Plato's Republic Book VIII: The Fall of Cultures

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In this video I turn to Book 8 of the Republic to explain Plato’s account of civilizational decline. Plato believes that all that comes to be in time must also perish, and the ideal city is no exception. He believes that philosophical aristocracy (rule by the best) inevitably falls to timocracy (rule by military honor), timocracy to oligarchy (rule by the wealthy), oligarchy to democracy (rule by the mob), and democracy to tyranny (rule by a tyrant).
The fall of the ideal city has more of a mythological character to it. Plat claims that it declines because even the best of human sages will fail to correlate the human reproductive cycle with the ideal electional times established by Pythagorean numerology. As a result, baser natures are born who neglect philosophy. Timocracy results as a compromise position between those who want to retain the traditions of the city, with those who would use it to gain wealth for themselves.
Yet the subsequent stages of degeneracy unfold with logical consistency. Plato argues that the dialectic is generated by the logic of each city’s false conception of the good. As a result, each lesser city has the seeds of its own destruction within itself.
Plato’s dialectical account should not be confused with modern account such as Hegel’s which see progress in the unfolding of history. For Plato did not see this dialectic as a steady march of freedom, but as the inevitable decline into tyranny that results once man turns his gaze from heaven.
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[@ASH-xk4ci]

This is all a little close to home at this stage of history. I am staggered by the prescience of Plato. Please continue making these videos, I think this might be my new favourite channel!

[@sorenkorvberg8736]

Thank you very much for these videos!