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FRAGMENTATION OF BEING and the Path Beyond the Void by Kent D. Palmer
copyright 2004 All Rights Reserved. Not for Distribution.
At the heart of the frozen city of Ideas is a drinking party. We need to explore the nature of this drinking party very carefully in order to understand the inner dimension of the city founded on human law given by man to himself. The autopoietic, or self organizing, nature of the ideal city is very important. Plato has carefully constructed his city so that we will understand, from the image of the ideal city, the nature of ourselves. It is a construct that rides on the crest of the wave of Conceptual Being. The city itself is a categorical structure prior to abstraction. It is a first representation of the essential relations between first principles (or ideal laws) which have not yet been abstracted away from the image as is later done by Aristotle. The city is the image of ourselves. Self organization (or lawgiving of a city to itself) calls into question the nature of the self for which Plato brings us back to the question of virtues; and virtues, as we saw in the last chapter, related to the genetic unfolding of our worldview from previous worldviews.
Plato has his Athenian Stranger (and what Athenian is stranger than Socrates?) defend the practice of drinking parties which are outlawed in the cities of his interlocutors. But from where does this defense stem? It is clear that the pivotal paragraph is that in which Socrates separates the divine from the human goods and enumerates them:
Now the good things are twofold, some human, some divine. The former depend on the divine good, and if a city receives the greater it will also acquire the lesser. It not it will lack both. [p10/631c]
This sentence contains the crux of the argument which discussion of drinking parties will try to support. Divine goods are the sources of human goods. Thus, as we genetically go back to prior worldviews, one is tapping ever deeper sources until the whole of virtue, "The Good" itself is tapped. Tapping the source of Good inevitably leads to human good. However, having human goods without access to the divine source makes those human goods worthless. The role of the Lawgiver is to lead the people of the city to tap into the Source of Good, so that all the good things they have are truly good, not merely superficially or apparently so. In order to do this, the Lawgiver must be educated and taken through each of the steps of connecting to the divine sources.
TABLE 5
[631b-d p10]
Human Good
Divine Good
Health
Wisdom
Beauty
Moderation
Strength
Justice
Wealth
Courage
Socrates asks his interlocutors to order the laws to be followed by men in a certain way after the basic distinction between sources of Good have been set up. And he says that these laws should have their guardians who possess the virtues upon which the laws are founded. Then he says. . . .
"Thus, O Strangers, I at least would have wished and still do wish that you would speak: explaining how all this is to be fund in the laws that are said to be from Zeus and the Pythian Apollo, the laws laid down by Minos and Lycurgus. And then I would like to be shown why it is that their order is so clear to anyone with experience in laws, either because of technical skill or because of certain habits, while it remains quite inapparent to the rest of us." [p11; 632d]
This challenge by Socrates is very interesting. It is a challenge to the gods. It asks for rational discourse from the gods. Well, he knows that the gods are incapable of rational discourse -- they speak though oracles and do not indulge in argumentation, giving reasons for their pronouncements of law. Looking for rationality in the laws of the gods holds them up to a new standard that never existed before. He says with irony that it is apparently clear to those with certain skills (divining), but unclear to everyone else. This call for rationality is the essential point which forges the universe out of the pluriverse. It creates the ideal city out of the hodge podge of families and neighbors within the walls of a real city. Laws that for rational argument structures like the formal structures of Euclidean geometry, flow from a completely different kind of discourse than that of the oracles. For Plato the four virtues are the axioms which fuse together into the whole of virtue: the Good. They form the basis for all rational discourse concerning the human condition. Plato has attempted to forge a formal system like that of Euclid to regulate human exchange. But like all formal systems, it's flaw is that it does not take time adequately into account. For Plato time is always a threat to the ideal laws and their formal structure.
AS "In my opinion, it's necessary to start over again from the beginning, commencing just as we did, by first discussing the practices that contribute to courage and then proceeding through another and then yet another form of virtue -- if you wish to do so. As soon as we've been through the first, we will try to use it as a pattern for the others and thus have a comforting discussion about the as we go along our route. Later, if god is willing, well show how what we just went thought is aimed at virtue as a whole." [Laws p11-12; 632d-f]
The point of challenge is ignored by Socrates' interlocutors. The conversation rolls right over into the rational dialogue that treats each virtue in turn, and each the same, before treating the whole to which they belong. This is analysis and synthesis in a nutshell. We have entered the realm of rational discourse without the case of the gods ever being heard. For who can present the case of the gods? No one. They cannot even play within the uni-verse which excludes them. Within the universe man confronts only himself -- man organizes himself without the help of the gods. Instead, man draws directly from the divine sources of Good. The Gods switch into a new role. They are no longer lawgivers and judges, but instead sources of knowledge of rhythm and harmony.
The pattern which will be used for the treatment of each virtue is demonstrated on Courage. It is argued in detail in the rest of Book I and in Book II. It revolves around the defense of drunkenness at parties under the right conditions. This argument concerning drunkenness is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of the metaphysical epoch. It is normally treated as an oddity from the many oddities within the dialogues of Plato. This oddity, however, has a crucial significance because it treats the relation of the nihilistic opposites "war of all against all" verses the ideal law. Here we are entering into the heart of this nihilistic opposition, and Plato takes us on a tour of the inner workings of our own worldview. The ideal city based on human law is indeed static, like a formal system. But every formal system has its method of proof. Plato is going to expose to us the method of proof -- the rational template for understanding all the parts of virtue. Once we understand the rational proof, we will be able to apply this to each virtue in turn and to perform the proof to synthesize the whole of virtue from its parts. Thus, for Plato the ideal city was not hollow. The ideal city has sources from which all the human good things flow. Plato is going to show us how to tap those sources using a rational procedure which is at the same time the means of producing the ideal laws. This is an amazing feat because to us all formal systems are closed and empty. Plato saw his formal system as full because like any good city that can withstand siege, it had its own wells from which to draw the human good things. Those sources from one aspect are four, but from another aspect are the same. By rational argument we can distinguish them and so see them as whole.
The crucial point about drinking parties is that they are posed as the opposite to war. War and drinking parties are artificially contrived chaotic situations. These two artificially contrived intensifications of experience are both disorienting. The warrior or drinker is subjected to disorientation so that he can learn to survive and maintain control in spite of the chaos. The disorientation of war produces in those who can master the chaotic situation the outward courage that perseveres against pains. The disorientation of the drinking party produces in those who can master the chaotic situation the inward courage that perseveres against pleasures. Plato demands both inward and outward courage against both pleasures and pains in order to certify that those being trained have real courage. This seems so strange to us. However, it is clear that throughout history there has been a relation between war and drunkeness. Drunkeness is seen as the elixir that allows the soldier to stand the boredom between engagements and the means of forgetting the horrors of the battlefield. But we can also think of the relation between the frenzy of battle and the frenzy of intoxication in terms of the god that rules over both, which is Dionysus. Dionysus figures prominently in the Laws. Dionysus is the god born of woman who was driven insane by Hera, Zeus' wife. Dionysus is the god of frenzy. Alain Danielon connects Dionysus with the god Shiva in India. He identifies these gods with what he calls the primordial religion. It is the religion of ecstasy. Ecstasy is a hidden reservoir from which human beings can draw on to do super-human things. It is tapped in times when things are chaotic and the adrenaline is flowing. It allows us to cope with situations that would normally be too much for us. One who has courage is able to tap those wellsprings of life when life is threatened. Likewise, he is the one who can withstand pleasures as well as pains in order to maintain a balance within a situation of disequilibrium. The balance based on ecstasy within an unbalanced environment is an important concept for Plato and for the Western worldview in general.
