Baby is growing! He's in the 99th percentile for length, and he's right in the healthy middle for weight gain. Chowon is an excellent mom, and her condition is improving, but she still has some serious joint pain.

I just finished book 8 of The Republic. I had to listen to it a few times, because I listen at work and it was dense. Eventually I had a less taxing task to accomplish, and I was able to focus better on it. It was a little bit upsetting to listen to Plato's observations about the demise of his contemporary democracies. America, being a sort of democratic republic, appears to be constantly in the state of being probed for weaknesses leading to the same sort of destruction that Plato describes.

A sweeping summary: the lowest financial class, fearing that members of the highest financial class seek to become oligarchs, (though he notes that the highest class does not necessarily seek to change the system through which they have become wealthy), enlist the middle and most politically active class to "squeeze" the upper class for resources. The upper class therefore does the only sensible thing: they use what influence and wealth they have to take steps to protect their own property. Who wouldn't? These steps, however, make them seem even more like aspiring oligarchs, and serve only to inflame the people against them. The lower and middle class incite fear in one another against the upper class, pressing them harder, forcing them to protect themselves with more serious measures, until the upper class has become oligarchs in reality. At that time, the lower and middle class, remembering freedom, naturally congregate around a political figure, who they imagine will protect them against the oligarchy. That figure, in doing so, becomes accustomed to forcibly destroying what are essentially his fellow men. Every oligarch he overthrows finds him more powerful than before, and his unbridled support is contingent on him maintaining a continuous war against wealth, and eventually against the middle class, becoming the enemy of anyone he can identify as the most wealthy and the most happy. Over time, his actions become recognizably deplorable, and the only way for him to maintain power is by delegating influence to whatever group of people were previously the most impoverished and uneducated. By means of this group of people, he is able to subjugate the rest of the nation. Tyranny.

I hardly did justice to Plato with that paragraph. Read it yourself.

If I am to agree with Plato, (and on many points in his Republic I have disagreed so far), then the various movements concerned with redistributing the wealth owned by "the 1%-ers" (remember "Occupy Wall Street") attempt to be the catalyst for this kind of change, and we may see this change in a matter of just a few generations if America continues to be shaped by those movements. It's true that, not being a pure democracy, we have several safeguards in place to prevent that, but it seems to me that laws are changed in America as soon as they are perceived to be "out-of-date", with the same carelessness that the Bible is rejected on the grounds that it was written by "bronze age goat herders". If people disagree with a law on principle,  then they overthrow the law rather than reevaluate their principles.  Naturally, if that is the case, then Plato's other points follow, and the only way to prevent this is by widespread education about the philosophical grounds for a republic over any other form of government.

But I've been through the public school system. I never even heard of Plato's Republic until just less than a year ago -- not that Plato's Republic, specifically, is the thing that people must learn, but why rewrite a book that's already been written? Why did I have to read "The Kite Runner", but not Josephus? Why did I have to recite the pledge of allegiance, but never read "Civil Disobedience"? Why did I learn about Confucius, but never his thoughts? Why did I learn about Karl Marx, but never take a critical eye to his Manifesto? Why did I learn about Rome, but not Tertulian? Why did I learn about Babylon, but not Israel? Why did I learn about Hitler's attempts at eugenics, but never Margaret Sanger's? Why did I learn about Europe, but never learn about the reformation? Why did I have to learn about postmodernism, but never hear any credibility given to the concept of absolute truth? Why did I have to study 3-point "persuasive speaking", but never learn to recognize logical fallacies? Why did I have to study Hammurabi, but never Moses? Which one established a more successful government?

I don't think we're equipping people to protect their freedom. Our education system, though apparently so heavily influenced by platonic thought, fails its goal of protecting the republic. Plato's republic is sustained by education,  and Plato's education is supported by the republic.  Without one, the other dies.

God help me.  How can I protect my child from these schools?

 [Sometime later, finishing this blog on my phone now]

Speaking of Parenthood, SPOILERS!!! Chowon and I have been watching that series on Netflix these days. It was really good up until season 4, when Drew's girlfriend hired an assassin to kill their baby. But we gave it a chance,  hoping it wouldn't get worse, and we just completed season 5.  Everybody is having sex all the time now.  Drew is in college and is heart-warmingly encouraged by the men in his life to have sex with as many girls as possible.  Haddie is lesbian. Joel and Julia are separated but not divorced, and Julia is sleeping with some guy who the audience doesn't even know really, and all the other ladies are telling her that it's a good thing, expressly because she hadn't slept with enough different men in her life. Sarah is all over the place. Amber is pregnant by a guy who just moved away and broke off their engagement (#consequences). The doctors, after spitting on Hippocrates' grave, offered to kill Amber's baby for her, since she's not married. They sold the family house.... and did I forget anything... oh! If the show is all I have to go on,  than apparently Christians believe that you can't be saved unless you were baptized as a baby.  Not sure if I want to to see how the one "Christian" character in this show handles Haddie. It's gonna be like watching a surgery! Do they paint us as intolerable bigots who can't even be nice to someone who has a gender identity issue,  or do they paint us as jellyfish with no convictions?  Because so far,  pop media has made it seem like you're only either one or the other of those. Maybe they'll surprise me! I'd stop watching it, but Chowon likes shows about relationship drama, and that's what this feels like now.

Dang it Bill Cosby! Why did you have to go and ruin the one good show about family values!?!?

Oh well. That's it for tonight.

"Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art."