Philosophy Dialogue Narration: Nick and Zak sat at a wooden bench in the Dining Hall.

Nick looked up at the television. Words travelled across the screen: Rob Ford removing Jarvis Street bike lanes, and initiating large-scale crackdown on grafti. Nick: Man the government is stupid? Zak: What, why? Nick: Because the system is neither productive or efcient. In allowing everybody to have a vote and a say, we allow ignorant people to take part in the running of the city. This just holds back the entire process, because the right voices are drowned out. Also, efciency diminishes because many people have to collectively make decisions. Zak: Yea, people tend to use their votes on charismatic candidates with whom they seem to have an emotional attraction to. Barrack Obamas election demonstrated this. If voters do focus on the mandates, the average voter will simply side with the candidate with a mandate that ts them - or if they care about the whole country, the mandate that serves the country best - without regard for whether the candidates mandate is realistic or not. Nick: Because of this, politicians have become these orators practicing rhetoric; focusing on making themselves appear nice to the public, and forming unrealistic mandates in an attempt to please as many people as possible. Their main focus is to maintain their highly paid positions. Zak: They should be focusing on real issues that people truly need solved, as oppose to seriously cracking down on grafti.

Nick: I know, but this contemporary electoral mindset causes people who are not always t to rule to end up in ofce. Those elected dont know what the people need or what society needs. Those who are t to lead, are either not elected, or they are mutated by the system and become unt. Zak: Its terrible. Nick: Yes, but who should best rule, and how should these people be put in positions to rule? Zak: Well rstly, how do we know that people should be ruled? Nick: Good men need no orders; but not everyone is good. There will never be a day without immorality in the world, so people should be under some degree of rule for all time. A government that should gradually fade away, like in Communism, is not practical - as states have proven and are still proving. The government never fades, because the people are seldom ready to live without it. Even if they are, the government becomes immoral as it does not want to give up its undue power. Zak: So there should always be rule, but the leaders should also be under some form of constraint. How do we insure that those who rule will not be tyrannical? Nick: Well there should be more than one ruler; a reasonably sized group should work together to rule - not competing against each other in parties. Ideally, they should be chosen based on their superior knowledge of ruling. It would be unlikely for this well chosen group of knowledgable rulers to become tyrants. Zak: That makes sense, the people who know how to do a job best should do the job. But who are these people?

Nick: These people are the philosophers. They know the underlying essential reality; they know the needs of the individual and society, and they can lead us down the right path to fulll these needs. Zak: It was a good idea to get rid of the competition of election, but that means that the leaders must be chosen. How can we nd them, and who will correctly choose them? Nick: I cant properly select philosopher leaders and I dont know who would be qualied to appoint them. I dont even know of any true philosophers. Zak: Me too. This is because philosophers are disparaged by todays people. They are not valued as the ones who understand the truth, rather they are often seen as eccentrics. People would rather listen to themselves, the charismatic politician, or the teenage pop singer that they idolize. Philosophers cant touch the masses like the icons of today do - partly because they would not want to deal with all that which touching the masses entails. Nick: So they will need to be searched for, found, and judged by some qualied people. We would have to nd some people who could properly judge these philosophers, but anyway lets move on to the topic of the philosopher rulers themselves. Zak: Come to think of it, philosophers wouldnt necessarily have to be put into ruling positions. Current rulers could be trained to become philosophers. Nick: I suppose so, but there will still be the need for a qualied person to train these rulers. Zak: Correct. Nick: Just the idea of a philosopher ruler on its own poses issues that I am not sure can be resolved - regardless of which way the philosopher ruler comes to be.

Zak: What issues? Nick: The perfect rulers would be philosopher rulers however, rulers can never be philosophers, and philosophers can never be rulers. Or at least it is very unlikely, for it would take dramatic changes to society. Zak: How so? Explain this paradox to me. Nick: There are three main issues. Firstly, people - especially nowadays - would never accept a philosopher ruler because he would not be able to effectively make a connection with them. Secondly, the true philosopher would never want to be a king, and if a king was trained to be a true philosopher, he would no longer wish to be a king. The philosopher would never want to be a ruler, because he would not wish to deal with the ignorant politician types, as well as the practicing of rhetoric that ruling would entail. He would want to have free time to philosophize; ruling would serve as a chore. If a king became a true philosopher, he would nd this distaste for ruling and would no longer wish to rule. Lastly, if a philosopher ever did become king, he would no longer be a philosopher so much as a poet (one practicing rhetoric). This is because, the philosopher would be so changed by the political activities that he would forget his grounding in true philosophy. Zak: Ahh, very true. Nick: This, in part, illustrates the rift between philosophy and politics. Zak: Yes, Plato states that the true philosopher, [. . .] whose mind is on higher realities, has no time to look at the affairs of men [. . .] his eyes are turned to contemplate xed and immutable realities. Contemporary democratic governments are too occupied by the standard realities to consider the higher ones.

Nick: If the notion of philosopher rulers is impossible - or very unlikely - than this is truly an ideal. Zak: Does this mean that there will be no end to the troubles of humanity? Nick: Maybe. Zak: I suppose this has been worth establishing as a goal to strive for, even if it will never be reached fully. Nick: Yes, philosophical discussions are good, because they make us realize things that we couldnt see before. Zak: Indeed, it was nice speaking with you.