For Plato and the Indo-European worldview there is a key concept within the concepts subsumed under Being which is that of Reality. Reality does not refer to normal occurrences in everyday life. Instead, it refers to artificially heightened experience which is designated as "more real" than everyday occurrences. Both war and the drinking parties that the Stranger describes qualify as examples of these artificially heightened experiences. So the fact that courage is defined against the extra-ordinary is very important. We have already seen that Plato set up a situation at the beginning of the Laws in which the war of all against the all was contrast with the ideal laws. The normative situation for laws was seen to be that they were set up to prepare its people for war. Plato wanted to argue that ideal laws prepared for more than war -- but peace, as well, by making them virtuous. Just as ideal laws mediate between peace and war, so the virtues also have to mediate between the arts of friendship (drinking parties) as well as war. Drinking is what you do with friends, and war is what you do to enemies.
The ideal of the Western man is he who can engage in what will be called dynamic as opposed to static clinging. Dynamic clinging allows one to let go in order to keep. Static clinging never wants to relinquish what is once gained, and thus is doomed to lose eventually. Dynamic clinging, instead, attempts to husband resources and maintain a cybernetic control which will allow short-term losses when aiming for long-term gains. Dynamic clinging is learned in battle and in the drinking party. In battle one is willing to lose the battle as long as one still wins the war. Here the things won and lost are external to the self except for one's life which is wagered against the lives of others. In the drinking party what is won or lost is the portions of the self except one's honor which is external and is wagered against the honors of others. Plato clearly demonstrates how one learns dynamic clinging within both the social and the anti-social spheres. This demonstration shows incredible insights into the roots of the Western worldview. The Laws is a profound metaphysical statement said in a way which is relevant to human needs and experience. We experience directly the constraining of laws within society. Other aspects of existence do not necessarily have the appreciable force of law. Metaphysics (meta-law) is normally not seen as having impact in our lives, whereas politics and law has continual impact on our every action. Plato's statement of his metaphysics in terms of law gives it moral and ethical force which a mere ontological treatment would lack.
In the Laws Plato looks into the depths of the Western worldview. He sees there a template for reasonable treatment of all the virtues. That template is the one that gives us robust courage instead of superficial courage. Superficial courage stands up against pain, only where as robust courage stands up against pleasure also. Attaining robust courage means being able to cling dynamically to things instead of merely acquiring and hoarding. There is a direct inner relation between the attainment of robust courage and the ability to cling dynamically. Only the one who has control over himself, suggested by robust courage, has the self control necessary to relinquish for long term gains. Only such can consider his pains to achieve something and his pleasures on keeping it in relation to his long-term goals to master the entire situation. This orientation is fundamental to the Western worldview. The entire metaphysics of the Western worldview is built upon this foundation. For Plato to have recognized it so incisively and stated it so clearly is an amazing thing.
We may trace back the roots of dynamic clinging verses static clinging to the difference between settled peoples and nomads. The nomad knows dynamic clinging in the way they follow the herds of wild animals. The wild animals are slowly shaped into domestic animals through the dynamic clinging of the nomad, who does not cling to any place nor hold onto the animals, but lets them roam freely, following them and sometimes intervening to change their route. On the other hand, the settlers erect fences to keep in their animals and have begun to cling to one spot on the earth. When a disaster happens at that one spot, then all is lost. Whereas for the nomad, there are other animals to track if he loses track of one set he is following. The settler builds up a myriad of possessions, whereas the nomad must keep his belongings to the bear essentials because he must transport them all when he moves. This simple difference is the root of the difference between these modalities of clinging. The early Indo-European city dwellers realized that the nomads had something they lacked, and this is why they routinely sent their children to live with them and developed initiations that emphasized nomadic virtues. For the city dwellers the essential remnants of the art of dynamic clinging lived on in their use of wine and in war. The necessity of the frenzy as a means of handling chaos, meant that the young must learn about frenzy and must learn how to cling dynamically within the midst of outward and inward chaos. Victor Davis Hanson in the Western Way of War treats the subject of the combination of wine in war.
Did the ancient Greek soldiers march into battle drunk? The most likely answer is "almost." It may be naive to assume that the Greek hoplite, who drank daily both at home and while on the customary last supper might stanch his fear, dull his sensitivity to physical injury and mental anguish, and make the awful task of facing the enemy phalanx that much easier. [p131]
It seems there is just the right threshold of drink above the normal amount taken every day which has the sought-after effects, but that if one takes more than that, those effects will turn negative, and drunkenness invites only disaster. That "almost" drunk state was one which was the natural starting point for the transformation into frenzy. Hanson does not treat frenzy but gives an excellent picture of the stages of the Greek battle and its horror and confusion.
The outcome of hoplite pitched battle left the property and culture of the defeated intact, robbed only of some 15 percent of their male citizens, many of whom were already past the prime of life. In the best modern spirit, the successors to the Greeks sought ever ingenious ways to lengthen, to expand, to glorify, and to continue the fighting until their very social structure was brought out, not the battlefield itself. They had forgotten or indeed not understood that the old style of hoplite conflict was by deliberate design somewhat artificial, intended to focus a concentrated brutality upon the few in order to spare the many. [p224, my emphasis]
This artificiality of the Greek combat is emphasized by the fact that they almost always began a battle by both sides attacking on the run despite the fact that there was greater security in staying put. The few examples cited by Hanson of one side awaiting the attack of the other seems to cause confusion in their enemies and be taken as a sign of recognition of inevitable defeat. However, this anomaly, in which each side rushes headlong into the other despite the irrationality of that strategy, needs to be deeply considered. The mutual collision of the enemies was designed to create the greatest destruction in the shortest amount of time. It led to the greatest confusion with the least room to maneuver for the individual soldiers, and it almost assured that the greatest number would actually arrive in the battle, because to do anything but press forward meant almost certain death under the heels of one's own troops. Upon this confusion was laid a template of the normative progression of such head on collision type of battle.
0) Prior to battle there was yelling and singing within the phalanx, the drinking of wine, the expectation of a speech by their leader which conducive to getting the troops moving.
1) The charge (ephodos or epidrome) in which the two armies would run at each other across the battlefield through the no man's land between the two armies. The major problem was to keep the phalanx together as they approached the enemy ranks running.
2) Collision of the two sides as a clash of spears (doratismos) in confusion and disarray which would many times kill all the men on the front lines of both armies, leaving a wall of layers of dead who were crushed in the initial mele. This, thud or crunch of the two armies was accompanied by a peculiar sound since both were heavily armored and were approaching each other at a collective ten miles an hour to arrive at a point where shields and lances met, lances would snap and shields would be pierced along with the cries of men dying and being wounded or crushed.
