Political Discourse
Beyond Socrates’ Notion of Political Decay: Buddhism and Political Party Development
Decay as a political concept is discussed in Book VIII of Plato’s Republic (R546a).(1) Socrates explained, “It is hard for a city composed in [an advanced] way to change, but everything that comes into being must decay.” In the wording of that statement, Socrates surmised that decay is part of living existence; he opined that dissolution and imperfection inevitably accompany continued life. At the time, Glaucon and Adeimantus listened to Socrates’ cynical explanation, and were soon convinced of the downbeat restraints on social progress.
As a notable prerequisite to their discussion is a five-stage cyclical classification of societal leadership: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. Socrates was asked to explain moving away from aristocratic control, a condition of reasoned excellence, into timocracy, an honorable and glory-ridden form of political leadership. The challenge he faced: if a leader were truly excellent, he would undoubtedly maintain his stature at the political and social pinnacle; in other words, preservation is a condition of excellence. Amid that argument, however, is a misconception of excellence; human excellence still involves those characteristics of nature, Socrates claimed. And included as a characteristic of nature is decay, or barrenness. A law of nature in this context is any rule that may be applied to every civilization and person -- past, present and future.
Take the Athenian leadership throughout the Peloponnesian War, for example. Their immediate and innate interests trumped justice, or excellence.(2) It’s that natural force in priority towards corruption that commands further discussion, and adds evidence to the subsistence of the “General Law of Decay.” An analysis of Socratic reason will continue to layer this essay’s discussion in order to commentate and help explain the basis for Athenian demise and political decay.
First, the author will use Socratic reason to narrate the inevitable disintegration of Athens to situate the reader into a theoretic understanding of political demise. Next, he will analyze the notion of political decay through Nietzschean rationale, an optimistic school of thought closely associated with Indian philosophy and in particular Buddhist thought. And lastly, siding with Buddhist instruction (and Nietzsche), the author will advance those ideas that seem capable of overcoming the inevitable dissolution mentioned by Socrates in an attempt to fortify the fate of political organization in a modern sense. Lastly, the inclusion of political parties into the government bureaucracy will serve as the simplest and most sufficient way to overcome the innate pressure of decay.
Evidence for Decay
Often enough the wisest leaders will beget virtuous action through the ills of nature, the body and soul, argued Socrates early in Book VIII. The leaders’ offspring on occasion will be “neither good-natured nor fortunate,” he added (R546d). And that corrupts the positive harmony common to aristocratic leadership; a conflict ensues, and society decays. And a warrior – or timocratic individual – emerges through perceived disadvantage; the process of decay, then, begins to impact the aristocracy, resulting in timocracy, according to Socrates.
Consider the Peloponnesian War.(3) According to Thucydides, at the outset the Athenians entered the war because of “the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in [Sparta] made war inevitable.” He continued with a description of both sides’ pleas for support in the court of public opinion (T1.23). There in front of the world’s listeners, Athens defended itself against its attackers; aristocrats defend themselves, too, and always lose, according to Socrates. Because philosophy and excellence are not warrior-like; neither can stand tall against a powerful attack. A noble aristocrat cannot maintain leadership strictly on the basis of his philosophic duty to rule. Instead he must fight; strength is more useful than principle. Knowing that, as the Athenians accepted the need for defense, they simultaneously accepted new rulers: honorable men, driven by glory, action and victory – powerful men, defensive men. On military might the Athenian empire had to stand, led by spirited and motivated, timocratic rulers. At that, Athens took its first stride away from perfection and flawlessness and into decay and dissolution. Motivated their leaders were, despite.
And motivation in its broadest sense fuels oligarchy, according to the thoughtful Socrates, which represents the third form of leadership. “Once civil war breaks out [the constitution is pulled] towards money-making and the acquisition of land,” Socrates explained (R547b). Necessary appetite takes priority, surmounting the importance of spirit and reason, he added. And oligarchy -- or control and competition -- ensues.
As example, the Athenians had to wield support, which as a process results in aggrandizement. Dedicated to preserving their empire, the Athenians were inclined to solicit allies and expand influence: power and legitimacy. Like Socrates’ timocrats, they became an oligarchy by competing for power and control.
In an oligarchy, “almost everyone except the rulers is a beggar,” admitted Socrates to his students (R552d). And the rulers are greedy and unjust, he added. But the beggars are angry, however, and eventually react and revolt through the teachings of their ancestors, the timocrats and the aristocrats, who represent action and reason respectively. “Yes, that’s how democracy is established, whether by force of arms or because those on the opposing side are frightened into exile,” Socrates explained (R557a).
