A Work of Nonfiction
How Do We Assure Everyone Is Persuadable Without Totalitarianism?
Like the questions of “How does anyone leave Plato’s Cave on their own?” and “How might people be Children?” another question arises that gets at the same problem but from a different angle, and it arises at the very start of The Republic, as was brought to my attention by Justin Murphy. I’ve had the pleasure of being part of the Other Life community since 2019, and Mr. Murphy began organizing regular readings of the Great Books in 2023, which I’ve enjoyed immensely. On October 9th, 2023, we discussed Plato’s Republic, and Mr. Murphy drew attention to the fascinating start of the book where Socrates and Glaucon are ‘[going] down to the Piraeus […] with Glaucon […] to pray to the goddess.’¹²
Suddenly the slave boy of Polemarchus grabs the cloak of Socrates and orders him to wait for Polemarchus; they do and Polemarchus acknowledges that Socrates and Glaucon are in a hurry ‘to get away to town,’ but then basically says that they have no choice but to stay because Polemarchus and his men are stronger than them (‘either prove stronger than these men or stay here’).¹³ It’s a strange way to start The Republic, and I think Mr. Murphy is right to draw attention to it, for it might be a way to frame everything that follows. Socrates replies to Polemarchus that there might be ‘one other possibility […] our persuading you that you must let us go.’¹⁴ And Polemarchus replies with an answer that might help us understand Plato’s whole Republic:
‘Could you really persuade […] if we don’t listen?’¹⁵
This is a staggering reply, for it suggests that all of philosophy is helpless if we don’t care. And this logic applies just as well to democracy, reasoning, and conversation in general, suggesting how powerless ideas and philosophy ultimately are (while at the same time seeming incredibly powerful, considering the warnings of Thomas Sowell and Paul Johnson on “The Intellectual Class”). Glaucon acknowledges that they are helpless if Polemarchus won’t listen, and Polemarchus tells them to ‘think it over, bearing in mind we won’t listen,’ as if he is presenting the ultimate, undefeatable argument.¹⁶ But what’s there to think? Philosophy is powerless. End of story.
But then quickly Adeimantus brings up how ‘at sunset there will be a torch race on horseback for the goddess’ and makes it seem like Socrates and Glaucon are being given a great invitation, for which they accept.¹⁷ Gratefully? That’s left ambiguous, but what is the point of this starting episode if ultimately Socrates and Glaucon are going to so quickly move on? I think it’s to immediately highlight that philosophy is weak, which we should keep in mind if we see in The Republic a totalitarian regime, as suggested by Karl Popper. Indeed, there is an argument to be made that Plato offers a nightmare, but what if instead Plato is helping us think through something difficult, mainly “What can we do if people refuse to be persuadable?” Well, nothing, so we find ourselves faced with a question that The Republic might exist to address:
“How do we make sure that people are always persuadable?”
The world today seems filled with illiberalism that cannot be reasoned with, people who are certain they are right, and so there is nothing to discuss. Belonging Again (Part I) discussed regularly the trouble with “the banality of evil” and “closed mindedness,” as it also discussed the trouble with those who are “rebelling against the system” in the name of justice, freedom, etc. Once people become like this, what can philosophy do? Nothing, perhaps — the Owl of Minerva can fly off. Indeed, looking around, what can philosophy say? It often feels like it can’t do anything, and perhaps what Plato is suggesting is that once the world becomes unreasonable and illiberal, it’s too late. The game is over. If that’s true though, can we really so quickly condemn the “totalitarianism” of The Republic? Perhaps the issue is just that Plato takes the problem more seriously than us, more of a realist…
Once a people become unpersuadable and closed to philosophical inquiry, we seem doomed. Can we really say that Plato is oppressive to work to create a Republic where it’s impossible for people to become unpersuadable? Would justice have us do things any other way, given that it seems to be “too late” once people become unpersuadable? Westerners may speak of freedom and wanting to defend it, but are we so sure of freedom if it means people use it to become Fascists, radicals, terrorists…? We might continue to verbally support freedom when directly asked, but bit by bit we might start supporting the removal of a little freedom here, a little freedom there, and step by step we might approach Plato’s vision in the name of justice. And please note this isn’t necessarily bad; after all, as Belonging Again (Part I) discusses, it is precisely in the name of values and justice that we can work against the conditions that make “belonging” and society possible. How else should we act? This suggests “The Value Circle” and “The Conflict of Society,” central notions that pointed out “the essential incompleteness of society” (Gödel-esq), and perhaps what we see in Plato is an effort to create a society which isn’t “essentially incomplete” — unfortunately, that seems to require force and totalitarianism, and furthermore Plato doesn’t seem to have a good answer for “how someone might leave Plato’s Cave on their own.” But are we any better? At this point in history, I don’t think so, a realization that we could call “Plato’s Challenge” that, in a way, all of Belonging Again is dedicated to addressing.
