dialog

p a n d e m o n i u m

Philosophical Dialogues XXXVI
EXISTENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE VI

(Coseino explains that severe global fascist events will occur very soon, especially the introduction of Truth Commissions, of Un-American Activities Tribunals, of Infowarfare and Ministries of Love, hence urgently the Philosophy Seminar has to be suspended, until further notice. After heavy protests, and the launching of an Invisible, Invulnerable and Invincible Emergency Plan,
the final discussion period commences.)

Coseino: If I remember correctly, at the end of our previous class, we had agreed, inter alia, to illuminate the following issues:

What happened to the majority of the cosmic "senses" of homo sapiens sapiens? Did labour devour them all? Can the "mind" still "see" beyond general labour "reality"? Can it still interpenetrate other spheres? Could it be that all the Salvation Armies of Gods, Devils and Angels have already totally destroyed our emancipatory cosmic-ontic-transcendental relations?

As explained before, today is the final class for this academic year, hence let us focus on Education in general. Hence, we are terminating the discussion on Essence and Existence. Next time, we will continue with the huge problems encompassing Wisdom, Transcendence and Emancipation.

Over two millennia, European educational systems were based on Platonic "Republican" ideas. Of course, nowadays, many of us would declare Plato or Maquiavelli to be "obsolete"; others would even favour another form of idealism, for example, that of Aristotelianism. Nonetheless, beyond doubt, Plato's philosophy was not accidental, was nothing personal, was not the outgrowth of a "mentally challenged" mind, e contrario, his views were logical intellectual products and veracious reflections of the superstructure of labour, expressing the original, primitive accumulation of capital. His ideas on education, on the polity, on republicanism, on racial ideology, were fundamental for the future construction of a "Global State". Let's pay Plato a cordial visit today! And you will notice the "actuality" of Plato.

Patricia: Does this imply, that basically we still "sense", that we still "think" the way Plato perceived and thought about the world? That, in general terms, we were educated and indoctrinated by a system that used, and is still using, his philosophic, idealist principles?

Coseino: Cum grano salis, mutatis mutandis, yes! A modern version of Platonic, idealist education has messed up our minds, has destroyed certain sense perceptions, has de-programmed certain thought processes. I'm sure that all of you have read the "classic" used around the globe in all academic classes of Philosophy and Political Science: Plato's Republic, more precise, his Politeia. Well, in spherical harmony, in cosmic tune with today's topic, let's scrutinize some of the passages, that appear in Part Three, Book Two: Education, The First Stage. At the same time, -- using the Platonic method of anamnesis, of recollection, -- please, remember your primary and secondary education, and afterwards tell us, whether perhaps somewhere a familiar bell was ringing, or, that somewhere something was sounding very well acquainted, something that definitely has happened during your very own arduous process of education. Mahatma, I see that you are studying the respective book already, what do you notice?

Mahatma: Holy Cow! The first sentence that I just read, already reminds me of my primary education: "... we must start to educate the mind before training the body. ... And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender ... any impression which we choose to make leaves a permanent mark." Well, I am permanently scarred with the "impressions" that my "teachers" had chosen to make on my "young and tender" mind.

Patricia: The best is yet to come. No parent, no teacher, should allow that their children receive education from any Professor Coseino who nurtures "opposite opinions". I quote: " ... our first business is to supervise the production of stories, and choose only those we think suitable, and reject the rest. We shall persuade mothers and nurses to tell our chosen stories to their children, and by means of them to mould their minds and characters which are more important than their bodies."

Yes, it is true. In education, from the very dawn of labour, of "civilization", indoctrination, manipulation, censorship, a slave mentality had been on the order of the day. Hitler, Apartheid, Big Brother, Newspeak, religious "stories", fairy tales, legends, all belong to the intrinsic characteristics of all educational systems based in the labour process, in exploitative production.

Albert: That's true. That is why I preferred to educate myself. Speaking about "legends", listen to this: "We can take some of the major legends as typical. For all, whether major or minor, should be cast in the same mould and have the same effect."

Mary: Oh! My Ghost!! Here Great Gods, Great Heroes, make History! Listen:
"The worst fault possible ... Misrepresenting the nature of gods and heroes, like a portrait painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to their originals. ... That is a fault which certainly deserves censure."

Joseph: Now I know why our great leaders are supposedly so peace-loving, so against wars, conspiracy, against any form of terrorism. Also, now I realize why the real truth about them, that is, what they really do, what they really think, why this truth will never be known. At least not to the billions of common folks, to the "well-educated" ones:
"Not can we permit stories of wars and battles and plots among the gods; they are quite untrue, ... It will be for the rulers of our city, then, if anyone, to use falsehood in dealing with citizen or enemy for the good of the State; no one else must do so. ... And so if anyone else is found in our State telling lies, ... he will be punished for introducing a practice likely to capsize and wreck the Ship of State."

Indira: By the way, as far as this "Ship of State" and its "Guardians", the army, spies, intelligence agents, saboteurs and death squads are concerned, of great interest is the machismo practised, the pejorative attitude toward women -- which basically did not change much across the ages: "'Since then we care for our Guardians, and want them to be men of worth,' I said, 'we will not allow them to take the parts of women, young or old (for they are men), nor to represent them abusing their husbands or quarrelling ... Far less can we permit representation of women in sickness or love or child-birth.' ..."