As for the Athenians: further decay ensued throughout the war as the plague of nature took hold. “Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence,” wrote Thucydides (T3.82). Equality marched forward. Democratic ideology became the mouthpiece – and sword – of a majority of the globe. Groups combined to suppress the strength of the oligarchic hand of Athenian/Spartan piracy and dominion.
“Freedom: Surely you’d hear a democratic city say that this is the finest thing it has, so that as a result it is the only city worth living in for someone who is by nature free,” Socrates explained to Glaucon and Adeimantus (R562c). (Glaucon and Adeimantus represent timocratic men.) Socrates continued, “All these (democratic) things together make the citizens’ souls so sensitive that, if anyone even puts upon himself the least degree of slavery, they become angry and cannot endure it. And in the end … they take no notice of the laws, whether written or unwritten, in order to avoid having any master at all … In fact, excessive action in one direction usually sets up a reaction in the opposite direction … Extreme freedom can’t be expected to lead to anything but a change to extreme slavery (R563e).” Recall Isaac Newton’s third law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.(4) A climate of equality drunkens the majority in a democracy, Socrates argued. There’s no real authority responsible for obligating improvement and declaring order. And the slaves the democracy so passionately protect and defend soon assume that role, and take the helm, Socrates reasoned. And the people are then submerged in the harshest of conditions, and decay to the pit of impropriety and indecency.
The Athenians underwent that political direction throughout the Great War, gradually decaying into democracy and beyond. Pericles said (T2.64) in a speech to the Athenian populace: “Even if now, in obedience to the general law of decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will be remembered that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other Hellenic state, that we sustained the greatest wars against their united or separate powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any other in resources or magnitude.” Longer than that and accumulating more resources is thus the goal of successive leaders and empires against the inevitable timetable of decay, an innate quality of man, who through life is constantly and gradually approaching death and further decay.
Lebow provided (2001, 17) a succinct summary of the inevitable ills that arise from success:
Success spawns excessive ambition, overconfidence and self-destructive behavior. Success intoxicates heroes and encourages them to form inflated opinions of themselves and their abilities, and to trust in hope rather than reason. It makes people susceptible to all kinds of adventures where reason would dictate caution andrestraint.(5)
In other words, never can any being avoid himself. However, as Walsh has written (1962, 4), “There [is] nothing any human being could do about [decay], except perhaps to arrest the process at some particular point.” And arresting the process is possible, indeed. As the proverb instructs, ‘You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair.’(6)
Alternative to Decay
Nietzsche advanced thoughts standard to Buddhist practice and tenets of Indian philosophy. Ansell-Pearson wrote (2002, 319), quoting a preface Nietzsche penned in the autumn of 1886 for the second edition of Gay Science:
It is only the experience of great pain that affords us the deepest insights into the human condition. Nietzsche makes the point that the experience of such pain does not necessarily make us “better” human beings but only more “profound” ones. The result of such “dangerous exercises of self-mastery” should not be “self-forgetting” and “self-extinction,” rather, the task is to emerge a “changed” and “different person.”(7)
A person finds inspiration when put within a condition of desperation. Once struck with defeat, a man cannot move any deeper into loss; upwards becomes the only possible direction. Despair is defeat, and defeat is loss. And loss becomes gain if perceived correctly. When a person loses, or errs, he is obligated to pinpoint the cause of the loss, remedy the mistake, and prepare for the next obstacle. The mistake, or loss, trained and taught the person a lesson; it’s that lesson -- or that experience -- that Socrates doesn't explain.
He understood the negative lessons gained through experience, but failed to consider and evaluate the strengths and importance of the dichotomous positive instructions. Said otherwise, if society decayed once, would it decay again, knowing where it led in the past? Or, more importantly, can perfection ever be met?
The aim of any society – or any person – is to operate along a perfect framework, the crux of life and thought. Accomplishing perfect status as a person would stand as an incredible feat; as a society it is nearly impossible, Socrates might interject. Still, researchers and students of government are left dismayed: how does a body politic counter or manage the inevitable timetable of decay?
Buddhism's the answer. Spirituality is the obvious venue. It's the means at which an individual controls negative forces. And Socrates himself argued that individual analysis is necessary to explain and describe social decay. He wrote (R544d5):
And do you realize that of necessity there are as many forms of human character as there are of constitutions? Or do you think that constitutions are born from oak or rock and not from the characters of the people who live in the cities governed by them, which tip the scales, so to speak, and drag the rest along with them? Then, if there are five forms of city, there must also be five forms of the individual soul.
