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4 comments:
MACIts a state of mind
the use of "dial up noise" is phenominal
glitch mob could take a page from their book
The Consumer Electronic Show
Plato’s Republic elucidates the battle between philosopher and state. In Book I, Socrates finds himself forced into speaking with Polemarchus and his father Cephalus because of their rank in society, but he quickly gains control of the dialogue and thus the entire situation. This task is not easy, or necessarily safe, but Socrates is successful because at the end of their discussion, young Polemarchus modifies his definition of justice. Justice, then, is at the center of the philosopher’s work because the continued arguing for a more complex understanding of it may be as important for society as annual rainfall is for crops to grow.
The human mind could be seen as the operating system (software) on which the body (hardware) runs on. Those who run on Macintosh software are seemingly the just people. Macs are rarer, more expensive, more aesthetically pleasing. They come with a lot of files to help their users create beautiful things and are manufactured in sunny, colorful San Francisco.
Those who are all running on Windows and supporting Bill Gates in his monopolization of the computing industry are the seemingly unjust. The business tycoons who are buying Windows machines by the thousands from their friend who makes them in Indonesia, carrying with them only the necessary files to do business.
Cephalus just got a cute iMac for Christmas (although this was before Christ). His inheritance has paid his debts. His favorite poetry has warmed his heart. His sacrifices will hopefully save his soul. He is happy and believes justice is just a matter of character.
Polemarchus just bought a case of Dells for his small business. He argues justice is useful only in money matters. He thinks Bill Gates is a friend worth helping. He wants to give the people below him computers to make them more powerful, but never more powerful than himself.
By the grace of God, however, Socrates found the world’s first iPhone lying in the gutter while strolling around the streets of Athens. While Cephalus and Polemarchus’s machines sit at home, Socrates has 8 gigabytes of information, from books to journals to music to movies, all in the palm of his hand. And nonetheless, he is never unconnected from the World Wide Web.
Cephalus turns on his machine, looks through the same files he’s had his entire life, remembers that he’s happy, turns the machine off and goes to sleep. Polemarchus, too, turns on his machine, looks through the same files, remembers that he’s powerful, and turns off the machine and goes to sleep. But Socrates is always connected. He’s always searching, and thus he’s always finding.
Whether it is beautiful and extravagant or utilitarian and simple, justice, as Plato and Socrates show, cannot be packaged in a cardboard box and purchased at Best Buy. It must be found, and only the truly just will find it. Polemarchus’s evolution in his thoughts on justice after conversing with Socrates displays mobility and connectedness to more which exists outside his operating system, but at this point Socrates has just burned Polemarchus a CD which he can run at home. All Macintosh and Windows machines, then, are sedentary and isolated and will never be an end in themselves because the level in which they can operate has already been determined. Only the iPhone, the search for justice, and the rain for the crops exist as an end in themselves, and the greater the means of communications, Plato is perhaps suggesting, the better chance a political community has of surviving.
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