Plato and Postman, a unified view on modern America

            Plato was not only a philosopher but a political theorist as well.  His ideal government was one where “the state should be governed by philosophers” (Gaarder 91).  His theory was presented in ancient Greece, since then there have been many governments classified by the name republic.  The most notable republic may well be the United States, founded by well-educated philosophers, including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  Since then however there appears to have been a shift in how American government functions.  Niel Postman explains that “the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is a television commercial” (Postman 126).  This description of the modern American republic is in sharp contrast to Plato’s intended style of government. 

            These differences between modern American attitudes and the thoughts of Plato are also distinct in our style of news.  Plato was one of the most notable students of Socrates, and was heavily influenced by Socrates practice of asking questions and feigning ignorance.  In contrast the American approach is largely to never ask questions, and be ignorant.  This approach is personified in television news, or perhaps more accurately television newsertainment.  This newsertainment breaks the meaningful dialogue people can pursue as Postman explains,

“There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly—for that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so threatening—that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying, ‘Now . . . this’” (Postman 99).

Effectively when a newscaster says “now this” the flow of information is ended, and any thought, question or view that a listener might have begun to formulate is likely terminated.  The now this phenomena has also killed another aspect of the Socratic system of dialogue using rational thought.  The death to rational thought comes about in response to the shorter news segments, that give only partial information with little context, thus making it impossible to truly make any rational conclusions.  In short if Plato could see today he may very well gravitate towards a similar view as that posited by Niel Postman.

Works Cited

Postman, Niel. Amusing ourselves to death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New                       York: Penguin Group, 2006. Print.

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie’s World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print