Page 46 - CONSCIENCISM By Kwame Nkrumah_Neat

40 CONSCIENCISM
PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIETY 4I
and humbug. He has left us an undying testimony ofhis egalitarian
reason than others, and though education might up to a point con­
beliefs in his use ofthe slave-boy in the Meno: in this Platonic dia­
ceal them. these differences were bound to reveal themselves after
logue. Socrates tries to prove the disincarnate existence ofthe soul
a certain stage of a thorough-going education. These differences
and the innateness of certain ideas ofmathematics and ethics. In
in the level ofintelligence, according to Plato, implied a natural
selecting a slave-boy for the purpose ofhis proof, he showed that he
division and hierarchy oflabour, each man being fitted by nature
held a belief in the common and equal nature ofman. This belief
for functions appropriate to him, the less intelligent being in fact
activates Socrates' whole philosophy. He believed in the equal en­
only qualified to undertake menial forms oflabour. All political
dowment ofall with ilUlate ideas. the equal ability ofall to lead a
and social power was at the same time to be concentrated in
good life. Knowledge. he said, was virtue. And knowledge. he
the hands of the intellectuals, in trust. In this way, plato
further held, was innate. learning being in fact a way ofremember­
adumbrated an unconscionable totalitarianism ofintellectuals.
ing what was already engraved upon the individual soul.
Not even this could exhaust Plato's anti-egalitarianism. He
Though in the Men 0, Socrates put forward a fundamental
looked for ways in which this lop-headed group of intellectuals
egalitarianism. it would not be pretended that egalitarianism was
might harden into a class. He found his solution in some form of
to be found among the established facts oflife. The reason for this
eugenics: women and men were to be mated according to his
discrepancy between truth and social fact was conceived by him
principles ofeugenics and thus there would be created a succession,
in moral terms. If people were not conceited, mistaking their
based on birth, ofpeople who would in perpetuity hold all power
ignorance for knowledge. and ifthey reflected. they would all be
in trust.
equally moral, both because virtue is knowledge, and because they
It must be said that plato was profoundly upset by the turn which
would fundamentally all have the same knowledge as suggested
in the Meno. Athenian democracy had taken. In particular he could not forgive
a system which made it possible for his master, Socrates, to be
It has not been my purpose to argue that all the early precursors
executed. In pursuit of his private vendetta, he elaborated the
of Our modern philosophers in trying to modify or support a
principles of The Republic. In this, however, he seriously betrayed
modification ofsociety conceived this in terms ofegalitarianism.
Socrates, for Socrates himself had acknowledged the political
But even when they pursued a social line in reaction to the egali­
system in virtuously refusing to flee from it when accorded the
tarian line, they were still responding to social urges and social
opportunity of doing so. I do not wish, in saying that Plato
conditions. In a genuine sense, their philosophies were intellectual
betrayed Socrates by assailing the Athenian democracy, to suggest
reflections ofcontemporary social conditions.
that the Athenian democracy was a full democracy. The Greek
One example ofan early philosopher who became reactionary
democracy as a whole, but especially the Athenian, never
in respect of the egalitarian development was Plato. Socrates'
embraced all resident adults, nor did it aim, even as an
judges and executioners were not half as cruel to him as was his
betrayer Plato, also his loving disciple. ideal. at the redistribution of wealth. Women were not
included under the provisions of the democratic constitution.
Whereas Socrates had affirmed the original equal endowment of
And the aristocrats and merchant class continued to depend
men and explained differences between men in terms ofeducation,
for their wealth 011 slave and other exploited labour. It was
Plato was no believer in the fundamental equality ofman. He held
indeed due to the availability ofslave labour that the free citizenry
to the original inequality ofmen which an unrelenting educational
system would quickly reveal. He held that some men had a higher were not as oppressed as they might have been. The citizenry were
expected to remain content with the fact that certain offices ofstate