Political Philosophy In the Moment

Narratives of Freedom from Plato to Arendt

Jim Josefson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367192808
• eBook ISBN: 9780429533891
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Political Philosophy In the Moment uncovers the political power of narrative by both telling and explaining the stories that frame our ability to be "in the moment."

In a series of eleven short stories, Jim Josefson presents the history of political philosophy and Hannah Arendt's alternative, an aesthetic form of politics. In the early stories, Josefson recounts how the four main traditions of political philosophy (Platonism, Aristotelianism, liberalism and historicism) promise truth but deny us the freedom available in reality. Then, he reviews the alternative narratives offered by thinkers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger, which influenced Arendt's view. The final chapters chart Arendt's route back to the Moment, the freedom to read and tell a fuller story about the beauty and horrors that appear in the world.

A page-turning book of short stories and a tour through the greatest works of political philosophy, Political Philosophy In the Moment is as approachable, comprehensible and welcoming as a fairy-tale, ideally suited for students of contemporary political theory and anyone interested in political thought.

1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Imagine entering the mouth of a cave, which quickly shades the light as a path takes you into the depths. At first the route is easy, and the cavern is not too dark. But as the road dims, it becomes suddenly steep and rocky, the footing treacherous, so you stumble and feel your way with your hands through the deepening blackness. But just as the way gets scary, your confidence grows as you spot a flickering light ahead. It guides you through the sharp rocks and maze of stalagmites until the way flattens out before a roaring fire. You are blinded for a while as your eyes adjust to the flames. But as the magnitude of the chamber comes into focus you behold a startling sight. The path slopes past the fire to a group of robed figures behind a high stone wall. Standing at the base of the wall, they raise figures fashioned of wood and fabric on short poles just above the parapet, moving them back and forth like little actors walking along a stage. One puppet is obviously a duck being made to swim along the wall. Another, a little hunter with drawn bow, stalks the innocent bird from a yard or so behind. The robed figure with the duck, at a nod from another, lets out a sharp “quack!” that echoes from a distant wall.

You stifle a derisive snort at this pathetic show, but then you are amazed to hear an answering chorus. A multitude of voices echo through the cavern with an earnest call, “A duck!” Keeping to the shadows, you inch around the curious wall. The path drops away, so you can see the chamber is huge. It holds a whole amphitheater, filled with the most bizarre patrons you could possibly imagine. They sit in curved tiers of seats. In each one, the holder sits with his limbs firmly shackled. But even more horrible are the braces that hold the heads of the audience, so they can only gaze away from the puppeteers behind them towards the distant wall. But they don’t seem to strain at the straps around their foreheads. Instead, they stare, apparently transfixed, at the hapless shadow-duck being stalked by the patient bowman. A nearby viewer has a look of supreme concentration on his face, as if he is the hunter. You see his eyes narrow as if to take aim, and you hear him grunt in triumph as a shadow arrow streaks from the bowman into the unlucky fowl. And then, something even stranger happens. As the shadows mime an impromptu barbecue, another shadow robed in deepest black glides along the row and silently slides a piece of something into the mouth of a particularly attentive viewer. As you gaze over the rest of the hall you see other dark figures repeating the same inane communion.

As your eyes adjust further, you notice the ranks of people, despite their feeding, are emaciated. Their necks are thin. Chests are hollow. And faces glow ghostly pale despite the lack of light. And as you watch them sit, engrossed in the ghastly show of their own enslavement, you realize the horrible truth. These people have spent their whole lives in this cave. Yes, you see now. Over there and there are the smaller shapes of children. And then as you glance between their rapt faces and the dancing silhouettes you understand the depths of their darkness. The shadows on the wall, so flat and monotonous to you, dazzle these prisoners. If they have truly spent their entire lives here, then these shades are nothing less than their only reality.

But then you are startled out of this revelation by a plaintive cry. Two of the gloomy ushers have gathered around one of the satisfied prisoners, and they are grappling with his withered body. His head lolls gruesomely onto his shoulder when they remove the straps. And his limbs are limp, as he’s dragged up from his station. He has barely the strength to strain back towards the shadows, whining as he tries to shield his eyes from the relative brightness of the beams which stream over the wall. “My eyes,” he moans, “My eyes!” But his escorts ignore his complaints and drag him up, remorselessly, towards the fire.

