To the Editor:

Plato’s political depth is best measured by one of the many questions he didn’t inconvenience himself with: If man, by his nature, is unqualified to govern himself, then by what superior substitute for human reason does it follow that others of his species are entitled to “govern” him in his stead — and on whose worthy behalf?

The single pillar absent from each of the “-ocracies” and “-archies” on Plato’s list of inferior forms of government (including democracy) is absent also from the “ideal” form of monarchy that Plato favors over them — as if subservience to a philosopher-king were any less an instance of subservience. Missing from them all, most conspicuously from Plato’s alleged “republic,” is the concept of man’s innate, inalienable, individually held rights — the factor apart from which the necessity and the proper role of government can’t begin to be grasped or communicated. In rebuttal to all the travesties appearing on (or off) Plato’s S.-list, there is no such factor to consider as “the rights of the rich” or “the rights of the poor”; nor, most preposterous of all, “the divine right of kings” or whatever fibre of “qualification.” Every such notion is an insolent denial of the authentic rights belonging, from birth, to every human being — his right not to be murdered, plundered or enslaved, no matter who or how many would benefit (monetarily) from his subjugation.

As the present state of the world attests, not only has Plato not been much of an antidote, he has been an advance carrier of the plague for which an antidote is required. With particular regard to the world’s present state, Mr. McColgan should be congratulated for limiting himself, now, to wreathing Plato for having predicted it. The philosopher did have the mind to do himself proud there — if we allow for his dismal failure to predict (let alone sire or inspire) the birth of an actual republic in another partial age of enlightenment. Above all, however, let us concede Mr. McColgan’s new and more gingerly thesis — Plato’s relevance to what we see all around us. No doubt about that humble little matter.

Tom Anderson

Wallowa