{"id":5385,"date":"2012-12-06T00:14:36","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T05:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=5385"},"modified":"2022-12-06T08:52:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T13:52:10","slug":"the-city-and-the-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=5385","title":{"rendered":"The City and the Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Georges Dumezi<\/strong>l famously showed that the structure of Indo-European societies was based on a trifunctional division: priests, warriors, and workers. Obviously, this corresponds perfectly with the caste structure that both Rene Guenon<\/strong> and Julius Evola<\/strong> regarded as one of the marks of a Traditional society. Conversely, one of the marks of the modern world is its departure from the trifunctional model with the result that hardly anyone knows what his \u201cnatural\u201d place should be in the world. Hence, the following question must come to mind: How would a Traditional elite, should it arise again in the West, work to restore such a societal arrangement?<\/p>\n

Clearly, the situation now is different from what it was at its origins. Trifunctionality developed organically in the original Indo-European groups. Men of different types and temperaments gravitated naturally to their proper positions. For example, a man became a priest because of his inner spiritual qualities and then arose to his place in the hierarchy. To be more explicit, this is the direct opposite of a \u201csocial contract\u201d, that is, a situation where individual men gathered together to debate and create the type of society that they voted and agreed on.<\/p>\n

There would have been no need for such a discussion as the society would have preceded the individual. In The Ancient City<\/cite>, Fustel de Coulanges<\/strong> documents such societies in the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds. There was always a divine founder of the City, the lawgiver, who set up the constitution for the City. Piety was a primary virtue, since the City held together through time by the worship of the ancestral gods. To be impious was to be excluded from the City, which was tantamount to spiritual death.<\/p>\n

In a subsequent stage of development, certain men, now known as \u201cphilosophers\u201d, began to reflect on the structure of the City. No longer content to blindly accept the status quo, they wondered about it: why is the City just? What makes a good priest, warrior, or artisan? What is the value of piety? And so on. What began in wonder resulted in complex discussions about the nature of reality, man, and society. This reached its high point in Plato<\/strong> and was codified by Aristotle<\/strong>. This was the complete philosophical reflection on the Greek City.<\/p>\n

However, it also contained the seeds of destruction. The first question must be, \u201cIs the City just because it was constituted by the gods?\u201d This justice was simply assumed, but that is not acceptable to the philosopher. After many long dialogues, Plato\u2019s conclusion is that there is an idea of Justice that is independent of both man and gods. This is the basis for the charge of atheism against Socrates: if the ideas are primary, where is the need for the gods? What the people attribute to the gods, the philosopher attributes to the ideas. If the ideas are primary, then the gods are subject to the ideas and are therefore not free.<\/p>\n

This puts the philosopher in an awkward position. He knows that piety is necessary for the continuance of the right order in the City. As a philosopher, he is rational and subjects himself to the just order. Unfortunately, the great majority of men are irrational and incapable of grasping the idea of justice. Moreover, they are weak and thus motivated by eros<\/em> and thymos<\/em> rather than nous<\/em>. For them, only piety towards the gods ensures the just order.<\/p>\n

Unlike the numerous impious sophists of our day who preach and work toward revolution against the just order, Plato did not reject it. Instead, he created the just society in thought as the Republic. Obviously, it had to follow the trifunctional scheme as that represents the just order. The wise rule over the warriors and commoners. Obviously, the wise consist of those who know and are detached from material desires. The flaw in the Republic is that Plato does not know how to produce wise men apart from some strange and abhorrent practices.<\/p>\n

In the next part, we will see how the Frankish bishops were not content to produce the just trifunctional society solely in thought, but made efforts to manifest it in the world of men and matter. Then we can wonder if a new elite would have any better success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first question must be, \u201cIs the City just because it was constituted by the gods?\u201d This justice was simply assumed, but that is not acceptable to the philosopher. After many long dialogues, Plato\u2019s conclusion is that there is an idea of Justice that is independent of both man and gods. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[807,417,1191],"class_list":["post-5385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-georges-dumezil","tag-numa-denis-fustel-de-coulanges","tag-plato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5385"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16932,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5385\/revisions\/16932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}