CURSO DE POLÍTICA. Aula 2

In our last lesson, we arrived at the idea that politics the administration of the 'polis', the city, in the interests of justice - the harmony of the city, is to enable the relationships to be adjusted; just and not juxtaposed. It's as if politics were a kind of way of making humans able to live together. Well, this is the problem they faced, and we know that.

If living together is our destiny, since nobody ever saw a man living in isolation, he doesn't exist, why is it that our destiny is so difficult. Before we begin with the problem of justice, and there we enter the discussion of Plato, we have to remember a little about how this problem presented itself to the Greeks, how it is already a difficult problem for the Greeks, and political philosophy is founded as a difficult problem, and comes down to us today as a difficult problem. Well, who doesn't know that?

Especially us in Brazil, where people sometimes say about politics 'oh my God! ' There's a sophist, a self-styled sophist, in Greece called Protagoras, a man of great rhetoric and great ideas. Protagoras is also the title of one of Plato's books, about this sophist.

And this sophist has, through a great myth that he tells, exactly the equation for this question of politics, the reason why we arrived at politics. The idea of Protagoras, the so-called myth of Protagoras, is very interesting; it is told by Plato, and I think you may well have heard it somewhere or other. I'll remind you.

It's that story about Prometheus and Epimetheus. PRO-metheus, he is 'PRO' (first), so he's intelligent; but EPI-metheus, he is 'EPI' (after) - less - so he's a bit slow, and Zeus gave Prometheus and Epimetheus the task - ah, Zeus, how did you come to do that, to give a task to those two! - that they distribute certain qualities to the inhabitants of the Earth.

Zeus thought that the Earth's inhabitants couldn't be on Earth unless each one had their own characteristics, qualities. So, the two departed: 'Let's go and do the task that Zeus gave us', and Prometheus, of course the more intelligent one, said to Epimetheus - see how the more intelligent is not always the more intelligent - why? Because if he really were more intelligent, he'd have made him carry out the things, but the more intelligent is just sometimes the smarter one, and so he said to Epimetheus: 'Go, take all the qualities from this chest, distribute them among the animals, and I'll be back soon'.

And so, Prometheus went off somewhere, probably for a few drinks or whatever, and, as he'd promised Prometheus, Epimetheus had distributed all the qualities among the creatures of the Earth. And Prometheus said 'Oh, man, Epimetheus isn't so stupid after all. I'll check'.

He checked everywhere and - pum! - there was one animal - called Man - that had received absolutely nothing. It didn't have sharp teeth, it had no great tusks, no claws, it didn't run fast, it didn't leap, it couldn't climb trees properly.

My God! Or, as Prometheus himself said: 'My Zeus of Olympus! ' 'What have you done, Epimetheus?

You distributed the lot, and now there's nothing left in the chest, and we have here one of the species with absolutely nothing to defend itself. Do you know what will happen? This species will be attacked by all the others, they'll eat Man and we two, we'll have to tell Zeus the mess we made, and I'll get the blame for you, you daft fool'.

Epimetheus stood looking and looking, not knowing what to do and, do you know what happened? Prometheus said the following: 'I'll have to sort it out. It's got to be me'.

And it's always the way, isn't it? You get mixed up in trouble on account of those who are more stupid. But, we're to blame, because we let them carry out the work.

Well, Prometheus said the following: 'We've got to arrange a quality for this Man, and I know what I'm going to do. There's no other way out. I'll steal something from the gods, on the quiet, and give it to Man.

Prometheus went and entered Olympus, and there was the Great Blacksmith, beating with his hammer - bang, bang - making those enormous spades, and he went to see how he made them in the fire, and moulded the spade in the fire. He looked and looked. When God went out, and left the fire there, Prometheus grabbed the fire and ran.

And he ran fast, to get out of the place of the gods, and he came to Man and said: 'Take it. With that you'll be able to defend yourself from all the animals, and this is going to be your quality. You are the Man of war.

You have fire'. Oh my God! Or rather, Oh my Zeus of Olympus!

Man became this machine you all know, without any quality but fire. He drove out all the animals and became very powerful. But with one problem.

At night, it was night. He slept. The animals thereabouts saw the fire died down.

They saw that when it died down, the fire did nothing and - pow! - yes 1 man, 2, 3 men or, rather, mortals to the Greeks. Do you know what Man did?

Man came to the conclusion that he couldn't live in 2s or 3s, or alone. He had to live together with others. The way out for Man, even possessing fire, was for someone to stay on guard at night, and so we have to live together.

The city was born. And the city was born. Well, when the city was born, Man was at peace.

At night, some were on guard; in the daytime everyone woke up and the animals never approached again, the other animals, the predators. Man ended up being a predator on all of them. But suddenly the thing happened that all of us knew would happen.

Pow! Living all together in the city, the predators of Man were men themselves, and they began to come into conflict with other men and, still worse, women. Look, in that shambles that there was every day Zeus looked down and said: 'I'll never again call on that pair, Prometheus and Epimetheus'.