Coseino: That was all mental education. What now about "physical education", about cosmic education, which is related to sensual perception, to natural acts, to Praxis, to Science? How is the young body being trained, being programmed for physical labour, to guard, to defend Labour?

Martina: Firstly, according to Plato, in the view of Socrates: " ... physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character; ..."; of course, if we replace "good" with "excellent", then we could agree. Nonetheless, as a general rule, most of our physically overtrained Olympic athletes do not quite possess such "a good mind and character".

Jeanette: Yes, everything comes from the summum bonum, from the "Highest Good", from the "Idea of the Idea"; it, the "excellence of mind and character, will make the best of the physique it is given." After all, "soma sema", the mortal, physical body is the tomb of the immortal, spiritual mind. Don't all Christians and religious folk think like that? Doesn't our current cyber-hyper education still tell us so? The truth of the matter is, that physical education, physical training, physical labour, are all the tombstones of the mind, of thinking and thought.

Martina: I fully agree with you. All of them have a certain attitude, certain actions toward the physis, toward Cosmos, toward Nature. They abhor natural things, they cultivate and nurture physical exploitation and domination.

Jeanette: Surely, in Plato's "Leviathan", the military, the army, the "Guardians" have especially to be trained in a staunch, stern physical manner. No whisky for them, because drunkenness is forbidden; he is "the last person in the world to get drunk".

Probably, the military, the CIA-, FBI-, and NATO-athletes will soon be "the last persons on the globe to smoke"! Soon satellites will track all smokers that puff under-ground or in the Sahara Desert; and they will immediately mete out the death sentence. On the other hand, tons and tons of pills and drugs, vaccinated and cloned bananas, Prozac tomatoes, Mad Cow Lean Texan Beef Steaks, will be on the global market, and everybody could devour as much as (s)he could take. The forces of labour could then do military and physical exercises in New Zealand, Argentina and Chile, and could enjoy the ultra-violet ozone layer, and the still free polluted air, or what has remained of it. Everything will be deforested, and not a single tree will remain to give some cosmic shade or to produce a little fresh, natural oxygen. A glass of cloned water, swimming in fluor and chlorine, would wet their scorched skins, throats and lungs. The Congo basin would be dry and the temperatures would fry any normal physical pack-animal, yet the military would have to restore "peace and order" among the rival clans in the African "Oceania".

Mahatma: Yes, all that in the service of "humanity", of health, of a healthy body and a healthy soul!

Coseino: Actually, Plato predicted all these. The future global UN "Peace Corps" will be "as wakeful as watch-dogs"; genetically, they will be so cloned that "their sight and hearing will be of the keenest". And, referring to what Jeanette said before, the health of these "blue helmets" "must not be too delicate to endure the many changes in the water they drink and in the rest of their diet and the varieties of temperature that campaigning entails".

Mahatma: I better start reading my Plato and Maquiavelli again, but not from the point of view that my brilliant "education" taught me. They really still called a spade a spade; a bum a bum! These "labour thinkers" were really "trans-patrian", challenging their own "time" and "space" parameters.

Coseino: Yes, they could teach us transhistoricness, how to surpass the labour "space" and "time" mind barriers. They were really "space and time challenged".

Alfred: Of greater significance is the other Platonic "prophecy", why men have to be well-trained physically, for what purpose.

Alfred: D'accord. Here, Plato let Schrödinger’s Cat out of the Pandora Box: We need a "physical training that is simple and flexible, particularly in its training for war."

Coseino: But, it's an ill wind that blows nobody "good"! Here is some Platonic advice for some of my students, for the "sick society" in general:
"... it makes any kind of study or thought ... difficult, if you are always wondering if you've got a headache or are feeling giddy, and blaming your philosophical studies for it, you will always be prevented from exercising and proving your talents. You'll always think that you are ill, and never stop worrying about your health."

Karl: And here comes a typical Platonic explanation why we have "civilized people" and "barbarians", "Europeans" and "Non-Europeans", "Whites" and "Blacks":

"'Have you noticed', I asked, 'how a lifelong devotion to physical exercise, to the exclusion of anything else, produces a certain type of mind? Just as the neglect of it produces another type? ... One type tends to be uncivilized and tough, the other soft and over-sensitive, ....'"

Coseino: Agreed, Karl. To finalize this academic sojourn in Plato's Republic, let me quote his advice for the future education of physical and intellectual labourers:

"And so we may venture to assert that anyone who could produce the perfect blend
of the physical and intellectual sides of education and apply them to the training of character, is producing music and harmony of far more importance than any mere musician tuning strings."

Dear Students, that's all for now. Next week, we will meet Wayú, on Jayú
-- where we'll discuss Transcendence, Wisdom and Emancipation.

(Coseino ponders: I'm a friend of Plato, I'm a friend of Aristotle,
but the Truth I love more! And, if this is the food of music, then let us play on!!)