You follow, still in the deeper darkness along the side, to see what will happen to the unwilling insurgent. He is greeted by a solemn ceremony. Seated in an alcove away from the direct glare of the blaze, the novice is acquainted with the mysteries of the puppeteers. One by one the elders show him, with great reverence, the models in their trust. He resists, eyes clamped shut or straining back towards the familiar darkness. But they comfort him and soothe his suffering, and they slowly coax him towards the truth. As the former prisoner’s eyes adjust he can’t resist the wonders before him. You can see this wonder on his face. It registers in subtle shades his placid visage had never shown before. As the initiation progresses, this dawning recognition registers differently on the faces of the instructors. Some mirror the look of wonder at the puppets, transposing that awe into joy and love for their sacred charge. But on others, who form a smaller group, there is less reverence and more pride, less sincerity and more conceit. This becomes clearer when the apprentice is fed. When the monks present the food it’s like they offer an incidental distraction. But when the others place the morsels into the uncertain mouth, their eyes gaze into the receiver as if to behold the true revelation. They nod smugly when they see the look of ecstasy, as the flavors register on the starving palette. Clearly, this is not the same food you saw dispensed to the other prisoners below.

From here the story fast-forwards. Now the freed prisoner has become one of the elect. He wears his robes with silent confidence. He plays his part well. But he seems less focused on the play or the puppets than the many. And he seems to enjoy the food and the view over all the prisoners less than the few. Instead, he finds himself drawn to the fire, and, inexplicably, he stares into the hint of a glow that penetrates the darkness further up the path. His distraction does not go unnoticed.

Lingering there one day he is suddenly grabbed from behind and pulled up into that darkness. He struggles and cries for help, but he is overpowered. The path, you recall, is steep, filled with sharp rocks and so this ascent makes the previous one seem easy and gentle. The agony, as the kidnapped man’s body is scraped and bounced against the rocks, is incredible. But then the man struggles less as the path lightens. He must feel hope he is returning home. But then they reach the entrance to the cave, and the jagged beams of light are unbearable. Clutching his head in pain, the man is easily kicked out of the mouth of darkness and into the real world.

For hours, released into the bright light, the man just lies insensible, moaning, his eyes pressed into the dirt. But when the night comes, his thirst moves him to crawl towards the sound of water. There, after a while, he is able to finally open his eyes again. But he can only bear to look at the shadows of things in water. Gradually, however, he turns his eyes to an object moving over the surface. And he realizes that this apparition is a duck, so much more beautiful, so much more real than either the puppet or the shadow that he had known. The more he stares at the duck, the more of it that there seems to be. The body is covered with subtle lines that run from everywhere, in towards mainlines, defining the bird, making it pop out of its surrounding. These shiver, and they cast up globules of light that roll over and clarify its definition. But the splash also connects the duck to the air above.

And the revelations continue as the eyes adjust further. The whole world reveals itself in turn, each thing a coal breathed to life by the same breath. And then the eyes of the mind finally turn further up to the apparent source of the pneumatic illumination. There are the stars in the heavens, followed by the awesome glowing ball of the moon. The ball is a great mirror, and the myriad points of light are scattered shards of a greater glass, cast deliberately into the silent wind, which (though they trace no arc) point surely to their source.

And then the final act: the dawn. The Sun rises. And it is the final glory. The drops of light which pooled in gloom and hinted at a hidden spring, the penumbra of shadows that outlined the rungs of the prisoner’s climb out of darkness, these premises now reveal the logic of all that is. As the prisoner’s mind adjusts to this final prospect, the world itself fades like the shadows before the fire. All particular things are subsumed under this original thesis, this perspective from nowhere on everything. The ground then disappears, as his mind first jumps, and then dances up the shards, accelerating as he draws closer to the motive power. He grasps the final conclusion, laughs at the evident simplicity of the One, and he delights in true freedom. And then even the joy becomes general, diffused out of his body, such that it fades too and joins the One. It is this One, this Ideal, and this Truth that is the Source of all. It is The Good.

