His pupil, on the other hand, made room for akrasia. His vivisection of the soul provides the starting point: there's the rational part of the soul, then the passionate or spirited part, which has to do with the emotions, especially anger and also fear, and then the appetitive part which has to do with physical needs, such as hunger and sex. Anticipating Freud, Plato assigns to the last a terrible and independent autonomy. In the Timaeus he observes of both men and women: "Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway, and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women." The best cinematic depiction of this state of affairs has been that of Adrian Lyne in his recent film, Unfaithful. For Socrates, courage is an intellectual achievement: "Courage is wisdom regarding what is and is not fearful". For Plato, courage is an emotional achievement: "And I believe we call a man 'brave' because of this [the passionate] part of the soul, when it preserves through pains and pleasures the injunctions of reason concerning what is and is not fearful." Only the spirited part can guard against cowardice; and – and this is vital – the spirited part is immune to reason. The emotions alone can reach it; therefore, a suitably artistic – 'musical' - education must be used to inculcate virtue. And this is another point of difference with Socrates. For the master, virtue was a democratic product, open to all; for the pupil, virtue is the exclusive preserve of an elite. The mass of humanity can only achieve a simulacrum of virtue, through the benevolent despotism of an elite. We are on fairly oriental grounds by now.
Plato proved more prescient than his teacher. He had anticipated the power of indoctrination, of literature and music to arouse emotions and channel them in whatever directions those in authority wish.
If any further proof for the irrational man was necessary, they were provided by Sigmund Freud. He channeled the entire western tradition of the irrational into his view of man: a personality constantly at war with the superego and the id. (Another good director, who has caught this tension on camera, is Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut.)
Of late, the discipline of economics has been debunked by behaviouralists: Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that individuals cannot choose rationally between alternatives, or assess risks properly. The 'individual' values the security of the herd: all this explains the recent stockmarket bubble and crash when investors – egged on by newspapers and analysts - madly rushed into the technology shares of firms that could never have prospered, and then sold just as suddenly.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