Plus, Buddhism recognizes Nietzsche's counter-argument and accounts for experience in its four noble truths, which together comprise the foundation of Buddhist belief.(8) The First Noble Truth is that life is suffering. To live, you must suffer, and it is impossible to live without experiencing some kind of suffering. The Second Noble Truth blames all suffering on craving. The Third Noble Truth is that suffering can be overcome and happiness attained. And last, the Fourth Noble Truth is the path leading to the overcoming of suffering. This path is called the Noble Eightfold Path and consists of “Perfect Understanding, Perfect Thought, Perfect Speech, Perfect Action, Perfect Livelihood, Perfect Effort, Perfect Mindfulness, and Perfect Concentration”.(9)
Societies are suffering and decaying, too, as Socrates explained. Recall the declining cycle, in Walsh’s words (1962, 6):
...How timocracy in turn passes into oligarchy, the rule of the rich, as the love of gain replaces honour as the dominant motive and those who are well-born but without substantial means are excluded from the government; how the carrying further of this process divides the State into a small group of ‘haves’ and an ever increasing group of ‘have-nots,’ who finally revolt and seize the government, instituting a regime in which all men are equal and everyone is at liberty to do whatever he wishes; finally how tyranny is set up when an influential demagogue, thwarted even under this system in doing what he wants, appeals to the people on the pretence that his enemies are plotting against him, and is granted a bodyguard which he uses to establish complete personal domination.(10)
But Socrates’ aristocrats, timocrats, oligarchs, democrats and tyrants haven't accomplished Buddhism's fourth noble truth: the Noble Eightfold Path, according to Socrates. Because they keep decaying.
Noteworthy, Bodhi wrote(1984, 16):
The causes of social disharmony lie in the human mind and all stem ultimately from craving … [which] brings about not only continued rebirth in samsara with its personal pain and sorrow, but also the cupidity, selfishness, violence and immorality that wreck all attempts to establish peace, cooperation, and social stability.(11)
Kirkland explained Samsara as:
Earthly existence is essentially flawed: we form false and improper attachments, and, as a consequence, reap a miserable existence. Through rebirth, we are locked into a vicious cycle of suffering and delusion. This cycle is called samsara.(12)
Samsara is beatable, though, according to the Buddhist faith. By understanding the teachings of the Buddha (and accomplishing the eightfold path), a person has the potential to reach nirvana, described as “the completion of the path of Buddhism, where the real is won via self-enlightenment and the incomparable self-awakening and all delusion and anguish are permanently ended even before death in this state.”(13)
In the same way, a society should be able to overcome Socrates’ notion of political decay. Both concepts apply to humanity and attempt to explain the negative force(s) progressively unraveling the social fabric. Buddhism, however, takes the idea of decay a step farther and offers a prescription for the inevitable ill: the eightfold path. On the surface that prescription seems to command the use of concentration and intense devotion, but beneath the ambiguity is a set of criterion that corresponds to political legitimacy and security.
Buddhism Applied to Athenian Demise
While applying the tenets of Buddhism to the organization of government, it is necessary to also pinpoint those forces causing decay (mentioned by Socrates).
Socrates is one of the few philosophers, ancient or contemporary, with a highly explicit theory of political degeneration, as discussed. The concept of a “corrupt society,” however, is a more familiar one in political theory. Huntington wrote (1965, 400):
Typically it refers to a society which lacks law, authority, cohesion, discipline, and consensus, where private interests dominate public ones, where there is an absence of civic obligation and civic duty, where, in short, political institutions are weak and social forces strong. [Socrates’] degenerate states are dominated by various forms of appetite: by force, wealth, numbers, and charisma.(14)
That said, corruption is the first recognizable force acting in favor of Socrates' decay. Minimizing corruption, then, is necessary to evade the cycle of samsara and to shelve the law of decay.
Secondly, societies must deter and stop the production of weak-minded offspring. Socrates said to Glaucon and Adeimantus, “The leaders’ offspring on occasion will be “neither good-natured nor fortunate.”(15) And conflict arises as a result. Undoubtedly, it’s impossible for any society to remove entirely weak-mindedness from all its members’ minds; it is socially possible, however, to suppress incorrect ambition.
The Buddha said:
If you gain equanimity toward enemies, dear ones and strangers through contemplation, you can then extend it to all sentient beings. When you have such an equanimity toward them, you will not categorize them into enemies or friends. It will stop you forever from doing such evil, worldly actions as subduing enemies and upholding friends.(16)
Treating the weak-willed with equanimity, then, is a second action useful to curb the cycle of decay and rightly suppress conflict. It remains true that principle and mindfulness are not likely to withstand the force of power and physical fitness (as mentioned above), but a society can forbid the mobilization of combaters inclined toward glory through reason and communication. A society can stop the rise of weak-mindedness before it begins.
