Charlie Kirk and Socrates

On the Promethean Action website Susan Kokinda has addressed the difference between the globalists driving the attempt to demolish the extant world, on the one hand, and those who are defending a value system which enshrines reason in the best sense of the word, on the other. This specific video discussion is tellingly entitled 'Why they hated Kirk and Socrates,' and represents a scorching critique of those who valorise the 'open society' á la George Soros, and those who subscribe to the conception of reason underpinning the work of the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato. To understand what is at stake, and its relevance for the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a bit of a detour is necessary.

Anyone familiar with the notion of 'the open society,' which is primarily associated with George Soros's supposed – but arguably spurious – 'philanthropic' endeavours worldwide, may know that the phrase was not Soros's invention, but derives from the work of Austrian-British emigré philosopher, Karl Popper, whose book, The Open Society and its Enemies, launched a vicious attack on Plato's philosophy as (mainly) articulated in his famous Republic. In passing I should note that another British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, famously remarked that the whole of Western philosophy is a 'series of footnotes to Plato' – an observation which suggests the opposite evaluation of the Greek philosopher's philosophical significance than that of Popper.

In the last segment of her video address, Kokinda contrasts Popper with Plato and his teacher, Socrates. She elaborates on Popper's hatred of Plato and the influence that this loathing had on the British, particularly those who have shaped what one might call British 'foreign policy' – that is, the British agencies which Promethean Action believes have been driving the onslaught against the Western world and particularly against President Donald Trump. Why? Because, as Kokinda and her colleague, Barbara Boyd remind one, Trump is systematically restoring American sovereignty and liberating it from the stranglehold that Britain – what they call the 'British Empire' – has had on the United States for at least eight decades.

Where does Popper feature in this? He conveniently gave his British hosts the excuse to target every embodiment of 'reason' in the Platonic sense, namely the belief that there are unassailable universal or universalisable principles, which human beings have access to, and moreover, according to which they can live if they so choose. It is ironic, to say the least, that Popper detested Plato – probably because of the latter's contention that a certain class of citizens, the philosophers, should rule a republic, and that the other two classes (the soldiers and the merchants) should be subservient to their rule. In other words, it was a 'republican' vision that cast citizens in three classes according to their talents or excellence (arête), which Popper evidently found intolerable.

Nevertheless, Plato's Republic, like his other dialogues, gives testimony to Plato's willingness to debate the merits of his idea of the 'ideal society.' The other irony is that Popper's philosophy of science, known as 'falsificationism' – the view that a statement is only scientific if it can, in principle, be 'falsified;' that is, 'tested' – actually makes a lot of 'rational' sense (in relation to experience). And yet, he trashed Plato's trust in reason.

Kokinda also reminds one – and this is highly pertinent to what happened to Charlie Kirk – that Plato's teacher was Socrates. Why is this the case? Consider the following: To be a true philosopher puts one in a difficult, sometimes dangerous position, as when you speak truth to power. This is because it is usually not something that one chooses to be. It does not even matter whether you have studied philosophy at college or not. Either one is a person who pursues knowledge and truth regardless of the familial or institutional obstacles in one's way, or you yield to these, and rely on fashionable or conventional answers to important questions.

In other words, I am not referring to academic philosophers, who choose philosophy as a profession. Some of these may also be philosophers in the true sense, but most of them end up being what Arthur Schopenhauer notoriously called 'bread thinkers' – individuals who do philosophy in service to those in power; that is, apologists for the status quo, or what Robert Pirsig irreverently dubbed 'philosophologists' in his second iconoclastic novel, Lila – An Inquiry Into Morals (1992: 376-377):

He liked that word 'philosophology.' It was just right. It had a nice dull, cumbersome, superfluous appearance that exactly fitted its subject matter, and he'd been using it for some time now. Philosophology is to philosophy as musicology is to music, or as art history and art appreciation are to art, or as literary criticism is to creative writing. It's a derivative, secondary field, a sometimes parasitic growth that likes to think it controls its host by analyzing and intellectualizing its host's behavior…

You can imagine the ridiculousness of an art historian taking his students to museums, having them write a thesis on some historical or technical aspect of what they see there, and after a few years of this giving them degrees that say they are accomplished artists. They've never held a brush or a mallet and chisel in their hands. All they know is art history.

Yet, ridiculous as it sounds, this is exactly what happens in the philosophology that calls itself philosophy. Students aren't expected to philosophize. Their instructors would hardly know what to say if they did. They'd probably compare the student's writing to Mill or Kant or somebody like that, find the student's work grossly inferior, and tell him to abandon it.

Unlike a philosophologist, a philosopher is primarily interested in truth, and addressing it in public can be dangerous, hence it requires courage – the kind of courage that both Socrates and Charlie Kirk had. Anyone who has the courage for such daring thinking and acting – particularly today – should be under no illusion: it would certainly carry tremendous risk, because it would challenge the greatest power complex the world has ever seen – the one we call the globalist cabal today.

Having mentioned philosophy and courage in the same breath immediately shines a light on Socrates, who showed immense courage in the face of Athenian power. From him one learns that true philosophers do not honour the 'gods of the polis' unconditionally. The philosopher's task, by which she or he is recognised, is to question the things valued by the city; that is, philosophers question convention.