by Ryan Meyers

Created on: December 10, 2008

Plato thought philosophers should rule because "real" philosophers are obsessed with finding the truth instead of being right. In fact I think most "real" philosophers have a fetish for new concepts that change their view of the world.

Our minds were designed to think strongly and deeply so when we are opened to new ideas it sparks a frenzy of profound thinking that for me at least helps engage self and environment even closer.

For most, being proven wrong or opening self to new ideas is incredibly frightening and that leads to people turning away from truth and therefore undermining society's growth. The growth of societies "towards the truth" should be the greatest focus of all.

Primitive man finds something that works and sticks with it until threatened by extinction. Certainly it has worked very well but the truth is that our evolution has been pushed forward by innovative minds that were searching for more than the obvious tools for present survival.

Yes environment forced the masses to accept the forward thinking of such individuals but these individuals were only able to succeed because their minds were opened to the truth.

They may not have found the truth but the truth certainly was in mind and brought the individuals to untapped areas of the human conscious and subconscious.

Plato also knew that common thinkers can be easily manipulated by the present collective conscious of society may it be particular religious or cultural beliefs.

That being said there is no perfect person or people to act as the mind of the collective because their can be no definitive way to separate a brilliant manipulative mind from a brilliant opened mind that seeks truth.

If we put our lives in the hands of the few we are essentially giving the few reign over all and history has shown us in a blatant manner how wrong it is to allow power to be exercised by the few.

If you ask me there are many people that shouldn't be voting dew to pure stupidity, ignorance, and biased religious views but this thinking also would give someone the power to dictate who can and can't vote which would disrupt the freedom of truth.

If we can assure that the people running the masses were actually only in search of the truth instead of proving their own ideas to be true then it probably would be a perfect world or at least society would always be on the right track towards optimum life. Such is life though, that we can't assure anything even death because who really knows what goes on after our physical demise? See that is a true philosopher's assertion.

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