BLARGistania
10-05-2006, 00:15
DISCLAIMER:
This is not a 'help my with my homework post' as it as already been turned in. This a final essay for a POL203 class at my university. The prompt given was to write a hypothetical discussion between the four mentioned above about the importance on ideals in politics. Its only about 2.5 pages, the max length of the paper. (5 pgs double spaced.) Enjoy. And Discuss.
Lets just assume, for the moment that Niccolo Machiavelli, Socrates, Michael Walzer, and Paulo Freire are all alive, well, and at the peak of their philosophical, moral, and mental heights. Lets also assume that each character involved knows historical and current events and that those happenings do not change their philosophical ideals. Lets also assume that they’re all sitting in a bookstore. Bookman’s to be precise. Why? Because Freire would never go into one of those Barnes & Nobles capitalist establishments, Walzer likes the peaceful atmosphere, Machiavelli likes the cheap books that help him get ahead in life, and Socrates doesn’t have an opinion. So there they are, gathered in-between the fiction section and the movies, discussing with each other if ideals or lack thereof are best in politics.
“What you have to understand” Machiavelli was saying “is that for a leader to be successful in politics, they must be willing to exert the necessary force to maintain their position. In this day and age, one can hardly go out on the street and kill someone who opposes you, but other forms of violence can be used, smear campaigns for instance. These acts of violence against opponents will make sure that a leader stays secure in power. Of course, ideals, when dealing with violence, just get in the way of being an effective ruler.”
“No, no, no!” Walzer cut in. “You can’t just go out and commit acts of violence for the sake of violence. It’s just not acceptable today. Maybe 300 years ago, but not now. If you run out and try and defame someone just because they don’t like you, it will backfire and you will be facing slander charges. Ideals must determine our actions, we can’t just shove them aside for the sake of being powerful. That makes us animals, not human.
“But,” said Freire, “What if those people are oppressors? Wouldn’t you do whatever was in your power in order to free yourself from their oppression?
Socrates cut in on Freire, saying “the only way you can free yourself from your oppressor is to attempt to educate yourself on the issues, trying to find the ultimate truth. Lets face it, against an entrenched power; there is not much that can be done utilizing either violence or appeasement. They only thing to really do is fight it on the personal level. Start dialogues; slowly spread the ideas you want. People may pick up on them and take them as far or further than you could alone.”
“Socrates, you have to understand that the people are lazy. Unless properly motivated from an outside source, they will not rise up on their own to fight for liberation.” Freire was responding. “The goal of any rational system is to educate the populous. But, the current system in developed countries is simply another form of oppression. Here we are, with teachers sitting lecture halls, telling others what knowledge and thinking is. Shouldn’t people come to these realizations on their own? That is the main goal of politics in my opinion. It is to let people establish ideals based off opinions and discussions gathered rather than being told facts.”
“That’s utter nonsense.” Spat Machiavelli. “Ideals have no place in governing politics. Those that subscribe to foolish ideals will be thrown down from power. Just look at history. The leaders with the highest ideals were the ones that were the most ineffectual. History tells us this fact. John F Kennedy was assassinated. The Dali Llama, while a great role model, hasn’t actually changed the political situation with any of his peace talks. If one holds ideals, then the realist contenders will overthrow you. It’s simple, if you cannot use violence, then violence will be used against you.
“Hang on,” said Walzer “Machiavelli, I don’t think you know what you’re saying. If I heard you right, you just endorsed indiscriminate violence in order to provide object lesions to a population. That’s just not morally right. Use of violence against an opposing army, against military targets, against the means of war, that is okay, but against civilians? How can you endorse that?”
“Easily.” Said Machiavelli. “You just have to understand that in war, you are already committing atrocities. You are already committing violence. You are already at an animal level. Lets be realistic here, if you could end the war as fast as possible but not in the most moralistic sense, would you? If that option meant using nuclear weapons against a target, at the price of a few thousand civilian lives, but it could end the war and save millions of other lives, would you do it? The basic question here is: are you willing to bend your political ideals to save what you have?”
“Morals are named so for a reason, Machiavelli. They don’t bend. One has to understand the ideals held in politics can’t be shaped according to the situation, otherwise, why would we even subscribe to any beliefs at all. Ideals are what we believe in, and as such, they should not change. It is wrong to attack innocents in war. That should not change. Only military targets are viable, even if it does extend the length of the war.”
“But how can you know if your morals are truly good?” asked Socrates. “We can claim that holding these ideals in politics are good things, but, how do we know them to be good. We cannot see the ultimate truth in them, therefore we cannot tell in finality if those morals are beneficial to society or not. How do we know the ultimate? For all we know, it could be that using nuclear weapons is the best thing to do. It could be that our ideals need to be changed.”
