I was listening to one of my many podcasts on the way home from work yesterday and actually found something that was genuinely thought-provoking rather than just interesting. The podcast was Philosophy Bites and it was an interview with Melissa Lane discussing Karl Popper's views on Plato's Republic. I read the Republic a few years back, but I think I must have forgotten most of it.
Anyway, Popper's view was that Plato's ideal city state was totalitarian (I'm assuming he thought this was a bad idea). I guess that, technically it was based on state control of people's lives. However, the rulers in this state would be the philosopher guardians who the intellectual elite of the state. I think Plato tended to refer to philosopher as someone who was generally intelligent and was competent to govern the lesser plebs, rather than the narrow way we use the term today.
The view at the time seemed to be that democracy couldn't ever work because the lower orders would inevitably vote to satisfy their crude base instincts. Perhaps we ought to take on some of his ideas - I wouldn't care to give up on democracy completely and lose my right to vote for my representative, but maybe we could have an entrance exam for MPs. Give them all a test on world affairs, economics and throw in some science and maths questions too. Probably worth doing some personality tests to make sure we weed out the egomaniacs. Only those who pass the test would be allowed to stand.
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