3) There was the post-contact mele, a hand-to-hand struggle (en chersi) in which tears and gaps might arise in one of the lines which would spell disaster for one of the sides or the other. Keeping formation within the phalanx after the crush of collision was the essence of this type of fighting; this in spite of the close combat that occurred in the tumult which quickly disintegrated into hand-to-hand combat.
4) The push (othismos) where the rear troops in the phalanx would keep pushing forward with a continued momentum attempting to move through the lines of the enemy until they collapsed under the pressure.
6) Viewing the battlefield, removal and exchanging of the dead, production of the dedicatory trophy from the gear of the enemy, dealing with the wounded, etc.
Hanson makes clear that this is an idealized structure laid over the confusion, misdirection, and mob violence that most certainly prevailed and defies any kind of structuring. However, we would miss an important point if we were to just consider these stages as merely the attempt of the rational mind to deal with confusion. Since the confusion was artificially produced so it would be extremely intense, the stages tell us something about the worldview of the fighters. First, the intensity of battle was like a stage for battle frenzy to arise.
Battle quickly exhausted those in the phalanx, both physically and psychologically -- perhaps in little less than an hour's time. The killing was face-to-face; each blow required a maximum physical effort to drive the weapon through the bronze of his opponent, all this to be performed while the hoplite carried armor and was pushed constantly by the ranks to the rear. Since there was no real distance between the men who gave and received such blows, a sea of blood was everywhere. Hoplites were soon covered by the gore of those whom they met, struck, and were pressed on into. Reverences to the blood of battle in literature are meant to be taken literally as firsthand, eyewitness descriptions from men who knew what the killing at close quarters was really like. For example, Tyrtaios says that only the true warrior can "endure to look upon the bloody slaughter." (12.11) Mimnermos had the same image in mind when he wrote of a great anonymous warrior of the past who made his way through the clash of the "bloody battle." (14.7) So, too, after the conclusion of the battle of Pydna in 168, Scipio was said to have come off the field "covered with the blood" of his enemies, "carried away by the pleasure" (Plut. Aem. 22.4); here it seems the Roman commander had merely become "blood drunk" form the killing. [p191]
This "blood drunk" frenzy was a state which was produced from the mixture of alcohol, adrenaline, excitement, chaos, anger, and the sight of one's friends and relatives being destroyed right before one's eyes by the enemy. In the din of battle both types of courage encouraged by Plato fuse suddenly. The inner courage derived from drinking parties, the ultimate of which is before the battle and the outer courage against pain inflicted by the enemy. This fusion of inner and outer courage was signified by the epiphanies of the gods on the battlefield.
Throughout Greek battle a number of men not only became confused and disoriented under the strain of the killing, but also lost their senses to such a degree that they no longer may have even known what was going on, suffering from what we might call "battle fatigue" or "battle shock." In nearly every Greek battle we hear of epiphanies, stories of gods and heroes who at a certain moment descended to fight alongside a particular contingent. Most are described as occurring either before or after the battle, and thus can be explained as faked pre-batle stratagems to encourage morale, or post-mortem mythmaking to explain some superhuman or unbelievable achievement of arms. Yet, a few seem almost hallucinatory and may not be later, deliberate creations of fantasy. Rather, under the stress of battle, men claimed to have seen images before their eyes during the actual fighting. Perhaps the best known is the reported vision of Epizelos, an Athenian at the battle of Marathon, who "saw" an enormous hopolite pass by to kill the man at his side:
At this engagement the following strange thing occurred: a certain Epizelos, the son of Kouphagoras, as he fought in the ranks and proved himself a brave fighter, suddenly lost sight in both eyes. Yet he had neither been struck or pierced in the body by any weapon. From that moment on he remained blind of the rest of his life. I have heard that Epizelos used to attribute his misfortune to the following cause: a great armed hopolite had appeared opposite him, whose entire shield was covered by his beard. This phantom had passed him by, but had killed the soldier stationed at his side.
At the same battle others were sure they had seen an armed Thesus who led them on against the Persians. [p192-193]
Hanson only mentions this one example, but there are many such incidents throughout the annals of Western warfare where men perform super-human feats in the heat of battle or witness amazing occurrences. This is due to the frenzy that is produced in intense conflict, and we suspect that the "theory" of battle which guided the anti-production of warfare was designed to heighten and produce this intoxicating altered state of consciousness. The whole idea of frenzy as the fusion of inward and outward courage in the midst of chaos on the battlefield, which produces in man a semi-divine state, gives us a different appreciation of what Plato is attempting to describe for us. If Greek warfare was geared to produce the greatest intensity of conflict possible given their level of technology, and was geared to produce specific altered states of consciousness, then warfare itself takes on a new significance. This state of intensified violent chaos is the place where REALITY gets its meaning. Reality is specifically a non-normal or altered state of the universe that goes along with the altered state of the frenzied individual. The Western way of war was designed to produce "reality" and the frenzy that coincides with it in the Indo-European individual's consciousness.
For a description of Frenzy we may turn to chapter ten of Bruce Lincoln's Death, War, and Sacrifice called "Homeric Lyssa: Wolfish Rage." Lyssa is probably derived from lykos, "wolf." But, another entomology takes it back to *leuk- "to shine, light." Both of these entomologies make some sense when you relate the frenzy to the epiphany of the emergent event. As in our use of the word novum, there is always a suggestion of a flood of light with the emergent event. It is of interest that mankind sees the entry into the Mele and the attainment of frenzy as the entry into an animal-like non-human state. This makes sense when we see the stages of emergence in relation to the genetic phases of the development of the Indo-European worldview. As we noted before, the earliest stage is one in which Humans were not distinguished from animals. This was the epoch of Uranus. Entering completely into the Mele is to regain that state of complete immersion into the body as animal. It is strange that this type of immersion must occur within the confusion of the battle, and that those who could enter such a animal-like rage were seen as those who mastered that extreme situation.
Given this interpretation, we should see parallels between the pre- and post-battle stages and the metaphysical era, stages of Charge/Collapse with the mythopoetic epoch of Zeus and between Collision/Push with the reign of Kronos, where the Mele is by analogy related to Uranus. Uranus arose out of Gaia. Soldiers in Greece were many times said to have arisen out of the earth directly. In the Mele they returned to the earth from which they had arisen. They put on the helmet of invisibility of Hades and went into the realm under the earth. Uranus attempted to keep things from manifesting, just as the Chaos of the Mele prevents things from taking form. Kronos, on the other hand, ate his children and kept them within himself. Just so, the Collision/Push are related to the active destruction of the enemy in the most forceful manner, and can be seen as analogous to "eating" the enemy as one group overruns the other. Zeus, on the other hand, avoids the excesses of both Uranus and Kronos. Thus, the Charge/Collapse expresses the slow dissolution of forms rather than their prevention from manifesting or their active destruction. Charge slowly dissolves the static phalanx before the collision, and Collapse slowly dissolves the last vestiges of the phalanx after a push by the other side. Zeus allows the forms to manifest. Men set up the order of the phalanx. Men view the dis-order of the battlefield arranged by fate before they arrange the dead and collect the trophies. Rationality is an arrangement by men of men for men. The order of the phalanx, the foundation of the city, is the fundamental ordering of men. The ordering of the bodies for return to their families is also an ordering of men. In both we are seeing a static tableau, purely present, which shows us an image before and after the descent of the decree of fate. When men begin moving or when the phalanx finally collapses, the arrangement becomes the work of Zeus rather than a rational arrangement by men for men. Zeus manipulates outcomes by changing chance events. Zeus and his family urge, guide, provide resources, change environmental events around the actions of men. They preside over the context of human action in the process of its unfolding. For this reason, the process of Charge and Collapse which changes the designs of men between its preparatory ordering and the final display of fate, can be seen as being under the influence of Zeus. In the battle the warriors work their way back through each age of man becoming bronze then silver, then golden as the impurities are burned from them by the fire of battle.
