i don't really know what you're talking about, or how any of it has anything to do with plato's republic. there is no progressivism in plato's republic. if the current american system is starting to tend towards a totalitarian impulse, that's probably a combination of a media/technology converging on the individual and subduing their better interests - with distractions, and with forms of control. passivity is what is allowing the american state to assume more power than it is granted. not plato.
totalitarianism is different from absolute monarchy in that the subjects of totalitarianism at least nominally worship that power, and bow to it. fascist regimes tend to be elected regimes. people love those who subjugate them in fascist states. under an absolute monarchy, the whole system of appointment is genetic/hereditary, or based on some myth of divine right or somesuch. in fascist states, although they aspire to mythic status very quick (viz. neoclassical architecture, pageantry, revision of history), they are not mythic. they are mass-exertions of a collective Will (q.v. schopenhauer and nazi's misguided poster-boy, nietzsche). they are cults of action, rather than political deliberation or rational thought. fascism in that regard is pretty different from a monarchy.
and, again, none of it has anything to do with plato's republic. plato was not a progressive. plato's republic didn't really have anything to do with american politics, either. you took your queues from post-enlightenment europe: from france's politics; from the thought of a western enlightenment tradition; from the ethics and theology of a protestant character. plato is a pretty long ways away from that, rationally.
keep blustering, though. your posts are paratactic and idea-rich, but seemingly low on actual reading. at long as you're impressing yourself.
i also don't see how "arming selves" is relevant at all, when the forms of control you talk about - technologized - take place in a virtual-space, with a service that everyone is consensually using (you could say addicted to). if i stockpile M16's will my internet use be more guarded?
Last edited by yoozeek (2013-06-12 11:17:24)
