Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s Plato at the Googleplex recreates the philosopher’s dialogues for contemporary times. David Auerbach reviews the book:
“Plato at the 92nd Street Y” pits him against the Chua-ish “Warrior Mother” Sophie Zee, discussing Republic’s hypothetical “city of pigs” and testing out in the Myers-Briggs typology as an INTJ (just like yours truly); “Plato on Cable News” has him exchanging blows with a bloviating Bill O’Reilly clone named Roy McCoy. And yes, here is Plato at the Googleplex, debating an engineer over the possibility of crowdsourcing ethics, as well as wryly comparing its communal environment to the training of young philosopher-kings in the Republic. (I used to work for Google, and believe me, we had it way better than Plato’s ascetic Guardians.)
By alternating between these new “Platonic dialogues” and a serious chronicle of Plato’s life and philosophy, Goldstein makes a plea for the continuing importance of philosophy as Plato (427–347 B.C.) conceived it, and for the enduring relevance of Plato’s contributions.
Elizabeth Toohey weighs in:
[T]here’s something moving, if also faintly depressing, about reading Plato inserted into 21st-century Western culture.
It brings to light the gap between what might have been and what is – and what we appear to be moving toward. Consider, for instance, Plato’s musing, “I do not think that rulers should be able to own substantive private property, for substantive property will immediately make them citizens of the city of the rich, with its own special interests to protect.” It doesn’t take much imagination to deduce what Plato would have to say about PACs.
Nick Romeo interviewed Goldstein:
[Q] How do you think Plato would respond to the cultural dominance of television and cinema?
[A] He’d be very alarmed. You can’t help but think immediately of his allegory of the cave in The Republic: The lowest form of consciousness is that of prisoners in the dark staring at images. He would be quite in despair. He would think that we were enchanted by the lowest form of thinking. To think is to be active; passivity is the death of the mind.
But he wouldn’t oppose all of contemporary culture. Just this past week I started tweeting as Plato; I guess I’m not ready to stop impersonating him. And this kind of thing, the dialogue that happens on blogs and social media, I think he would be into it. I think he’d be intrigued by that aspect of popular culture: the verbal and the written exchanges.
The Dish 