Freire looked at Walzer and Socrates. “Socrates,” he said, “I agree with you more than Walzer here. It is true that we do not know the ultimate truth of what we do, but, it seems to me that whatever we do to rid ourselves of our oppressors would be a good thing.”
Socrates looked thoughtful. “What you say can be construed as good. But what we do not know here is: what if the oppressive situation we are in is the best for us? Perhaps it is the most beneficial for humans to be oppressed, to learn from oppression and to take those ideas when we free our chains. That, I think is in the end the best good. We must be able to have our ideals to guide us in our politics. Maybe not to completely define how we act, but they must be there nonetheless for questions and guidance in how to conduct our actions.”
Freire nodded his head. “I see what you are saying, except we must always be fighting against the system of oppression, especially that of classroom education. The classroom teaches people to be drones to the instructor. Instead, there should be active debate and formulation of ideals through debate, that way, the oppressed can be fighting off their oppression at the same time as gathering their own ideals for when they are free.”
Machiavelli looked over at Freire. “You are a simple person. Once the oppressed become free, they oppress even more than the ones they overthrew. Look at Soviet Russia just after the Bolshevik revolution. Plus, how can we get from oppressed to free? Ideals should be there, sure, but only as marginal guides. You must be willing to exert all available resources to stay in power, or else someone more willing to bend their ideals will remove you from power. The final belief I have for ideals in the political realm is this: they must be there, but only to prevent excess. They cannot get in the way of any rational goal that a leader must set for his or her own survival.”
Walzer was the last to speak. “I too believe, as Machiavelli does, but in a different sense. I think there must be ideals in the political realm; I believe that they are necessary for societies to survive, and necessary to society to retain its humanity. Where I disagree with Machiavelli is in regards to the idea that the ideals we hold should only be guidelines. I believe that they should determine our course of action. Violence, used in defense is acceptable. Violence raised in aggression is not. Our ideals must tell us this and protect our humanity from being lost to the beast-like nature of our most basic selves.”
Bookman’s rang the closing bell. The four got up from their seat, each with an understanding of where the other stood in respects to ideals in politics. Machiavelli, the realist saying that ideals should only be there to prevent excess, not determine how we do our politics, Walzer, saying that ideals must determine how we go about politics. Freire, stating that ideals must be formed through discussion in order to be valid in politics, rather than given by an oppressor, and Socrates stating that we can never know the nature of our ideals, so why do we argue over their relative good? The four went out the doors and went their separate ways, back to their normal lives.
This is not a 'help my with my homework post' as it as already been turned in. This a final essay for a POL203 class at my university. The prompt given was to write a hypothetical discussion between the four mentioned above about the importance on ideals in politics. Its only about 2.5 pages, the max length of the paper. (5 pgs double spaced.) Enjoy. And Discuss.
Lets just assume, for the moment that Niccolo Machiavelli, Socrates, Michael Walzer, and Paulo Freire are all alive, well, and at the peak of their philosophical, moral, and mental heights. Lets also assume that each character involved knows historical and current events and that those happenings do not change their philosophical ideals. Lets also assume that they’re all sitting in a bookstore. Bookman’s to be precise. Why? Because Freire would never go into one of those Barnes & Nobles capitalist establishments, Walzer likes the peaceful atmosphere, Machiavelli likes the cheap books that help him get ahead in life, and Socrates doesn’t have an opinion. So there they are, gathered in-between the fiction section and the movies, discussing with each other if ideals or lack thereof are best in politics.
“What you have to understand” Machiavelli was saying “is that for a leader to be successful in politics, they must be willing to exert the necessary force to maintain their position. In this day and age, one can hardly go out on the street and kill someone who opposes you, but other forms of violence can be used, smear campaigns for instance. These acts of violence against opponents will make sure that a leader stays secure in power. Of course, ideals, when dealing with violence, just get in the way of being an effective ruler.”
“No, no, no!” Walzer cut in. “You can’t just go out and commit acts of violence for the sake of violence. It’s just not acceptable today. Maybe 300 years ago, but not now. If you run out and try and defame someone just because they don’t like you, it will backfire and you will be facing slander charges. Ideals must determine our actions, we can’t just shove them aside for the sake of being powerful. That makes us animals, not human.
“But,” said Freire, “What if those people are oppressors? Wouldn’t you do whatever was in your power in order to free yourself from their oppression?
Socrates cut in on Freire, saying “the only way you can free yourself from your oppressor is to attempt to educate yourself on the issues, trying to find the ultimate truth. Lets face it, against an entrenched power; there is not much that can be done utilizing either violence or appeasement. They only thing to really do is fight it on the personal level. Start dialogues; slowly spread the ideas you want. People may pick up on them and take them as far or further than you could alone.”