Returning to the concept of Lyssa, it is seen that it appears three times in the Iliad as a state attained by Achilles and Hektor, the great heroes. The two features of Lyssia as it appears in the Iliad are that it makes those in this state irresistible, and it is not clear whether the one in the state possesses it or is possessed by it. It is "...a state of wild, uncontrolled rage which is possessed by certain highly gifted warriors, but which also possesses them." [p132] Bruce Lincoln quotes the Ynglingasaga for a description of the Germanic WUT as an example of this state:
They went without shields, and were made as dogs or wolves, and bit on their shields, and were as strong as bears or bulls; men they slew, and neither fire nor steel would deal with them; and this is what is called the fury [wut] of the berserkr. [p133]
This state is attested in many different branches of the Indo-European traditions as well in some non-Indo-European traditions cited by Linclon. But outside the context of the genetic stages of the Western worldview it is an isolated fact that makes little sense. If we see it as a return to the unity of man with animals at a very early epoch of the unfolding of our worldview, then the fact that the state occurs in the midst of Battle takes on added significance. It demonstrates that the structure of battle unfolds the layers of the Western worldview one at a time and takes men back to their lost origin. The fact that this recovery of the lost origin must occur in an artificially violent environment gives us pause. In the frenzy in which men return to animals, the epiphany of the gods are seen, and between these two are discovered the light of the angels which accompany the emergent event and characterize "Glory." Within the battle, as a kind of sacrifice, all the genetic layers of the Western worldview are forced to manifest. The battle is an experiment in the self-destruction of the Western worldview as a means of radical self discovery. The battle itself produces an epochal change and releases the novum of the heroic deeds. The Mele of the battle is the perfect form of Chaos that we have called the ephemeron which destroys all form. The Phalanx is the holoidal form that represents the meta-body of society in which each part, a citizen, is a reflection of the whole, where all the citizens have fused together into a "Big Man" acting as if one. The Phalanx has its spacetime configuration as an eventity, and it unfolds through the process of the battle starting with the Banquet through formation to dissolution. The phalanx exhibits part/whole holon relations between the commander and the troops. The phalanx exhibits its own peculiarities as an integra which differs from city to city and battle to battle. In the battle the "Big Man" of the phalanx, like Yamir or Purusha, is sacrificed, and through that sacrifice men are forced back to some primordial state prior to the destruction of the proto-man who became the Lord of the Dead [p32-48].
The stages of the conflict are paradigmatic of the inner structure of this "reality." This means that the reality is born out of conflict in which the opposite sides crash together. That within this situation it is those who hang on to the structure of their phalanx during and after the crash that are the ones that are most likely to route the enemy. Thus, the phalanx stands as order against the chaos. The preservation of order within the chaos is the key to victory. This order did not depend on the organization of individuals as modern football does. Instead, it depended on their organization prior to the collision, and the ability to preserve that order through the collision and maintain pressure on the enemy until the enemy lines collapsed. Individuals meant nothing in this formation, only the mass of the body in relation to the shields which caused them to die in layers that were so conspicuous after the battle. Individual heroics, such as we see in the Iliad, is what destroys this structure and was frowned upon. This gives the materialistic tenor to the situation where the body is converted into a mass, first by running at the enemy which is running at you, and second by the use of layers of men with shields pressing on the bodies of their forward companions. So reality has a strong component of material reduction in which the body is converted into an object which is useful even when dead in the wall of bodies being pushed from either side. One can almost see the opposite of a tug of war. It is a "push" of war where those behind are pushing the wall of dead bodies of both sides from behind. It is interesting that we preserve in play the opposite of what the reality of war codified into the ritual of anti-production on the battlefield in antiquity.
Phalanx at rest, Charge, Collision, Mele, Push, Collapse. These are the stages of anti-production which are also the stages of the unfolding of reality. The phalanx was all in order when it was still. When the charge and attack got underway, it lost much of its structure. In the Collision its structure was converted into physical mass and momentum. Then confusion reigned, but in the midst of that confusion the key was to maintain one's ranks and to then push forward through the line of the other side, using the wall of bodies. You can see that static clinging would dictate a totally different approach to war. It would dictate that the ranks stayed ordered and still, and waited for the enemy to attack a dug-in position, hopefully on the high ground. In the Greek warfare the two sides attempted to maintain the static structure of the phalanx through the dynamic regime of running attack. They intentionally let go of a static order and submit it to the possible breakup in the running attack. This makes there appear the precarious threshold between an attack where the order of the phalanx is lost, and the too slow attack were momentum is lost and the other side gains the upper hand merely because they were traveling faster in a tighter formation -- another precarious balance like that between too much and too little wine. Then in the collision and mele which are severely disorderly and disruptive situations, the phalanx needs to be preserved in spite of incredible chaos. If it is maintained, then the Push is possible which makes the breakthrough the enemy lines occur. That breakthrough has an interesting resonance. Breakthrough is transcendence. The Western worldview is based on dualism which is based on transcendence. In dualism one side is stronger and the other weaker in a power relation. This kind of battle proves the one stronger and the other weaker in a definitive way by whose line collapses. The collapse for one side is a breakthrough for the other. So transcendence and dualism are closely intertwined in this artificially induced situation of anti-production. But breakthrough can only occur if it is possible to Push and the Push comes in the midst of war where the phalanx has been maintained through the mild disorder of the charge and the extreme disorder of the Collision and Mele. Thus, the order has been subjected to extreme pressure and has held in spite of the dynamics of the situation being in constant and unpredictable flux. Here we see dynamic clinging in action. We see clearly that the Hopolites release their hold on the static structure of the phalanx in order to add momentum; then they subject it to the disorganization of running, Collision and Mele, hoping that there will be enough order left to make their push toward breakthrough, or at least stand their ground. When both armies stand their ground is when the most brutal and devastating wars of attrition occur. Fewer die if the breakthrough comes early.