Then he radiates back out, fracturing but not breaking, continuous, sinuous, a reverse recollection of radiance. He can surf through time, from universal and eternal to the momentary and flickering. And he can cut across being, across laws and formulas, for all things share in the same fundamental substance. Now he looks from the concept of fire into its instantiation behind the wall. Then he peers out of the shadows themselves to the eyes that stare back with only the faintest sparkle.

And then, somehow, our hero comes back, back down to earth, for the final act. The former prisoner descends back into the cave. Perhaps he is moved to repay the debt he owes to the teachers that freed him. Perhaps he is filled with pity for the benighted prisoners of the cave. For whatever reason, our hero retraces his steps. But he is not at home. He cares nothing for the puppets, the show or the perks of the priesthood. And so he enters the amphitheater. And he loosens the bonds of the prisoners. And he whispers to them of the real world and the light above the shadows. And he invites them to follow him to true freedom. But they laugh at him. And they say his eyes have been ruined by his journey. And when he tries to pull them towards the light, they fall on him to defend their prison. And they kill him.

This is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from his greatest work, The Republic. It’s the most important work of philosophy because the power of its metaphors knocks human beings out of the moment for, perhaps, the rest of human history. The central moral of the story is that all the moments of our world, all of the experiences within it and all the things within it are false, nothing but pale shadows or a masquerade of the real world above and beyond, which exists outside the apparent one. If being in the moment refers to recovering some kind of authentic freedom in the midst of everyday life, a moment that somehow partakes in the eternal but is nonetheless firmly rooted in the present, being out of the moment must come from rejecting the present and what appears there. So, how does Plato’s story reject this present and lead us out of the moment?

The answer requires that we unpack the elements of the allegory. Let’s start with the prisoners. These pathetic chained wretches, Plato clearly said, represent nearly all human beings in the world. You, your parents, your family and friends, all the people at the shopping center; almost all people, everywhere, now, in the past and in the future are slaves. These people think they see the truth in their everyday experiences, opinions and perceptions but, according to Plato, what they truly see are only ideas projected for them by authority figures, which are the puppet-masters.

Take, for example, an average person’s perception of a chair. Plato suggests that the chair we see is only a reflection of the chairs set before us by authority figures as a traditional chair or a chair that a particular culture establishes as appropriate. We recognize such chairs as chairs, because they match a more general cultural model of a chair, represented in the allegory by the puppets. People see these projections as real for the same reason the prisoners think the shadow of a chair is real. It’s all they’ve ever known. This ability to control the common sense of the prisoners is the greatest power of authority. But beyond that, the prisoners are also constrained by the very real power of those in control. The chains and straps in the amphitheater represent the physical violence and control of those with authority. If you question that authority, they will tighten the bonds till they hurt. Since people can’t handle the truth, they get pain and fear instead.

But, perhaps more controlling, is the “game” by which the prisoners are fed. Those that play along, that buy into the puppet show, are the ones that get fed or receive the honors that all authority figures bestow. To question common sense truth is extremely dangerous, as those in control have the ability to deny life itself to anyone who questions the truth of the show. This is a centrally important insight in Plato’s allegory. While most people think being entertained, enjoying the satisfaction of their desires, and receiving the accolades of public prestige and fame are the essence of freedom, Plato suggests all these are the ultimate source of human slavery. To think such things, experienced in any moment, are true is to live in the depths of darkness.

Things are little better for the puppet-masters. Plato is vague on this point in his account in The Republic. I’ve enriched his text by mapping onto the puppeteers the characters Plato uses as foils in the early chapters of his book. The pious puppeteers represent traditionalists; people entrusted to control and administer customs. They don’t believe in the puppets and the puppet show only because they have no concept of belief or doubt. Belief requires acceptance of some truth higher than the traditional appearances associated with one’s culture. But the pious puppeteers have never been out of the cave to know that there is any reality other than their masquerade. They play their part simply because it is the role that has been given them. Theirs is an elevated position, but it is still intimately interdependent with the reality of the prisoners. The prisoners only see the dimmer display appropriate to their position in the cave. The elite prisoners, who play the game well, are chosen to be elevated to the Show, but these robed brethren are still servants of the darkness.

