Long ago someone very intelligent wrote a series of stories we know as The Republic. The author, Plato, was one of the greatest thinkers of all time. In addition to being a great thinker, he had a profound understanding of both human nature and psychology. His works pointed out several things which are extremely relevant to what is going on today, every day, though you probably don't realize it.
The first thing I wish to point out is that a great majority of people never heard of Plato's works. If they heard of them, they have never studied them. Plato was a believer in a social intelligence. We learn and progress by dialogue. Dialogue can only be progressive when both parties are both honest, and more importantly represented. I'm not sure how significant you find the previous sentence yet, the goal of this work is to show you just how relevant it is.
Plato not only believed that knowledge was important, but that it should be free for everyone. As a community, we can all use knowledge to learn increasingly more complex information. The origins of the internet show just how powerful everyone can become when knowledge is made available. Technology since the computer age has been increasing exponentially. Yet while our technology has increased, we have seen a break down in community and overall knowledge. Ideas are now patented to those that have enough power. Yes, I stated that correctly. Against our founding constitution, a person in power can not only control the flow if information, but also make it their property.
Law is eroding in the United States as fast as the technology has been changing. Something else must be happening which is causing this, so we need to look a bit further.
The first thing you must do is begin to ask yourself if what I said above rings true. Is law really breaking down?
Before I answer that question, it's important to answer all of the critics that come out of the wood work to point out what was wrong when we were founded. Slavery for example was legal in the US, yet the founding documents state explicitly that all men are created equally. Was this hypocrisy?
The answer is easier than you might think. The US at the time was the most progressive form of Government ever devised. The goals were established with a set of crucial thoughts. History taught us that absolute power corrupts absolutely. For this reason, the US was broken down in to many separate functions of Government, each with a vote. This was to prevent the President from being the dictator, or a Noble class from taking over Congress and having absolute power.
The founders saw what happened in France with their bloody revolution. Religion played a big part in what was going wrong in France to begin with, as well as added fuel to a very bloody fire as the revolution continued. Religious persecution was not limited to France either, world wide there was a political struggle to conform to a specific Religion or perish. For this reason, the founders went an extra step which at the time was not heard of. Religious freedom, in a time where the social normal was genocide for people of a different faith was shocking to most people.
The founders saw everything that was going on, how greed was the driving factor in expansion and not increasing human nature and awareness. They were able to gather a large number of brilliant minds and not only look to see what others had done wrong, but form a Country in such a way where it would be difficult to repeat those same errors. They also knew something you probably don't, which is that Plato had it right all along. If you have doubts, ask yourself why we were founded as a Republic.