The ability to Push within the chaos after the Collision shows us that the ancient Greek fighters were aware of their attempt to apply dynamic clinging to the battle situation. In dynamic clinging whatever you pushed on within the dynamism of the battle had to be meta-stable. It had a dynamic stability, in this case a wall of dead and fighting men. Think about the "sandwich" of men and shields in the middle, and then think about the "sandwich" of the steps in the anti-production process. In anti-production it is Mele that is in the middle flanked by the Collision and the Push which, are in turn, flanked by the Charge and the Collapse, which are lastly flanked by the pre-battle Banquet and the post-battle viewing and trophy collection, etc. When we look carefully, we see these as very precise and structurally related stages. The first and final phases are static. Then comes the dynamism of the Charge and Collapse, which are opposites, one being a moving toward and the other a falling away. The Collision and the Push are really the same thing, only one is the initial meeting while the latter occurs many times within the chaos of battle until collapse of one side occurs. Thus, there are many Pushes, but only one leads to breakthorough and thus to transcendental victory. The Mele is the inherent confusion and fog of war that was produced by the two armies coming together in war. The mele is structurally opposite the static situation before and after the battle. As is clear, there are four distinct phases in the production of reality of anti-production. The four phases show us the movement out of static order into chaos and then back out again. The epiphany/frenzy where inner and outer courage fuse, occur within the Mele. This altered state does not occur within the ordered states before and after the battle. Other emotions dominate those states like fear and loss, or joy and triumph. But the other phases are necessary as separators of everyday life from the extraordinary situation in the chaotic Mele. The epiphany is the emergent event arising out of the chaos, identified previously as analogous to Wild Being, The static pageant before the battle, and the view of the battlefield afterward, are analogous to the Pure Presence of Static Being. So we are led to relate the Charge/Collapse to Process Being and Collision/Push with Hyper Being. This makes some sense when we realize that charge and collapse are more gentile dissipations of structure while the Collision/Push are more violent dissipations of structure. In the Collision/Push there is an initial dramatic surge which is eventually complemented by a series of smaller and perhaps fragmented surges which appear as pulsations through the mass of the two armies toward their center wall of flesh and shields. Thus, both of these are strong dissipaters of structure of the enemy's phalanx. These are complemented by the lesser dissipations within an army's own phalanx. First this occurs by the running charge, then it occurs later if they are unlucky by the collapse of the structure of the phalanx entirely that spells defeat. These are inward dissipations of one's own structure rather than the outward surges attempting to dissipate the enemy's phalanx. But it is clear that the ability to Push is something above the static holding together of the phalanx which is standing its ground. So we can see that the Push implies some meta-organization of some sort beyond the more static holding of one's formation in the midst of battle.
TABLE 6 Stages of Greek Battle in relation to kinds of Being.
Toward
Away
Kind Being
Virtues
Physics
Mele
Mele
Wild Being
Wisdom
Erratic
Collision
Push
Hyper Being
Moderation
Acceleration
Charge
Collapse
Process Being
Justice
Movement
Pre-battle Banquet
Viewing the Battlefield
Pure Presence
Courage
Stillness
From physics we know that movement is a meta-level over static position; that acceleration is a meta-level over movement; that erratic movement is a meta-level over acceleration, and we cannot think anything at a higher meta-level. So the static position before and after the battle is analogous to position. The Charge and Collapse is analogous to movement. The Collision and Push is analogous to acceleration. And finally the erratic motion of changing accelerations is analogous to the Mele. Because anti-production uses the mass and momentum of the Hopolites objectified body, it sets the stage for physics. It participates in the same series of meta-levels which exist as reflections of the ontological meta-levels. And it prepares us for the emergent events or epiphany that occur in the altered states of consciousness that are produced by the Mele.
The battlefield is a kind of anti-city. It is the place where the citizens of two cities come together in mutual interaction that reduces their bodies to physical objects. But it is out of such conflicts that the "real" cities evolve because it is the survivors of these conflicts who go on to grow and prosper. Sparta was such a city -- successful in war. So any real city gets its "reality" from the battles which it participated in and won. Without this continual testing the city would not be fit to be called such. It would remain a figment of our imagination, liable to vanish in the chaos of the first conflict. Thus, the cities literally are born out of the Mele coming into existence anew with each battle as the community of the surviving victors. The epiphanies within the Mele are the cornerstones of the real, thoroughly tested city. But there is an inner relation between the ideal city and the real city which we must explore and is the whole topic of the Laws. The ideal city is the means of seeing the sources from which the real city draws its Good. It approximates the original pattern seen by the founding lawgivers in the epiphany. The ideal city captures the pattern of anti-production as a single whole, just like Plato wants us to work through the stages of virtue toward the synthesis of the Good. The ideal city is the synthesis of the stages of the manifestation of the real city. In the real city there was courage manifested by those who came to the battle and left it still standing. There is the justice which considers the right threshold of wine and the right threshold of dynamism in the Charge and in sparing life after the collapse. There is the moderation in the Collision and Push where each side must control itself regardless of the extremity of the situation. There is the wisdom of the one who can pick their way through the Mele and see the epiphany. All these virtues that are manifest in internal and external war are captured as a single picture by the ideal city based on the laws of the lawgiver who knows the pattern of the anti-production of reality that must occur in war and patterns peaceful society to produce that pattern in itself so that it may be victorious like the Spartans.
The illusory continuity of the ideal city is based on dynamic clinging. This is a profound realization. The illusory continuity that appears as equilibrium hovers over total disequilibrium, which is called Reality. The city in the clouds hovers over a battlefield. The ability of people to negotiate the battlefield and practice dynamic clinging in that artificially disturbed environment makes it possible to build the ivory tower above it which hovers as it were untouched above the fray. From our own times the relation between academia and capitalist business in the United States embodies this kind of relation. There are deep structural reasons for that split between business and academia. Business is at war in the free market. Academia attempts to hover over that fray, but remains untouched by the dirty side of business war of all against all. However, in truth they are locked in a deadly embrace via the mediation of government. So too, the ideal city is dependent on the war between itself and its neighbors to maintain its own viability.
Notice that when the Athenian Stranger is invited to test the one who praises Zeus, he says that the discussion will be a test for all of them. This brings us to consider why the Laws is a dialogue instead of a monologue. Why are the interlocutors needed at all? Is it merely a tradition Plato cannot drop?
It appears that the commonality is important because Socrates starts the discussion by reference to the common meals and gymnastics devised by the lawmaker as a preparation for war. The ideal city seems to need an intersubjective space to be projected into. The lawmakers, the guardians, and the people form different intersubjective commons. The lawmakers hold discussions, and the people have common meals and gymnastics. To these are added hunting and the secret service. Notice these form a progression from active to more and more active. Each one intensifies the need for teamwork or communal action. Of these the last is most interesting.
MEG "In the fourth place I at least would try to put the great attention in that we pay to endurance of suffering, in the fist fights we hold with one another and in certain practices of theft we have, which always involve many blows. Then too, there is a practice called the `secret service' which is amazingly full of the sort of toils that instill endurance; they go barefoot and sleep without blankets in winter, and they have to take care of themselves without any servants as they wander by night as well as by day through the whole territory."