But a society also must defend itself against external vigor. To again use the Athenian analogy: how could’ve the Athenians handled the Spartan attack? Equanimity is not the answer because a society is only capable of conditioning its own toward virtue and excellence; it cannot intrude upon the lives of its sovereign colleagues, or enemies. And when those enemies come forth with invasive intentions, the society under attack must react with defense and honor. Diplomacy (or equanimity), then, is destined to lose priority to power and military fitness, as Socrates explained while discussing the transition from aristocracy to timocracy.
It is not clear how the Buddha felt about self-defense; however, certain writings on the practice suggest that one can react to an assault with self-preservation in mind and love for the attacker, “which leaves open the possibility of self-defense as long as the defender is devoid of anger and truly concerned with both the attacker’s and his/her own well-being.”(17)
Buddhism as a practice advocates non-violence, indeed, but violence may be interpreted as a reference to great force in general, such as that often seen with anger and hatred, lacking any emotional connotation. Self-defense through physical fitness accompanied by the right mental awareness becomes the answer the Athenians sought, then.
And the most popular form of self-defense within the Buddhist community is called Shaolin Gung Fu, which operates on seven principles: mental fitness, attitude, discipline, self-defense, confidence, physical fitness and respect; and, began as a method used to reach harmony with oneself and the universe, according to the Shaolin Gung Fu Institute.(18) There are many styles of shaolin that operate within the scope of Buddhist ethics.(19) Any one of those styles is a legitimate response to any external pressure that may arise.
To move back into Socratic reason, shaolin (or some other art form that advocates similar principles and teaches similar techniques) is a thrid attitude to possess against the cycle of decay, as it provides a framework upon which a society may defend itself.
Still, shaolin does not necessarily earn one immediate support from other societies (or enemies), and even if a society masters its teachings, it is still forced into the race for allies, or oligarchic ambition. Just because the society is protected by shaolin does not mean other societies will take its side in a conflict. And as a result, as Socrates said, the society decays into a need for money and control, into bargaining with weak-mindedness, and into a need to acquire land and support. And, as a result, the society devolves into oligarchic form. But a society does not have to possess oligarchic tendencies to wield support in the global arena; self-defense alone means a lot and should in this instance.
Certainly diplomatic support is achieved through effective bargaining (as evidenced by the Athenians and the principles of realism as a diplomatic strategy). Self-defense is an effective plea to others for support. Realistically, self-defense has wielded respect among the international community. It has the capacity and weight to recruit allies. In other words, bargaining does not and should not arise when self-defense is concerned. Otherwise, the world'd be vulnerable to outright injustice, and neither Buddhism nor realism seeks to accomplish that. Then, placing priority on self-defense is a fourth criterion a society should accept in order to avoid Socrates’ notion of decay, to avoid oligarchy.
And if oligarchy wouldn’t arise and the conditions of oligarchy fuel a transition into democracy, then never would democracy come about. And neither would the need for tyranny develop. In other words, the above suggestions are necessary and sufficient to curb political decay.
Still incomplete is the message of this essay, however. Placing priority on self-defense, understanding shaolin, suppressing the rise of ill-nature with equanimity, and reducing the prevalence of corruption are not attained without formally institutionalizing a system around such principles. To do that a society must foster and promote the development of political factions.
Strong Political Parties Decelerate Decay
Discussion in this section will pinpoint political parties as an institutionalized method of evading the pressure of decay. Organizing political factions will become the method at which a society may implement equanimous diplomacy and reduce the likelihood of corruption.
