With Plato

[poliphilo]

Ailz has introduced me to on-line jig-saw puzzles. They kill a lot of time. Plato goes, "Tut, tut."  And I feel bad about killing it.

I'm arguing with Plato in my head. He says poetry is frivolous and I'm trying to convince him it isn't. Plato is a puritan; he wants to simplify life. He thinks you can make people virtuous by denying them distractions. No, no, no, I say. How can it be virtue if it's never put to the test? Simplify your own life by all means; leave other other people to make their own arrangements.

Plato+guns= Al Shabbab.

My mother was watching a celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest last night. Plato said he wouldn't want one of those in his Republic. I didn't take him up on it.

Comments

[matrixmann]

That was still a problem even with the old communists that came to power after WWII. Those were pretty conservertive, in some way also what a Puritan is like if it's about philosophy of life. My own judgment is, they also breathed the air that the Third Reich build up - the strictness, the "I command and you have to follow or you're an enemy" and the "if you want to have something to say, join our party".
Anyway, people like Walter Ulbricht also still sat upon that coach that dancing is for the bourgeoisie, but that thing turns out to be wrong with regular people. People aren't made like that.
They shouldn't be constantly celebrating and making party, otherwise they wouldn't get anything done or they'd be like the Farcebook-spoiled youth of these days which literally claims the right of continuous entertainment, but they should be allowed to be exuberant every once in a while after a day of hard work. They even "earned" it after they've done their duties.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Puritanism is one of the constants in human society. It wears different masks- will sometimes be right wing, sometimes left-wing, sometimes political, sometimes religious- but it's always there. I have some sympathy with it. At least as a matter of personal choice.

[matrixmann]

As a matter of personal celibacy it may be able to live with that, depending on the person. Not all people are attracted to entertainment or find too much joy in it. As long as nobody determines everyone out to live like that...