From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 09:21:04 MDT
Damien B. writes
> >But I do *not* credit that lying is a part of Neo-con, or even
> >Nazi philosophy. I simply have never heard of any ideology
> >that cynical.
>
> You've never read Plato, then, on the topic?
OF COURSE! Thanks. That did not occur to me.
> I assume this is what Pfaff or
> Strauss was referring to: in THE REPUBLIC, he famously asked whether `we
> could contrive some magnificent myth that would carry conviction to our
> whole community' - a lie that might serve the greater truth of community.
> As I recall, this was one of Popper's reasons for despising Plato. It's a
> proposition entertainingly and scathingly examined in Vonnegut's fable
> CAT'S CRADLE.
Well, that I *didn't* know. CAT'S CRADLE executes the Big Lie? As I
recall, the great scientist ("any scientist who cannot explain what he
is doing to an eight-year old is a charlatan") creates ice-nine, and
there is a lot of anti-science propaganda woven into the story, but I
don't recall anything about "soma" (those little lies that are necessary
in life) being done in emulation of Plato. But it's been almost 35 years.
Lee
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