Manchester, A City of Gardens?

I was surprised in reading the contents of the Leader of Manchester City Council Sir Richard Leese’s blog of 8^th August, 2013 titled The Garden of Manchester commenting on the Garden City Movement. Sir Leese thinks that the Garden City Movement has done untold damage to our countryside.

The Garden city concept pioneered by Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City famed Ebenezer Howard had not been futile despite the fact some of his followers took the movement to the extreme in some occasions.  The Movement was apt for an era when inner city of London had a perpetual Dickensian condition in which the hapless Londoners lived, middle class and poor alike. Only respite from the dreary surroundings was for the people of upper class or of aristocratic background who had country piles. The Garden City concept was to rescue the Londoners to the better environment. I do not think Sir Howard had the romantic view of life in the suburbs as Metroland’s Betjeman had. Sir Howard had a socialist conscience who sought to create a communicating (or say, a commuting) bridge between the socialist and individualist aspirations. His vision was to bring to a rapidly urbanized British life a touch of country environments which would be realistically achievable. In his Garden City concept he wanted to merge urbanized modern life with the nature. He believed that humanity and the beauty of nature are intrinsically joined together – he wanted these two drifting elements to rejoin. His idea was if the Mountain would not come to Mohammad then Mohammad would come to the Mountain, hence the Garden City Movement. But in the recent modern life where urbanization is rapidly invading the countryside by leaving our ever dwindling green and pleasant land with receding breathing space, we have to bring the Mountain to Mohammad; hence new thinking is to put Sir Howard’s concept in a reverse gear.

We know urban life is an essential ingredient of modern living; we would be left with little room to escape from the urban condition, so why not bring some of the countryside facilities to our urban life? Instead of concreted open spaces as in  Manchester’s Exchange Square, or Cutting Room square in Ancoats of Manchester, which are the extensions of surrounding concrete blocks of buildings, why not bring greenery in shape of neighbourhood greens or squares in the residential quarters of the urban citizens? Sir Leese is waxing lyrical about concreted space with a few trees in commerce dominated Exchange Square: that is understandable considering nature of the surrounding. But bringing the same concept within the residential area of Ancoats Urban Village in Cutting Room Square is puzzling.  And to rub salt to the injury he ridiculously suggested “I hope it’s inspiring lots of people to plant up their own front and back yards”.  Here he is rubbing salt to injury. Following his council’s policy there is no front and backyard in Ancoats to plant any shrubs or anything like that. Ancoats Urban Village is a concrete jungle. Following the slum clearance there are two adjacent small open spaces in that concrete jungle. Now the local HCA is proposing to the Council to sell off the only precious open space to private developers for constructing more buildings! How the residents could take initiatives to bring greens to the city in that concrete jungle? Sir Richard if you are a “fan of gardens” as you proclaim to be, why don’t you extend open spaces facilities to the locals to create their own community gardens to make Manchester green? Why kill off the only open space left in Ancoats?

London’s Ladbroke Estate in Kensington’s Notting Hill Gate transformed the area of defunct Hippodrome Racecourse into classical villas and stucco terrace houses of no more than five stories high with the communal gardens attached to each of the three to four blocks of houses making the place most attractive area in the heart of Central London, where once Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland and Leon Brittan lived. Indeed, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster are the most sought after residential areas in London because they are adorned with the small neighbourhood gardens, in addition to their world famous parks. They have achieved to bring a little country living in the harshness of city life. With vision and imagination Manchester can do what London had done in its city centre. 

The Council is planning to expand Manchester City to the Northern and Eastern fringes of the city centre. My exploratory trip in the newly extended tramway system to Droylesdon revealed a vast derelict area around Holt Town that could be rebuilt to make Manchester a city of communal gardens with buildings not higher than five floors. Vienna’s famous The Ring Strasse, and the Haussmannian boulevards of Central Paris were all created from the ruins, why can’t we?

English Heritage’s stand that Ancoats was once slums with buildings so the new Ancoats should be slum in appearance as well, is ridiculous to the extreme: then why construct new buildings so high and look like concrete boxes without any character? Why the new buildings are not of the same height and shapes as the slum dwellings that have been demolished and cleared? What happened to the ‘heritage’ here? The Conservation policy sitting on its head! Why Ancoats should not have open space for the communal or neighbourhood gardens? I hear some of the new buildings in Ancoats had attempted in innovative way bringing garden in their premises to beat the Conservation Area restrictions by creating artificial garden with artificial plants in their basements and roofs – so much for Sir Leese’s gardens in the backyard!  I fail to understand the Conservation Area’s philosophy: when there is nothing left of the old heritage after slum clearance, save and except a few old Victorian Mills, refurbished for residential purpose – why still hanker after the heritage when there is none left? In Prague, Hitler wanted to preserve its Jewish quarter empty as a museum of a vanquished race. The subsequent governments preserved the whole area as it was all those years ago but making it a vibrant place with unobtrusive modernised facilities– that is what preserving the heritage means. Not what is happening in Ancoats –  where save and except a few old buildings and modernistic newly laid cobbled roads, there is nothing past about Ancoats. Why then hinder its development as a pleasant piece of residential area near centre of Manchester?

I suggest the expanded Manchester should have neighbourhood gardens and greens with real plants and shrubs in the proper soils with grass coverings. And the buildings will be of reasonable heights (preferably with balconies, considering the climate is changing) and of mixed character i.e. Social and Private Housings, though the land will be publicly owned.