This practice, called the "secret service," is a key point which will be returned to again and again in the course of this study. It is a fundamental feature of the Indo-European society. It is, in fact, an initiation ceremony for young men who become outcasts and live off other cities; goods. They practice the war of all against all between the cities as marauding bandits. This background violence proves to be an excellent training ground for young warriors who live outside the protection of their city for a period of time, becoming "werewolves." It turns out that this initiation ceremony for young warriors is the source of the inner structure of the Indo-European society. The fact that it is mentioned along with other similar practices such as the "naked games" and theft practices is very significant. It shows that Plato has in mind exactly that trait that is acquired during the initiation period of endurance, but more specifically endurance in dynamic clinging. Those who join the "secret service" give up everything to learn to live off the land. Living off the land like the nomads -- taking what is at hand -- is one form of dynamic clinging because it does not depend on keeping, but instead is based on taking -- stealing -- what is available and moving on not hanging on to anything. It is a training in how to be unjust to others and get away with it. A training in the kind of cleverness that Odysseus exemplifies.
The Athenian Stranger, at the mention of the "secret service," turns back to the definition of courage. He asks if it is defined by pains or also by pleasure. This makes us wonder if in the initiation ceremony there is not some training in pleasures as well as endurance of pain for the young initiates. The whole point is that it is through the correctly held drinking party that courage that resists pleasure is developed. And according to Socrates, unless courage deals with both pleasure and pain, it is not robust enough.
AS "Surely the lawgiver of Zeus or the Pythian hasn't instituted a crippled courage, able to resist only the left side but unable to resist on the right, the side of cunning and flattery? Isn't his resistant on both sides?
AS "All right then, let's go back and say what these practices are in your cities that constrain men to taste pleasures and not flee from them -- just as they were constrained not to flee pains, but were dragged right into the midst of them, by the use of force and by persuasion through honors, were made to conquer them. Where in the laws is this same thing set up with regard to pleasures? Let it be said what this practice of yours is that makes the same men equally courageous before sufferings and pleasures, triumphing over what they should and in no way providing inferior to their own nearest and harshest enemies."
Of course, Socrates' interlocutors could not produce any instance of their laws where they submitted the people to endure pleasure as they were submitted to pain. In fact, it is really a crazy idea. It questions a basic assumption about human beings which is that they naturally incline toward pleasures and disincline toward pain. In fact, we normally think of the law as forbidding indulgences in pleasure and forcing endurance of pain. To reverse this censure of pleasue goes against the fundamental human tendency. Here Plato is actually proposing a different structure of human sensibility which goes against the grain of normal human experience. Plato is saying both pleasure and pain must be endured and conquered. The human being normally moves away from both toward some neutral ground that avoids both pleasure and pain. This goes against our normal concept of human beings and their proclivities. So the question is, why does Plato present what would normally be considered a distorted model of human sensibilities, or is our normal model distorted?
From a Buddhist perspective human beings cling to and crave things which give pleasure, and this ultimately leads to suffering. Their answer is the practice of non-attachment which moves them toward a neutral middle ground between pleasure and pain. Thus, the practice of Buddhism results in the starting point of Plato. Buddhism confirms our inherent model of human sensibilities. Plato turns this upside down and says we start off in a neutral position and must force the human being into pleasurable and painful situations in order to build a courageous character which is balanced. Why does Plato reverse the Buddhist model of human sensibilities?
This may be understood by seeing Plato's concept of reality as intensifications of experience. Normal human experience is in the realm of pleasures and pains. Battle and training for battle intensifies the experience of pain and chaos. Drinking parties intensify the experience of pleasure and its associated chaos. Thus, it is not that the human being does not experience pleasure or pain in the neutral state, but that these experiences are not intensified and not disordered. Balanced courage tries the human being in a whole range of intensified pleasurable and painful situations, and this tests the whole range of a person's character. It shows up the person's inclinations and allows them to seek a middle or stable point which is not lured by pleasure or repelled by pains. It is a kind of meta-stability which is called balanced courage which maym in many waysm be like the Buddhist state of non-attachment. The normal human being is attracted and repelled, and thus controlled by his circumstance. The person with balanced courage remains stable in every situation, and thus may follow long term or idealized aims. Such a person is no longer engaged in static clinging which seeks to hold on to each pleasurable thing once grasped, and to repel all unpleasureable things once avoided. Dynamic clinging takes into account short-term losses and gains and weighs them against long-term aims. What Plato is talking about here in our culture is called the Protestant work ethic. Forego short-term pleasures for long-term rewards. In war it is called losing battles but still winning the war. Both stances recognize that you are going to lose things or be hurt in life, but attempt to manage for long term overall gains. This is the essence of dynamic clinging that must be taught through intensifying experiences of both pleasure and pain and by creating disorderly situations which try us. In this way we taste reality. Reality is really an artificial construct -- a non-normal situation built in order to instill dynamic clinging behavior and to break our habits of static clinging.
Plato advances the argument that all drinking parties which he has seen are defective in one way or another.
I have encountered many drinking parties in many places, and what is more, I have studied all of them, so to speak. I have hardly seen or heard of a single one being run correctly in its entirety -- if a few small aspects of some were correct, the vast majority were, so to speak entirely faulty. [639d-e]
We now know that Plato is intending to describe the ideal drinking party, which no where exists in reality, like his ideal city. It is the ideal drinking party that allows one to gain balanced courage. Just as the "Secret Service" does not exist in the city, so to the ideal drinking party is equally non-existent within the city. The main point on which the ideal drinking party differs is the presence of a sober host who acts as leader for the affair. The drinking party under the sober and wise teacher then becomes an exercise in education. So the conversation now turns to the exploration of education.
AS "I will, and what I assert is this: whatever a man intends to become good at, this he must practice from childhood; whether he's playing or being serious, he should spend his time with each of the things that pertain to the activity. Thus, in the case of someone intending to become a good farmer or a good house builder of some sort, the house builder should play at games that educate in house building, and the farmer similarly, and the person who raises each child should provide each with miniature tools that are imitations of the true ones. Moreover, the child should learn any knowledge that is a necessary preliminary: a carpenter, for example, should learn to measure and gage things, and a soldier should play at horseback riding or some other such things. The attempt should be made to use games to direct the pleasures and desires of children toward those activities in which they must become perfect. The core of education, we say, is correct nurture, one which, as much as possible, draws the soul of the child at play toward an erotic attachment to what he must do when he becomes a man who is perfect as regards the virtue of his occupation. [643b-d; p23]
This vision of education is manifestly wrong. First it treats children as little adults, and it assumes we should know what each person's occupation should be from birth so we can gear the whole educational situation toward producing a person who does a single specific kind of work. This one person, one kind of work tenant, will become prominent as the Laws unfold. But it is clearly another crazy idea. Why does Plato present us with this series of "crazy" ideas? Are we to accept that he takes all of them seriously? Is this not perhaps a kind of irony? Is Plato really telling us something deeper by giving us this series of shocks to our assumptions about the way things should work. Perhaps the Laws is really a study in ethnomethodology, attempting to show us our own intrinsic assumptions about human beings. We assume humans are multifaceted. We are fathers, business men, baseball fans, etc. We have all these roles at once. We may have multiple occupations simultaneously. It is clear that human beings have always been that way. We are dynamos producing diversity in all aspects of our lives. We have a series of occupations throughout our lives, and we discover which are the best for us. If we get tired of one occupation, we change professions. Also as we grow, Piaget has shown how we go through developmental phases in which the entire structure of our experience changes along with our cognitive capacities. Thus, as we shall see, Plato is attempting to build a model of a city that excludes change. It excludes change from child to adult, and also changes between occupations. The question is whether Plato thought this were possible in his own time and really believed society could be totally static. My own opinion is that Plato is demonstrating something to us and that he never intended to be taken literally. The indication of this is that he gives a whole series of crazy ideas which are totally unrealistic. This lack of realism shows we are talking about an ideal city, static and totally ordered -- clearly a horrible place to live -- centrally planned and totalitarian. In fact, it is a model of the UNIverse which rejects plurality. Plato is giving us an object lesson, constructing on purpose a kakatopia or hell on earth in order to show what happens when we create totalitarian systems such as those made possible by Conceptual Being. When Conceptual Being unifies Primordial Being and replaces the Apeiron, it becomes the foundation for the totalitarian city or universe. The static city houses the motor of dynamic clinging. The motor of dynamic clinging continuously forces unity. The static city rides above the dynamo of dynamic clinging that toils in the basement of the illusory edifice. Plato is giving us simultaneously a model of our Universal worldview, and also sounding a warning concerning its limits. This warning was never heard because everyone assumed Plato was serious. The crazy ideas were rationalized. The amazing thing is that Plato saw the whole future of Catholic churches, ideologies, world domination, and totalitarian systems from the very beginning. He unfolds the inner meaning of Conceptual Being in an elaborate analogy of the ideal city or UTOPIA, the unlivable city. His child becoming man with one tool analogy is true of the Western worldview. We had the one tool of Conceptual Being on which we based everything we built. All the systems we built were totalitarian, transcendental, dualistic, -- intolerant of diversity. And the result has been lots of human suffering through genocide, terror, inquisition, concentration camps, from Hopolite battles to global war.