“Socrates, you have to understand that the people are lazy. Unless properly motivated from an outside source, they will not rise up on their own to fight for liberation.” Freire was responding. “The goal of any rational system is to educate the populous. But, the current system in developed countries is simply another form of oppression. Here we are, with teachers sitting lecture halls, telling others what knowledge and thinking is. Shouldn’t people come to these realizations on their own? That is the main goal of politics in my opinion. It is to let people establish ideals based off opinions and discussions gathered rather than being told facts.”
“That’s utter nonsense.” Spat Machiavelli. “Ideals have no place in governing politics. Those that subscribe to foolish ideals will be thrown down from power. Just look at history. The leaders with the highest ideals were the ones that were the most ineffectual. History tells us this fact. John F Kennedy was assassinated. The Dali Llama, while a great role model, hasn’t actually changed the political situation with any of his peace talks. If one holds ideals, then the realist contenders will overthrow you. It’s simple, if you cannot use violence, then violence will be used against you.
“Hang on,” said Walzer “Machiavelli, I don’t think you know what you’re saying. If I heard you right, you just endorsed indiscriminate violence in order to provide object lesions to a population. That’s just not morally right. Use of violence against an opposing army, against military targets, against the means of war, that is okay, but against civilians? How can you endorse that?”
“Easily.” Said Machiavelli. “You just have to understand that in war, you are already committing atrocities. You are already committing violence. You are already at an animal level. Lets be realistic here, if you could end the war as fast as possible but not in the most moralistic sense, would you? If that option meant using nuclear weapons against a target, at the price of a few thousand civilian lives, but it could end the war and save millions of other lives, would you do it? The basic question here is: are you willing to bend your political ideals to save what you have?”
“Morals are named so for a reason, Machiavelli. They don’t bend. One has to understand the ideals held in politics can’t be shaped according to the situation, otherwise, why would we even subscribe to any beliefs at all. Ideals are what we believe in, and as such, they should not change. It is wrong to attack innocents in war. That should not change. Only military targets are viable, even if it does extend the length of the war.”
“But how can you know if your morals are truly good?” asked Socrates. “We can claim that holding these ideals in politics are good things, but, how do we know them to be good. We cannot see the ultimate truth in them, therefore we cannot tell in finality if those morals are beneficial to society or not. How do we know the ultimate? For all we know, it could be that using nuclear weapons is the best thing to do. It could be that our ideals need to be changed.”
Freire looked at Walzer and Socrates. “Socrates,” he said, “I agree with you more than Walzer here. It is true that we do not know the ultimate truth of what we do, but, it seems to me that whatever we do to rid ourselves of our oppressors would be a good thing.”
Socrates looked thoughtful. “What you say can be construed as good. But what we do not know here is: what if the oppressive situation we are in is the best for us? Perhaps it is the most beneficial for humans to be oppressed, to learn from oppression and to take those ideas when we free our chains. That, I think is in the end the best good. We must be able to have our ideals to guide us in our politics. Maybe not to completely define how we act, but they must be there nonetheless for questions and guidance in how to conduct our actions.”
Freire nodded his head. “I see what you are saying, except we must always be fighting against the system of oppression, especially that of classroom education. The classroom teaches people to be drones to the instructor. Instead, there should be active debate and formulation of ideals through debate, that way, the oppressed can be fighting off their oppression at the same time as gathering their own ideals for when they are free.”
Machiavelli looked over at Freire. “You are a simple person. Once the oppressed become free, they oppress even more than the ones they overthrew. Look at Soviet Russia just after the Bolshevik revolution. Plus, how can we get from oppressed to free? Ideals should be there, sure, but only as marginal guides. You must be willing to exert all available resources to stay in power, or else someone more willing to bend their ideals will remove you from power. The final belief I have for ideals in the political realm is this: they must be there, but only to prevent excess. They cannot get in the way of any rational goal that a leader must set for his or her own survival.”
Walzer was the last to speak. “I too believe, as Machiavelli does, but in a different sense. I think there must be ideals in the political realm; I believe that they are necessary for societies to survive, and necessary to society to retain its humanity. Where I disagree with Machiavelli is in regards to the idea that the ideals we hold should only be guidelines. I believe that they should determine our course of action. Violence, used in defense is acceptable. Violence raised in aggression is not. Our ideals must tell us this and protect our humanity from being lost to the beast-like nature of our most basic selves.”
Bookman’s rang the closing bell. The four got up from their seat, each with an understanding of where the other stood in respects to ideals in politics. Machiavelli, the realist saying that ideals should only be there to prevent excess, not determine how we do our politics, Walzer, saying that ideals must determine how we go about politics. Freire, stating that ideals must be formed through discussion in order to be valid in politics, rather than given by an oppressor, and Socrates stating that we can never know the nature of our ideals, so why do we argue over their relative good? The four went out the doors and went their separate ways, back to their normal lives.