Huntington wrote (1965, 400): “Instability and degeneration can be avoided only by combining elements from all the good forms into a mixed state. Complexity produces stability.” What is complexity in a political sense? It’s advanced institutional structuring which operates above a detailed array of need. However, Huntington added (386), “Rapid modernization, in brief, produces not political development, but political decay,” on the grounds that modernization, by definition, undermines the strength of existing political institutions. Said otherwise, insuring the legitimacy of the political institution is the most important aim of a society desiring order. What are the characteristics of effective institutional organizations? Huntington answered (425) that question using political parties:
Strong party organization is the only long-run alternative to the instability for a corrupt or praetorian or mass society. The party is not just a supplementary organization; it is instead the source of legitimacy and authority … the party is the source of legitimacy because it is the institutional embodiment of national sovereignty, the popular will, or the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The use of the party system to achieve various political process goals has been stressed by a number of other renowned theorists, including Almond (1960), Duverger (1954), Leiserson (1959), Lipset and Rokkan (1967), Neumann (1956) and Sartori (1976). Only one empirical study indicating the relationship between the strength of the party system and a good performance by the political system was found. Powell concluded (1981, 876):
In general, substantial popular support for extremist parties is believed to threaten a democracy’s ability to generate a stable government, to contain conflict within democratic bounds, to manage responsive and responsible transfers of power ... The writings on democratic party systems concur in characterizing party systems with substantial extremist party voting as “weak.” But theorists disagree on the desirable attributes of “strong” party systems.(20)
What is a strong party structure? Powell classified party systems into four distinct categories, ranging from a simple two party system to a representational multiparty system. The simple two-party system, the aggregative majority party system, and the responsible majority system ranked the highest when it came to political stability.(21) Those systems had the least likelihood of producing extremist factions with significant public support, Powell found (876). Since extremism is understood in this context as the underlying vehicle of political change, then it is the camp that would include the emerging factions represented by Socrates’ five constitutions. In other words, the timocrats would be considered extremists (persons opposed to maintaining the status quo) while conflicting with the aristocrats, the oligarchs would then represent the extremist faction against the timocrats, and so on. But, according to Powell’s experiment, the likelihood of those extremists causing a significant difference to the organization of a government with a structured party system is “weak.” Which means the cycle of decay is substantially slowed down when parties arise.
Next, how do political parties overcome the law of decay? To return to the former suggestions arisen from Buddhist logic: First, political parties definitely suppress the rise of ill nature through equanimity. Parties neaten the arrangement of the political bureaucracy and restructure governmental communication. No longer can one single person penetrate the bureaucracy without devising an ethical, professional and organized strategy. That tightened structure withers away the ultra-ill-natured extremists, and puts moderate extremists in a checked position. The extremist -- operating within a strong party system -- is forced to alter the system by inquisition. Most importantly, while inside the system the extremist is undoubtedly made a master of the status quo. If the status quo is marked with excellence, then the extremist will be cured of his “ill-fortuned” intentions which caused his decision to promote change or conflict (as explained by Socrates). As the Buddha once said, “As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.”(22)
Second, a qualified political party structure indeed reduces the likelihood of corruptive behavior through increased accountability. Lockerbie and Wielhouwer wrote (1994, 211):
Citizen contacting is a method by which party organization [in the U.S.] effectively reduces the transaction costs associated with political participation and that it is an important and largely neglected element in most analyses of political behavior … First, the political party exists as an organization in which ‘men and women join for concerted action to achieve goals.’ Second, the party exists in political offices ‘in virtually all legislatures of the democracies.’ Finally, the party exists in the electorate, which, though the ‘least stable, least active, least involved, and least well-organized’ of the three arenas, is composed of those partisans who have a psychological attachment to the party label and who generally show support for it at the polls.(23)
Lockerbie and Wielhouwer’s understanding of the political party and the role it serves for the government epitomizes exactly the point that the political party increases accountability. Every member of society in some way or another is taken into the party’s consideration. At a glance that relationship may seem to facilitate corruption in that the electorate is paying little attention and instead waiting quietly for the party to make contact with them. Which may be an accurate statement to make. However, multiple parties – a system that includes at least two parties – counters any apathetic tendencies that may arise.(24) As such, organized and developed groups in a party system routinely inspect the actions of other groups in an attempt to claim victory in the race for public approval.
Decay by way of foreign impact is also remedied through the use of political parties. The commander-in-chief is a member of a political party, and, according to Powell’s study (1981, 876), “The long-run pattern seemed to favor the aggregative and responsible systems in promoting executive stability.” Executive stability is not necessarily a form of Shaolin Gung Fu or does not indicate the worth of self-defense in the international arena, but it does represent the commander-in-chief of the society, which means if that chief is stable and secure, and joined by party loyalists, then change is unlikely, and decay is impossible. How to precisely implement shaolin into the political party system and the notion of self-defense is perhaps a topic that welcomes additional research from international scholars, lawyers, strategists or policy analysts.
To Conclude
Political parties decelerate the social impacts of decay as an inevitable force. Through the logic and guidance of Buddhist thought coupled with Socratic reason and Athens' demise, it has been shown that the cycle of decay exists and affects political climate for understandable reasons. Still, even laws of nature and their impacts may be avoided, or reduced; it just takes a more optimistic and practical level of awareness, it takes equanimous discourse.
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