The smug puppeteers are only a slightly different sort. In my telling of the story, they represent the sophists of Plato’s Athens, people who claimed to possess knowledge of a truth beyond tradition. Plato portrays them as realists, people who conclude that customs and laws merely reflect the force of those able to define their own interests as right. As an elite minority, they enjoy the secret pleasure of considering themselves not only superior to the prisoners but also to the gullible traditionalists that accept the show as sacred. Only they know the seemingly higher truth that the puppet show is nothing but a play. According to them, the real truth of the show is that they are powerful, clever, and bold enough to claim their position of authority and, with it, to satisfy all their worldly desires.

Plato’s allegory cuts them down to size. In a way they seem even more pathetic than the rest of the denizens of the cave. The prisoners and their keepers are slaves, but at least they don’t think they are free. The sophists, on the other hand, in celebrating their slavery as mastery are the most deluded. A truth based only on arbitrary force leaves them notably insecure, so they feel the kind of fear that makes sadists.

So, who is truly free and what is the truth in Plato’s story? Well, this part has proven to be very attractive to Plato’s audience. The path that runs from the amphitheater up past the wall and out into the light represents the course of education. Thus only knowledge, for Plato, is freedom. When sitting chained and strapped, the prisoner is a slave to the puppeteers, his own desires, and especially his own opinions, benighted as they are by his extraordinarily limited experience and understanding. Education brings greater independence from the rule of others, greater freedom of movement, wider experience, and a greater capacity to use the tools of culture to do more than simply survive. Freedom, at this level, is being able to live the good life, to claim your portion of human happiness by moving from ignorance to knowledge, from darkness to light.

The irony of this freedom is that requires an intensification of slavery: school. Plato is very clear that the process of education is anything but fun. First, no one frees themselves. In the story, the freed prisoner is forced to stand up by teachers and driven, unwillingly, towards the light. He experiences his instruction as torture, because giving up old opinions and preconceptions is very difficult. New information is blinding. It confuses, makes us feel stupid, and makes us wish for the easier life of happy ignorance. The only way it happens, according to Plato, is through the discipline and authority of teachers who know better than we do what is good for us.

But the next part of the story of education is even more ironic. The path of education leads the student behind the wall to the world of the cultural and political elite. These are the people who literally run the show. They maintain all the old stories that are the basis of the common sense of the regular people. These are all the traditions, myths, holidays, religions, entertainments, political principles, and everything that gives meaning and order to society. According to Plato, education means learning these systems at a much higher level than normal, so they can be maintained and administered. It also involves running the game that runs parallel with the show. This involves handing out the minor consolation prizes that regular folks get for playing along, which keep them alive, docile and attentive. But, more importantly, it involves controlling the good stuff: the food, clothing and all the other benefits reserved for the elite.

Now, Plato is not necessarily cynical about the distribution of power and benefits in his subterranean city. It seems to me like the priesthood of puppeteers really are elite. They work much harder than the prisoners. They tend the sacred fire. They serve the common good of maintaining order and cooperation. They are also smarter than everyone else. They have the knowledge that allows them to teach the next generation of leaders. And most of them (at least those who aren’t sophists) are pious and dutiful in carrying out their roles. They are good.

But they also live in a darkness that is almost as black as the prisoners. The freedom of the elite, the freedom of the good life, and even the freedom of those whose passions and greatness cannot be contained by mere cultural traditions, all of them are just another kind of slavery to the system of the cave. None of the masters have seen the true things represented by their puppets. None of them has felt the wind. None of them has seen the stars.

None of them has seen the true light. This is the metaphor at the heart of Plato’s allegory. Truth or knowledge is like the light. All of the things that appear in the cave are not complete lies so much as they are dimmer versions of things that are in the light. The shadow of a duck is a duck, only a simpler, more muted duck. Similarly, the puppet of a duck is a duck. But its light is fainter. It’s a diffused duck, a duck in soft focus.

Now, the reader might think that’s ridiculous. The puppet of a duck is not a duck, b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• 2. The Tambourine Man and the Tinker
• 3. Being in the Momentary
• 4. Phenomenology of the Undead
• 5. Report by John Deere
• 6. Thus Woke Sara Thurston
• 7. The Fountainhead and the Spring
• 8. The Pass, the Ground, the Clearing
• 9. The Stroller and the Great Disaster
• 10. The Beaten Path of Thought
• 11. The Return
• Index