Philosophy can be about anything and anybody, so if there is a way to make “everyone persuadable” — which is to make it so that there is always hope for discussion, democracy, conversation — philosophy is likely a good candidate (though at the same time philosophy can cause a mass spreading of “autonomous rationality,” which is self-effacing, exactly as Samuel Barnes warns in The Iconoclast, but after the loss of “givens,” we’re all philosophical now — the risk cannot be avoided). Furthermore, Plato tells us that philosophy is not about being a ‘lover[] of opinion [but someone] who delight[s] in each thing that is itself,’ and a corollary to being a philosopher would seem to be that a person is persuadable, for how else could we move from opinion to “what things actually are” if not through persuadability?¹⁸ It’s unclear to me if Plato himself hopes to “spread philosophy to the masses,” though it’s clear that at least the best philosophers are rare for him and should be rulers and kings. Regardless Plato’s thoughts though, we might inquire into that possibility ourselves, for it will be for us to consider if we might “spread Childhood.”
The Republic could be approached to help us inquire into the conditions which would make everyone in a society philosophical enough to be changed. If the vision of Plato is totalitarian, it might be totalitarian precisely to prevent the unstoppable power of “refusing to listen” from being employed by the citizenship. Plato might be trying to stop an unstoppable force with an unmovable object, an effort that might not seem so forceful and oppressive if we see it as a way to stop people from ever becoming “unpersuadable,” a point at which only force seems like it could change people (a failure which we might be suffering ourselves, this very day, hence why what Daniel Schmachtenberger calls “The Meta-Crisis” is such an issue).
Plato starts off The Republic with the Socrates who “knows he knows nothing” also proving himself to be incredibly weak (a Philosopher King might be a Weak King, perhaps even Christlike — “the love of wisdom/weakness” — unless alternatively a “Philosophical and Dictatorial Suffering Servant,” as described with David Hume in The Absolute Choice, which is perhaps our only “hope” where a people aren’t persuadable). We could say that one of the great accomplishments of the Modern World is that we have generally made people “forget” how weak ideas actually are, for we have been so cultured and “civilized” that this doesn’t even occur to us (though perhaps today that is through “disablement,” as Illich describes, which poses a problem). But this means we never addressed “the weakness of ideas,” only stopped thinking about it, while at the same time convincing ourselves that we figured out how to “make ideas strong” (through schooling, education, college…) — very similar to how we never figured out “how to leave Plato’s Cave on our own,” only convinced ourselves we did. If as Plato and Socrates suggest that ultimately the choice is between “persuasion” or “force,” this means we have left unaddressed a weak point in our Modern World that “force” could find and break back in through, causing great horror (“The Meta-Crisis”). If force does so, what could we do? Persuade it to stop? But it’s not persuadable (as aren’t we). Polemarchus smiles. (Land waits.)
How do we empower “weak ideas” against force without closed-mindedness (in a world where people problematically associate “making our ideas strong” with “becoming unpersuadable,” threatening Pluralism)? With education? Yes, but a very particular kind of education, mainly one that makes people persuadable (“enabled” vs “disabled”). Critically, “a persuadable society” is not the same as “a persuading society” or even necessarily “a society of persuasion” — there are distinctions here that need to be maintained, especially in a world where “persuasion” and “manipulation” are emotionally and mentally conflated (a huge problem). “A Persuadable Society,” meaning a society that is “able to be persuaded” (which is to say “has that ability” and “entails those conditions of possibility”) is qualitatively different than a society that doesn’t have this ability, which means it will also have different kinds of subjects, ways of living, etc. (A/B — a phrase which must suggest “persuade-ability,” perhaps the deepest “philosophical-ability). “A Persuadable Society” is an “Open Society” (to allude to Karl Popper), and where there are no “openings,” there is no possibility of a River-Hole (as we’ll explain). However, by “Open Society” here, we mean something different and deeper than merely a society where people can express their differences freely (though that’s necessary); rather, we mean a society where it’s possible for people to be changed by “A Movement of Reason” (not stuck in “Understanding”) (Popper was no fan of Hegel, hurting him).
