If I could give you a little homework I would be very interested in your take on this article
from Harper's Magazine.
He talks about Plato and the noble lie, I know nothing about Plato.
Leo Strauss, George Bush, and the philosophy of mass deception –
Earl Shorris, Harpers’ Magazine, June 2004
http://www.embeddedlive.com/pdfs/Harpers.pdfOne of the great services that Strauss and his disciples have performed for
the Bush regime has been the provision of a philosophy of the noble lie, the
conviction that lies, far from being simply a regrettable necessity of political
life, are instead virtuous and noble instruments of wise policy. The idea's
provenance could not be more elevated: Plato himself advised his nobles,
men with golden souls, to tell noble lies-political fables, much like the
specter of Saddam Hussein with a nuclear bombto keep the other levels of
human society (silver, iron, brass) in their proper places, loyal to the state
and willing to do its bidding. Strauss, too, advised the telling of noble lies in
the service of the national interest, and he held Plato's view of aristocrats as
persons so virtuous that such lies would be used only for the good, for
keeping order in the state and in the world. He defined the modern method
of the noble lie in the use of esoteric messages within an exoteric text, telling
the truth to the wise while at the same time conveying something quite
different to the many.
I would appreciate any feed back. It is also available as a html file if you don't have A Dopey Reader.