Irony is a type of dynamic clinging. One cannot hold onto the surface meaning of the text. One must relinquish the single interpretation and the absolute knowledge about the meaning of the text. The meaning is suddenly up for grabs. Do we believe Plato is serious? The crazy ideas are a warning that perhaps he is not serious. But just because the surface meaning cannot be held onto, there is no reason to believe he is not deadly serious in his deeper levels of meaning. He is saying if you embrace Conceptual Being, then this is the consequence, so beware. He develops the system and shows its implications, but as an object lesson, so we will know what to avoid. In the meantime we are taught a great deal about the inner structure of our worldview which Plato understood very well.
The absurdity of the idea of training children from birth for an occupation by giving the toys like the tools of their future trade is quickly transformed when Plato says next that all education aims at making people good. This puts things in a different light. Suddenly we understand that the real occupation of each child is to become a ruler of himself. Thus, the toys of self discipline become the tools of self discipline, and the upbringing of the child can be seen as one of continuous evolution along a single trajectory. The sole role of education is to produce good citizens, and the good citizens are the ones who can rule themselves. Each citizen has only one occupation, which is his/her own self-organization from within rather than from the outside. Thus, each child is given the tools of self rule as toys. We must consider carefully what these toys/tools are as the dialogue progresses. Immediately following the section defining education, Plato introduces a toy -- the puppet -- to extend his point. Before this though, Socrates says another strange thing.
AS "But possessing within himself two opposed and imprudent counselors, which we call pleasure and pain?"
AS "Connected to these two are opinions about that future, common to both of which there is the name "expectation," but each of which also has its own peculiar name: "fear" is the expectation of pain, and "boldness" the expectation of the opposite. Overall these there is calculation as to which of them is better and which is worse -- and when this calculation becomes the common opinion of the city, it is called law." [724]
The strange thing is that he asks to make the assumption that "each of us is one person." This begs the question whether it is true that we are unified by nature. Plato assumes it only to immediately divide it into three parts. Thus, Plato immediately calls into question the unity he assumed. He then immediately constructs the image of the divine puppet in which pleasure and pain and their expectation pull us all which ways. Thus, the internal elements of the person are seen as the strings that draw the puppet this way and that. The puppet is only a superficial unity as the tie point of the various puppet strings manipulated by the gods. Of all the cords, one is golden which is the cord of calculation, which Plato says all should follow. Calculation is seen as a deeper source of unity in the puppet. By calculation, which is its own cord, the disorganization of all the other cords is overcome, and the unity of the person is established as the coherence of behavior which rises above the immediate pleasures and pains. Calculation is seen as intersubjective -- the common law of the city. It is a golden cord while the others are hard and iron, resembling a multitude of different forms. The golden cord is related to the race of gold which is gentle rather than violent, as the calculation in relation to other types of desire. By following calculation as common law, we become a golden race and thus are purified.
Once the puppet has been introduced, it is asked, "If we introduce drunkenness into this puppet, what effect shall we produce?" [645d] This is an interesting point because the person has found some sort of equilibrium where the diverse desires are kept in check by calculation already. Plato proposes to destabilize this formation in order to reach a deeper level of coherence. So the intensification of chaotic experience is clear here. This is the Western worldview's view of reality complementary to the intensification of chaos among enemies in war. The drunk is likened to the child. So the disorganization of the drunk's behavior is seen as the same as the disorganization of the child's behavior before it becomes able to regulate its behavior with reason. Plato has Socrates' interlocutor express wonder at the idea that people should voluntarily debase themselves. For now the disorder comes from the puppet itself, rather than from the tug of the gods on the cords of desires. The two sources of disorder merge to produce intense pleasures, pains, spirited emotions and erotic emotions. Socrates answers that this is like medicine after which healing will occur. He does this by distinguishing "shame" from other fears and saying that a man must develop shame in the same way he develops courage by confronting situations that would produce shame and not succumbing to it.
AS "Now, when we wish to make each man immune to many fears, we accomplish this by dragging him into the midst of fear in a manner that is consistent with the law."
AS "What about when we try to make him fearful, in a manner that is consistent with justice? Shouldn't we throw him against shamelessness, and by giving him gymnastic training in combatting it, make him a victorious fighter against his own pleasures? A man becomes perfect in courage by fighting against and conquering the cowardice within him; surely no man who lacks experience and gymnastic training in these struggles would ever attain half his potential virtue. Can a man then become perfect in moderation if he has not fought triumphantly against the many pleasures and desires that try to seduce him into shamelessness and injustice, using the help of speech, deed, and art in games and in serious pursuits? Can he remain inexperienced in all such things?"
Plato goes on to discuss the fear drug verses the drug of fearlessness. He shows the effects of the fear drug, and then points out that it doesn't exist. But the drug of fearlessness does exist, and it is wine. It allows men to experience fearlessness in company among friends. On the other hand, he suggests the non-existent fear drug might be taken alone. Both boldness and fearfulness need to be exemplified in different situations -- boldness toward the enemy and shame toward friends.