“Persuade-ability” is “the condition of possibility” for Reason. It is the possibility of an experience of thought working and moving outside ourselves that we are invited to join (“a communal act,” suggesting hope). We oddly live in a world that stresses education and claims, “Ideas matter,” while not creating “the conditions of persuade-ability” (without which perhaps no other “conditions of possibility” are possible — without violence, at least). In fact, “persuasion” can be reviled, and we are told we should “stand for what we believe” (we fail to realize “flexibility can be a strength,” as can be humility). But “persuade-ability” is something we must be able to do if we are to avoid “force” and violence (suggesting why it is also dangerous to treat words as “the same kind of violence” as a gunshot), and ultimately “persuade-ability” is a skill possible in and through the work of Hegel and psychoanalysis like what we see in Lacan (if we become “persuadable” but cannot stay such because of “The Real,” we are still at great risk). This will require Voicecraft and Wordspread, an education not of “trivia” but of (psychoanalytical) “persuade-ability,” without which “the condition of the possibility” for “the movability of Reason” will not be possible at scale, for we will prove incapable of “freeing speech.” We must manage “The Real.” “A Thousand Weils.”
But wait, didn’t we say with Nietzsche and “Bestow Centrism” that most people are “bestowed” their values and ideas from something external to them? Doesn’t that suggest the world is extremely persuadable? An excellent point, and I should note that the radical similarity of “bestowing” and “persuading” is one of the reasons why “Bestow Centrism” is so problematic (the hardest problems tend to be those isomorphic to an address). “Bestowing” is generally more “thoughtless” and tends to reify the “good and evil”-dichotomy of Nietzsche, while persuade-ability (as an ability) is active and leads to a choice of value (“noble versus contemptable”); in “bestowing,” I receive, recite, replicate, etc., withholding active judgment, while in “persuade-ability” I still receive and “take in,” but ultimately I have to make a decision on what I receive and what I am told. “Bestowing” mimics, while proving oneself “persuadable” means we can hold ourselves as a space of “dwelling” and “gathering,” suspending judgment versus just automatically assenting to or discrediting what we experience externally. In “bestowing” there is little “practical difference” between us and the outer world, while in “persuade-ability” I prove able to “suspend” the outer world and capable of making myself a “clearing” to hold multiple possibilities (with all the tension and anxiety such brings) until it is time for me to make a judgment and decision (which cannot happen well if I cannot “hold” the options in and with myself for long).
In “Bestow Centrism,” we can come to think we don’t need to be such a “clearing,” for we can be habituated to think that if we need to know something we would have been told it, and furthermore we wouldn’t have been told what we were if it wasn’t something we should believe. Alternatively, to be persuadable is to work against (autonomous) “bestowing” in favor of “becoming,” for we seemingly can only “become” if we have been enabled with “persuade-ability.” Otherwise, we cannot develop, and please note that “persuade-ability” is not exclusively a matter between people, because life itself can prove persuading, inspiring, or the like. “Persuade-ability” and “openness” are profoundly connected, and where education “bestows” versus enables us with “persuade-ability,” we can paradoxically end up less persuadable and more “closed” (even if education regularly claims that it is about “opening our minds,” etc.). We are perhaps even likely under these conditions to conflate “willingness to learn” with “willingness to be persuaded,” and yet “teachability” is not necessarily “persuade-ability” because we might only be teachable within our ideology and worldview (“our persuasion,” per se). Just because we are “willing to learn new things” and “be given or take a position on something” doesn’t necessarily mean we are willing to suspend, adapt, change, or expand a (preexisting) position (mounting a ladder, hovering motionlessly on one, or collecting ladder rungs, alluding to Schopenhauer, are not the same as climbing a ladder, switching ladders, or moving the ladder to lean against a different building).
If we’re afraid of moving, we cannot climb; if we’re incapable of “changing positions,” we might be incapable of “developing positions,” and can such “positions” live? “Taking a position,” “changing a position,” and “developing a position” have all been conflated today, which can make us think we are “persuadable” when we are only “teachable,” which is like how we can think we are “free” when we are only “draggable.” We can think of ourselves as free when we are yet to be or when we only might be, and that “might” leaves wide an opening for “force.” But do we have any idea how we might “scale the conditions of possibility for persuade-ability,” for “the majority to leave the Cave without being dragged?” Directly at least, Plato might not be able to help us think through this problem, the conditions in which people might, on their own, choose to “leave the Cave,” which would require “persuade-ability” (by others or oneself to oneself). That “meta-architecture” is our goal, and those would be the conditions that would help assure “everyone is persuadable” without being totalitarian — which are also the conditions by which we can “spread Childhood.” Plato can then be seen as presenting us with a challenge, and though we might critique him for being oppressive, he might gaze back at us with Socrates and ask, “Is your way really better?” As of 2023, can we really respond with as strong, “Yes?”
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Notes
¹²Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 3.
¹³Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 3.
¹⁴Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 4.
¹⁵Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 4.
¹⁶Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 4.
¹⁷Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 4.
¹⁸Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato (Second Edition). Basic Books, 1968: 161.
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