What have we learned from Wars? NOthing.

As we honor the men who died, we are sending more everyday to die. This is unbelievable. Human beings are devoid of retrospective learning. We belive it is noble to die in war. Bullshit. It is noble to live in peace.

Since recorded history began we have seen this same process of Ruling Class vs. Working Class. It has played out for thousands of years and has been written about extensively.

You would think that since the knowledge is out there that maybe, just maybe we would listen to it. I think there may be some people who know this history and manipulate it to their own ends. Plato spoke of the "Philosopher King" during the discussion of his "Cave Allegory".

The ruling class has adopted this "Philosopher King" attitude from Plato and most of us are none the wiser.

instead of a war for the ruling class. How sad that many working class people believe the odious propaganda that fighting in Iraq has anything to do with defending our freeddom.
- It will always be a fight against royalty, tories, plutocracies of the rich. I look forward to the revolution against "trickle down" theories.
- There is a reason conservatives do not favor good free education. They want stupid, nationalistic, compliant workers and soldiers.
- I hope we can save America from a second civil war but liberals have always had to fight to survive.

First the philosopher king, is a Utopian ideal which has never been even remotely close to actualization. The philosopher king would act in the interest of the nation and be completely selfless and altruistic. Of course there are some authoritarian aspects to such an idea but in theory the philosopher king would never abuse power and would only use his absolute power when necessary.

Also, the cave allegory that you mention strives to make this point. The world as we observe it is like the shadows on the wall of the cave, once one is able to use their intellect the view of the world becomes clear. The one who is able to use their intellect in this way is the philosopher king, and ultimately the guardians as well.

The philosopher king would act in the interest of the nation. However, that is the "ideal" and this idea has been co-opted by the ruling class who may or may not "care what we think".

I see the current group of neo-cons who have fallen under the spell of this idea but they have twisted visions of how they should use their power.

I agree with you about your interpretation of the "Cave Allegory". Anyone who has thrown off the illusion broadcast on the back of the cave is, at least in some respects, aware of the game. The trouble comes when you try to exert control of the game from the other players.

Where I differ is placing it in the hands of Plato. Plato was attempting to make a better world, to improve upon the corruption and ineffectiveness of the times. Plato was not the first to come up with the idea of a ruling class, just attempted to perfect it in theory. Of course theory and reality are two separate things, and perversions of theory can often turn out to be horrible things, just look at some effects of Marxist theory in the wrong hands. This however does not mean that Marx would have wanted these things, he wanted something much better for the world...the same is true with Plato. Neither should be blamed for perversions of their theory.

to try and put blame anywhere...I was just drawing some parallels...have you ever read Sir Karl Popper's comments on Plato?

I'm a philosophy major here in the philosophical lacking midwest (ohio state). I try to read as much from the great thinkers as possible. Sorry if I came across as abrasive, just the genius of some of the philosophers over history being destroyed in practice by idiots is quite possibly the worst phenomenon there is.

you are in for a treat. I'm not angry at your comments, quite the contrary...I welcome reasoned debate and fact checking especially from a student of philosophy. Though I might add that a worse phenomenon is too take things too seriously, there is much more to learn about philosophy that what they will teach you in school. You might try reading some of the Taoist or Zen philosophers to see what I mean.

:)

Anyway, what you are going to read may change your opinion of the totalitarian Philosophers (Karl Marx, Hegel, Plato, etc)
Sir Karl Popper is probably the most famous Philosopher you have never heard of before.

http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/

He is very readable and he does put the hurt on Plato. You may also want to check out Bertrand Russell if you haven't already or William James.

On edit:
The Popper title you will want to read is "The Open Society and its Enemies"
Also check out Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".

War is America's growth engine...

The miltary industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about has dazzled the rightwing, made them fat, and rich, and soulless...and has destroyed America...just like Ike said it would.
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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."


I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
– Thomas Jefferson

Penicilin + Other very useful medical drugs
Jet engines
Nuclear Reactors
Satalites
Light weight composite alloys

Must I continue?

I think the spin offs of war have probably saved more lives than they killed. Can you even count how many lives anti biotics saved? How about vaccines like small pox?

Sure people die in war, but war is sometimes a good thing. WWI and WWII had a lot of civilian spin offs. Too bad we can't say the same for Iraq.

from all this? Guess! Did you sign your enlistment papers yet?

War deprived us of the continuing contributions of LeVoisier and Glenn Miller. It cut short the lives of countless millions of young men and women whose contribution to human society will never be known.

Penicillin was discovered in his lab by Alexander Flemming; it would have happened without any war. Nuclear reactors? Considering the way those little devils will pollute and mar the environment for thousands of years yet to come, I'd hardly say that we could call that an unmitigated benefit.

And the rest? Would none of those developments or innovations have happened without the spur of war? Might they have come about sooner with sufficient resources devoted to them, and not re-directed to the ever-hungry maw of the various war machines? Perhaps some of the discoverers and innovaters were murdered in war before they had a chance to work out their development.

Sorry. War didn't "invent" anything. Human beings and human ingenuity created or discovered these innovations. War merely provided a messy template on which some of them arguably were fashioned. How much better or how much more efficient might these have been without the urgency of getting them into production so that we could kill our opponents quicker?

"war is sometimes a good thing" You should have therapy.

This is the most ridiculous excuse for war I have ever heard. War has brought to the world advances in medicine and technology ? What utter bushwah ! The only thing worse than war is ignorance.

Yup,too bad these people had to be killed in war--but that's war for ya!

Look at all the good that will come out of this slaughter in order to wipe away the blood from your hands.

There is NO good that comes from abject slaughter and invasion upon the weaker just to get their stuff.

None.

Yup, people die. Oh, too bad, but look on the bright side. If it were not for children dying and being slaughered for nothing and on lies, we would not have had things like penicillin. ARrrgh

Go to the library and take out a book on logic. Or search the net for rules of logic.




Hey hey--get your penicillin here. Rake in the spoils off the lives of countless n umkbers of innocents and weep while you apply your penicillin to your supporating wound.

I take it you have no children yet. I take it you lack the ability to put yourself into another's place, regardless of a difference in where we live or think or believe. I take it you have adopted the Bush doctrine, that what you can reap from the killing of others, without a single blip of conscience, is to your advantage. Kill, kill kill.

There is NO moral or ethical parameter to that type of sanctioning of murder and wanton killing. NONE. It is not moral to kill people who did nothing to you at all, and who were not a threat to you at all, and think it will bring great benefit to mankind because of it. That you have done us all a favor.

That is what the doctors at the Nazi camps rationalized and you are doing the same.

but sorrow, misery, and death.

Penicilin was discovered by accident.

It, as well as the others on your list were merely exploited by war not "invented" by it.

Your short post doesn't seem to have persuaded too many folks. Perhaps you should expand on your point, if you still think it's valid.

thanks PaDUer

of the woodwork..there's still more to rear their ugly heads and minds..gee, isn't it babs who didn't want to dirty her ugly mind!

it sucks

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