Prometheus because he'd already screwed up - he gave fire to Man - the gods realised and punished him, and he's there chained to the rock, being eaten by that bird there. My God! My Zeus of Olympus!

As for Epimetheus, Zeus said 'God forbid! ' Look, Zeus called Apollo. Bloody hell - excuse the term - but Zeus did nothing less than call Apollo, he called the actual Apollo himself, and said: 'Oh no, there's only one way to look at the problem - men need to have another weapon besides fire.

You need to take to men two of my personal weapons. Here'. Apollo looked, widened his eyes in amazement and said: 'Are you going to give this, which is yours, to Man?

' 'I will, I will, because it's the only way. If I don't, do you know what will happen? We're going to lose a whole species.

Did you ever think about the world with so many elephants, so many jabuticaba trees, so many turtles, so many deer and without Man? ' I don't know what's so special about Man. We need to have Man, we need to have Man.

Well, OK, Zeus gave two gifts for Apollo to take - justice and shame. And Zeus said to Apollo: 'Go, deliver them to men'. And then Apollo said: 'Hang on, they all know how to handle fire, so they have the techniques for work and warfare.

Maybe some have more, some less; some know less about how to use it, some more. . .

but they all have it. Now, I have to distribute justice and shame, but equally for all of them? Equally for all?

Some know how to master fire, others don't. Some know how to make spades, others only hammers. Some use them for farming, others use them to attack animals, you know it's not the same for all of them, they don't all have the same ability with fire.

So how's it going to work out? ' Zeus said: 'I insist, it's equal for everyone. Each one will gain an equal portion of justice, and of shame.

And say to them the following: those who don't use justice, who don't use shame, as their qualities, as their arms to be able to live in society, to be able to live in the city, to be able to administer the city - politics - they - men - can judge and kill these men in my name. Apollo went and distributed equally to everyone. In order to administer the city, each man got an equal portion - the capacity for justice, to be just, and an equal measure of shame, so as not to commit any injustice, to take pride in doing what was just.

That's it. When Protagoras told this, he told it as an apology for democracy. Why?

Because everyone can go to the 'agora' and present arguments equally, because all are just, and all, when they are unjust, end up feeling ashamed; and so democracy could function well, because it depends on qualities given by Zeus. Equal for everyone. When Plato told this in the book 'Protagoras', Plato told it mockingly, since he knew very well that things didn't happen like that.

Because Plato himself had passed through a situation that - well, look everyone, I came close to this - to what Plato went through - and it's not good. You see one of the people who are most just, you see your teacher killed, condemned and killed, by democracy, by the assembly of men who had an equal portion of justice and shame. And they were completely unjust and completely without shame, at least those 500-odd who voted against Socrates, condemned him to death, carried out the sentence, and Socrates died for democracy, condemned by democracy.

Plato was never in favour of democracy - for other reasons. He already came from an aristocratic family, Plato the divine, the nephew of people connected to the gods. but Plato was a friend of Socrates, a plebeian, a poor man, a soldier, a soldier living off his war earnings, a war hero who practiced philosophy in Athens.

But Plato saw that man who simply was a teacher, unjustly accused of corruption of the youth, the introduction of new gods, and disbelief in the gods. When Plato wrote 'Protagoras' and his other books, Socrates was already dead. Plato was a contemporary of Socrates for just a short time; he wasn't the foremost disciple of Socrates in the sense of living at the same time.

He lived only 8 years with Socrates. And he wrote only a long time later about the death of Socrates; but lack of faith in democracy, through the death of Socrates, and the thesis against democracy starting from the position that democracy didn't function is put forward by Plato in the text 'The Republic', where he tries to create a city, yes - that one, which is just. Just, on account of not being democratic, because democracy runs the risk of requiring from men justice and shame.

To be just, and to feel ashamed at being unjust. Yet men really seemed not in fact to have gained from Apollo this equal portion. This myth did not give any grounds for the rational sustainability of democracy.

So, Plato began to construct a criticism of democracy by erecting an ideal - just - city, which is put forward in the text of 'The Republic' and which, in a way, founds philosophy. Philosophy is born out of political philosophy and the philosophy of education, insofar as it is a just city, which needs to educate people to live in that just city. Here, Plato comes in with his work, and there we will enter 'The Republic', when Socrates - ah, Socrates - will talk about justice in the first and second books of 'The Republic'.

This discussion is the subject of our third lesson, because that's enough for today. And today your task is to search in the book 'Protagoras', for the myth of Protagoras - it's on the internet. I'll see who's in the classroom - you and you, are you all there?

I'll mark you present here, but I note that Nana didn't come, no? Nana absent. Well, ah I see that some more people didn't turn up.

Don't sign the register for the others, eh! Folks, distribute these lessons to others. In the third lesson, we'll see what Socrates had to say about justice.

Until the next lesson, the third one.