Sunday, February 17, 2008

Plato's Metal Men


NBA Allstars were on...now Predator 2...it's a little much!


But Plato's metal men...brb...oh...they're in the train...


quote


Modern science, by the extent of its generalization, has learned to indemnify the student of man for the defects of individuals by tracing growth and ascent in races; and, by the simple expedient of lighting up the vast background, generates a feeling of complacency and hope. The human being has the saurian and the plant in his rear. His arts and sciences, the easy issue of his brain, look glorious when prospectively beheld from the distant brain of ox, crocodile and fish. It seems as if nature, in regarding the geologic night behind her, when, in five or six millenniums, she had turned out five or six men, as Homer, Phidias, Menu and Columbus, was no wise discontented with the result. These samples attested the virtue of the tree. These were a clear amelioration of trilobite and saurus, and a good basis for further proceeding. With this artist, time and space are cheap, and she is insensible to what you say of tedious preparation. She waited tranquilly the flowing periods of paleontology, for the hour to be struck when man should arrive. Then periods must pass before the motion of the earth can be suspected; then before the map of the instincts and the cultivable powers can be drawn. But as of races, so the succession of individual men is fatal and beautiful, and Plato has the fortune in the history of mankind to mark an epoch.




unquote


and it's the star from Twister...with eyes closed the same thing!!...anyway...for goodness sake...that's Emerson's writing above...some essay on Plato...or just generally everything...thought to have some fun with the "plant" line!....but not quite the metal men...brb...


here's a site that done some contempaltion on the ages of man!...plato's a little strange...these metal men are in a part about military rule...brb




Well...the "military" genius is in the packing house...oh... it's gonna be a slaughter...


quote


Timocracy
Timocracy, the government of a Timarchy and the form practised in Sparta, is similar in some respects to Soviet Communism. In the Timarchy, no person is allowed to have personal possessions and the lower classes work exclusively for the benefit of the upper classes.




unquote


Glover's chasing with the sprinklers on...it's Rocky Balboa's gym!!....industrial hide and seek...and then a commercial...well...they moved into the ship and Glover gets him with the old up and under....


quote


For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.




unquote


sheesh...that took a bit...and no flintlock!!


Actually...the commentators who say this is not a side by side...are wrong...what Plato is saying is that the the virtues of the Ages of Man...will get out of kilter...and too the relation of Mankind to Nature...and here is that notion of how humanity has to learn how to be human.


It's late...but Segal is next...


Timarchy seems to be rampant....
Pic is Plato by Raphael


DavidDavid

Tree in the Door




No comments: