That hot new neoconservative philosopher named Plato

Salon News: Interview with Cambridge Philosopher Simon Blackburn

I think Plato [has been] picked up and distorted in a couple of different ways. There were people who took what are undoubtedly fairly absolutist or totalitarian aspects of the state that he describes in 'The Republic' and said, 'Look, he's nothing more than an apologist for the totalitarian state.' This is a famous attack, most vigorously and very ably prosecuted by Karl Popper in his famous book just after the Second World War, 'The Open Society and Its Enemies.' Plato was No. 1 of all [Popper's] enemies of the open society.

Another reading of him, which is I think even worse, is due to the American political theorist Leo Strauss, who saw him as in some sense endorsing the idea that it's a dog-eat-dog world. This was kind of a covert message, Strauss thought, of [Plato's] text. Strauss thought that this covert message or esoteric message was supposed to be perceived only by a number of people of special illumination, amongst which he included himself, of course. And that was the ideology that eventually became American neoconservatism, the view that the servants of the state are entitled to do anything -- to lie, to manipulate, to foment war, to destabilize neighboring states, to disguise their actions under a hypocritical cloak of goodness. So it's an extreme example of realpolitik, which I think is just a 180 degree misreading of what Plato is about. But it just shows that you can put down the clearest words on the page and it will be read saying the opposite.

I think that [Strauss's reading] is very perverse. You have to ignore what seems to me the very obvious thrust of ["The Republic"]. The book is largely given over to Socrates, and Socrates was largely arguing against the kind of things that Strauss represents. So you have to really pick up little bits and corners and say, "Ah, that's where Plato's speaking in his own voice or that's the message he wants us to take away." I always find that kind of reading very perverse. You know, it's not much better than finding the name of the beast in the order of the letters in the Talmud or something.

In general, why is Plato currently fashionable among conservatives? What's the appeal?

It hasn't always been an appeal to conservatives. In the 19th century, Plato had an appeal to liberals, largely. But there is undeniably an element of elitism in the book. That is, it's important for Plato's city that the people who know how to rule, rule. And conservatives, I suppose, always mistrust democracy, always mistrust the people. "The vulgar are not capable of ruling themselves" is a sort of fairly conservative doctrine. And it's obviously charming to include yourself amongst the elite. That's in common with Leo Strauss' view. But to a conservative of any kind, I think there's going to be a kind of role for guardians, as Plato calls them, that is a role for people who have undertaken to uphold the spirit of the polis, of the state, and who as it were see the great unwashed outside as a kind of threat. That can be, and I argue it is in Plato, much less politically divisive than that sounds, because in Plato it's simply a plea that the people who've got the science right, the understanding right, are the ones that are listened to in government. I don't think it's a plea for a hereditary elite or anything like that. But there's no doubt that Plato's an elitist -- he thinks that people come in different grades and it's better if the golden people rule.