AS "But given that courage and fearlessness in the midst of fears should be practices, one should consider whether the opposite quality in the midst of opposite things should also be cultivated." [649c]
Socrates says it is better to develop these traits in a playful situation rather than a serious one. Thus, the drinking party is to be commended. But it should not be lost on us that Plato is here developing another version of his theory of opposites, and that there are two levels. At the first level pleasures and pains direct human behavior loosely controlled by external law. By providing intensifying experiences in a controlled environment, Boldness in the midst of fears, and shame in the midst of pleasures, may be developed in which a second order calculation comes into play which distinguishes the correct situation for boldness (against enemies) and shame (between friends). The second order calculation keeps the pleasures and fears from running wild. Stafford Beer1 calls this "system two" which keeps oscillation that will cause "system one" to destroy itself from happening. In the human being's biology, this occurs in the autonomic nervous system. Feedbacks are damped. Otherwise, pleasures lead to fear that in turn lead to further transgression and then more fear. In Plato's city every citizen is a node where damping of feedback between pleasures and pain occurs by the development of second order calculation which might be thought of as the ability to rule oneself and thus the capacity to recognize what is good. Second order calculation is self-imposed law. It is self-organization (autopoiesis) in which the opposites occurring in the human being are used against each other to produce a state of meta-stability.
This view of education is the opposite of that produced in a consumer society such as our own. In a consumer society the unbalance of the people is exactly what drives consumption. The constant feedback or feed-forward of pleasure and pain creates vicious circles which drive those caught in them to the brink of despair and beyond the brink in many cases. Neither kind of courage is expected or needed. Instead, there is a specific attempt to produce a frenzy of consumption. Those who do not develop self-control on their own are eaten alive by such an environment. However, even when exercised, this self-control usually only adheres to external rules of society or laws and does not become self-organizing. The meta-stability of self-organization is never produced because it is, in fact, dangerous -- it is anti-consumerism because all the feed forwards and feedbacks between pleasure and pain are checked internally. The anti-consumer knows how to say no, both to pleasures and pains. He does not run toward or away without first thinking. This state of non-attachment allows dynamic clinging to occur rather than merely static clinging. Static clinging is straightforward pursuit or avoidance of the objects of desire. Once the object of desire is attained, it is held onto until it is forced out of one's hands. Dynamic clinging needs non-attachment to operate. Because one is non-attached, one may relinquish once gained prizes, or accept as unavoidable certain pains for the greater good. The Good, as an ideal source, is dependent on non-attachment for its definition because it is the ultimate good which is quite different from provisional or utilitarian goods. The ultimate good is the source from which all provisional goods flow. The first order calculation can see provisional goods only. Second order calculation related to ideal instead of common laws can appreciate the ultimate good.
When we look at the situation set up by Plato, we see that the basic theme is artificially induced disorganization from which a new and stronger unity is forged. This is indeed a fundamental Indo-European theme. Through the sacrifice the unity of the organism is destroyed in order to create an ideal unity out of the parts. Thus, when Yamir is killed by Odin and his brothers, the world is created as a new unity. Today we view this from a technological perspective in which we destroy the patterning of raw materials to create pure materials that can be manufactured into technical unities or machines. This is a fundamental theme in our Western worldview. It is why we must destroy the other cultures we conquer; it is our imperative that we destroy in order to create new unities of our own devising. We can see no values in patterns of organization that are not our own. This is the heart of the concept of uni-verse. We can only see one order in things of value -- the order we impose. The uni-verse exists by the destruction of all the other alternative worlds within the pluriverse. The worlds of other species -- the worlds of other cultures -- even the worlds of other people within our own universe. We devalue their subjectivity and impose our intersubjective norm called objectivity. Out of the devalued and destroyed subjectivities we build the totalitarian view of the world we call Science.
If we go back to Plato's concept of puppet, we see another related point very clearly. The world of the jinn (gods) and the world of men must become disconnected for the uni-verse to begin to take form. In the mytho/poetic era men were only puppets of the gods. They were inhabited by the jinn who directed their actions by manipulating their desires. In order to sever this dependence of men on jinn for their inner direction as seen in the Iliad, men had to find a strategy which secured their freedom. This strategy is described by Plato as the drunkenness of the puppet. By introducing chaos from the side of the puppet rather than from the side of the gods, man discovers his portion of freedom. The disorganization of the puppet's behavior allows it to explore the slack in the threads and thus articulate the space of its possible independent movement -- its room to maneuver. The puppet, through this operation, finds that it does have some room in which to set its own agenda to a certain degree. It is in this slack in the tension of the cords that bind the puppet that the ideal city of laws is built. It becomes a uni-verse. The puppet becomes a unity by leaving to negotiate the ups and downs of pleasure and pain, developing shame and boldness in the right situations and learning to calculate by ideal laws instead of on a case by case basis.
Now we come back to Socrates' question to his interlocutors. "May we then assume that each of us is one person?" As in many of the dialogues, the argument is won and lost based on what basic givens are accepted at the beginning of the argument. Here Socrates gets his interlocutors to assume exactly the point he wishes to achieve, which is the unity of the puppet. If the puppet has no unity of its own, then all it is is the strands manipulated by the gods, and so there would be no possibility of constructing a universe independent of the gods in the slack in the cords of desire. But if "each of us are one person," then we are already unities based on the independence of our physical organism, and its viability so the puppet can be a source of action independent of the pull of the gods. The individual discovers this in drunkenness because by drugging his physical organism the slack in the cords are made clear. Then each person may learn to control his new unified self and gain some measure of freedom from the pull of the cords of desire by systematic ordering of resistance. The unity of the subject allows the unity of the universe to appear. They are, in fact, the same unity. The subject is a unity independent of the individual which is projected back on the concrete individual organism by the unity of the world. In fact, Michael Henry shows that subjectivity is the body. The subject is a generic unity not tied to the particularities of the human being. We are each subjects (unified puppets who are each one person). From another perspective none of us are the subject because each of us are concrete individuals pulled in many directions by our desires -- in fact, a multitude of desiring machines, as Deleuze and Guattari observe in Anti-Oedipus. These are two different simultaneous views. Although we are clearly unities as viable organisms, it is not at all clear that we are unified in our behavior. The unity of behavior has to be achieved. Plato believes it needs to be achieved by restraining fears and pleasures and by following external intersubjectively validated laws.
In this connection it is of interest that Dionysus/Shiva is a god born of Zeus and a human woman. The woman was destroyed in the union, and Dionysus was placed in Zeus' thigh to gestate. Dionysus is a strange god which connects the humans to the jinn. He is a mortal god who is destroyed by the Titans. Dionysus becomes the agent of disorder which allows the puppet to discover unitary personhood via an initial disordering. Dionysus is the interface between jinn and men which allow men to discover their own inherent freedoms within constraints. By creating frenzy, Dionysus allows the slack in the cords of desire to be explored, and this forms the foundation of the ideal or universal city. This does not say that the control of the jinn of the strings of desire are any less. It merely says that within the constraint there are certain degrees of freedom that "rational" men learn to exploit to create unities of behavior at the level of individual organism. This has depth when this behavior is directly exemplifying the Good. But even if the behavior is hollow, the rational animal (the animal with reasons for his behavior) stands as the subject within an isolated UNI-verse of his own construction above the plethora of subjugated, destroyed, or devalued and ignored pluriverse. Drunkenness is the method of disordering the organism to gain the freedom within which the artificial unity of the person is constructed. But the fine line between drunkenness and frenzy must always be observed. Dionysus is also the god of the frenzy of over intoxication and the frenzy of battle.
1The Heart of Enterprise
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