Losing respect for Rand Paul

[Brian37]

Instead of reading Rand in school, I read More and Plato).

 on Plato. What do you think Plato would think of capitalism? .... (We already know how he would feel about Trump.)

Oh do not get me started on Plato.

Two very smart and wise people soured me on Plato. Not all of his works, but he got knocked down a few pegs when I understood the implications of why on one topic Plato really fucked things up.

BACKSTORY..... A few years ago I bought "The Greatest Show On Earth" by Richard Dawkins. To be honest, the nitty gritty was lost on me, but the preface was not. I do understand the  DNA stuff, but the classification stuff I still have a hard time with. 

ANYWHO, one day I began reading that book. And in Dawkins preface, at first, I didn't get why he was slamming Plato. It frustrated me knowing what I had learned in College about his advocating of questioning. His Allegory Of The Cave and His Apology, where Socrates challenged everyone. I loved that promotion of questioning.

BUT Dawkins in his preface kept talking about Plato's idea of "essence", and I didn't quite get it. Perplexed I ran this by my friend Bob, the guy I am going to fly to Australia on Tuesday. Bob, explained to me that Plato's idea was that questioning was simply about thinking, in that if you just simply thought about something long enough you could find the "essence" of that thing, like "essence of rabbit" or "essence of chair" that perfect thing. Dawkins placed blame on that idea as leading for a chase for political and religious utopias. I look back at what Dawkins wrote, and how Bob explained it to me and I agree.

With all the good some claim Plato created, the one thing Plato really had no benefit of back then, was our modern scientific method, our system of control groups. Point being as smart as Plato was, and as much as he liked questioning everything, he did not have the benefit of our modern quality control 

I think Plato would HATE Trump, but at the same time, Plato sold the idea of "essence' which has become that chase for a utopia which Trump panders to.