Really True Fiction7 Jul 2021

Ep. 11 - The Open Society And Its Enemies - Pt. 1

Welcome to part one of a four part mini-series on the book The Open Society And Its Enemies by Karl Popper. This book is a Promethean level of fresh air intellectually when it comes to understanding how a free society can operate; and what are the kind of mentalities that are opposed to that. Even though it is mentioned as unknowing in the episode, this book was published in 1945. It comes in two volumes, and for this episode I will be talking about the first half of volume one. In today's episode I discuss that parts of Poppers argument that deal with:

- Historicism as Popper's catch all idea for the undergirding of all those interested in the closed society

- How a turbulent world or social structure often inspires people to feel a need to return to a closed society - with all the tribal myths and stories about the greatness of a given people coming back into the fore

- Plato's theory on the forms/ideas - postulating the idea of perfection

- Plato's conclusion that change is evil and rest is divine - and how he begins to apply this idea to that of the State

- How the concept of something being socially constructed does not necessitate that is is completely arbitrary. That in fact a better way to think about social constructions is asking what kind of problem are they purporting to solve.

- The underlying fear of people that ethical obligations are the our responsibility

- How Plato would twist the meaning of words to his own designs

- And how borderline moral and intellectual cases are welcome in an open society because it keeps our thinking sharp.

I hope you enjoy this first part, and there are three more to come.

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