Maintenance & Finance

The neighbourhood greens and squares should be public property lent out to the surrounding freeholders/head leaseholders to maintain them through the management committees consisted of the members of the residents. The financing would be done through subsidies from the local government through social housing management bodies and also levies from the private/head leaseholders for owning their  properties under long lease in such a desirable city centre; the levies will be either in the shape of a part of Council tax or a Service Charge for maintenance of their local amenities, in which case they may have the right of control to the use of these squares/greens by their own tenants or sub-leaseholders. No foreigners should be allowed to be the freeholders of the properties.

I could say that bringing the neighbourhood greens to the city centre by using the derelict brown fields would alleviate the suffocating conditions that are being created for the ever increasing population in Manchester City with its excuses of heritage and passion for concretes. This proposal might satisfy to a great extent Sir Leese’s sentiment that residents are using their semi-‘backyard’ to make Manchester A City of Gardens/Greens.   

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Greening of Manchester

On 10^th September, 2013 our local newspaper Manchester Evening News published an article with a request from one of our veteran councillors Pat Karney asking from its readers any suggestion as to how to spend the windfall of £15m that the Council had received from its investment in Manchester Airport, in his effort “to make Manchester the UK’s cleanest, greenest city of UK”. This open letter is a reply to his request. 

The idea of replacing the city centre bins with the ‘hi-tech smart bins’, like the so called ‘Smart’ phones, may be very attractive and youth-speak but is this the cure for the malaise that has in the Mancunians’ psyche by long ignoring needs of the locals who have given up any hope of improvements? Has it occurred to the Council that some bright coloured street bins and flower baskets are not deep enough to cure this malaise? Manchester, especially north and east fringe of the city centre where the Centre is planned to expand, is gradually looking like high-rise slums. People who live in these areas would need more than a few colourful bins and mangy flower baskets to have green consciousness. They need to live in a green environment to have respect for these superficial gestures. These two areas where there are still some open spaces could be converted to neighbourhood leafy squares and assigned to the local communities who would be thrilled to maintain it and bear the ‘green’ credentials for Manchester. Some of these open spaces (in Ancoats where there are no household gardens) are in danger of being sold off to build more buildings of dubious characters. Imagine bringing up children in such a concrete jungle. If the Councillor wants to make Manchester ‘Green’, halt this madness and bring the local communities to the mission of greening Manchester. If Manchester wants to compete with London, be like Kensington and Chelsea which is strewn with little neighbourhood squares, only then Manchester could shed its grimy Northern reputation. London is known as the City of Parks, let Manchester be the City of Greens.  

                                                           

What’s Wrong With the British Television ?

We expect our television news reporting to be neutral and objective – that is BBC claims to be. But is it?

It seems our news media has a bias against any established regime. If we look back we see the same double standard is maintained by BBC all through its recent existence. We remember during the Iranian crisis, BBC reporters were braying for the blood of Shah, the regimes tortures were exaggerated, and could not wait for it’s topple and replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime. What happened? As soon as the Ayatollah came to power our media stated braying for its fall in favour of a few dissidents. Our media is determined to keep Middle East problems, real or imaginary, alive so that their news reporters could have some jobs. It is not only BBC; the Channel 4 has also climbed to the same bandwagon and competing with BBC for the bipartisan tendency.

They same lack balance is there in the reporting of recent Middle Eastern crisis. From the very beginning the both the media showed lack of neutralityin reporting. I believe the crisis was exaggerated by the media in favour of the rebellions and then against the rebellions when they were in power. What did we expect from the rag-tag, medieval army whose philosophy is far from our civilised norms?

Last week’s reporting from Syria is a stark example of this lack of neutrality. As soon as the Assad regime accepted the new conditions regarding the destruction of chemical weapons, both BBC and Channel4 did not waste time hinting the regime is duplicitous and started showing the Syrian refugee problem as the result of regime’s atrocity. There were no refugee problems until the insurgents started encroaching regime’s territory with no little encouragement from our media. Has reporter shown us the scene of atrocity left by the occupying forces? Has either of our TV media told us the recent reports from Radio4 that insurgents practice is to line up the captured soldiers and civilians sympathetic to Assad regime, to behead them summarily and publically? No, these are too inconvenient truth for our TV media to pursue their agenda. One wonders sometimes if our TV media are not the propaganda machine for the Syrian Jihadis.

Macbeth at Manchester International Festival (MIF) 2013

The Mancunians’ eagerly awaited Macbeth arrived in July as one of the events of MIF. The Ancoats residents were particularly pleased that the MIF chose to stage Macbeth with the casts headed by such luminaries as Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston at their iconic building and much lovingly preserved and recently restored deconsecrated St. Peter’s Church which is at the heart of Ancoats. Imagine their dismay not to find the name of the church, which is lately known as St. Peter’s Hall, in the list of the official venues of the festival. However, on 3^rd of July, they saw with amazement that would be festival goers were marshalled into a defunct warehouse in Ancoats and then were led, as if a hoard of tourists, by a placard carrying volunteer in a procession. When they saw this reptile like phenomenon stopped at the front of the church, they shook their collective heads and were pleased to see the rumour was confirmed : the Festival was using their much loved church as the venue for staging the much heralded Macbeth, but could not understand the reason for secrecy.

When one goes inside the venue one could not help but marvels at the skilful use of the design and architectural work of the hall to the maximum effect to stage this fine production – the stage craft is intimate, dramatic and audience friendly. Alas, production itself was not without flaws, even though Kenneth Branagh’s towering presence was ideal for the character of Macbeth. The play’s essence could have been maintained without importing unnecessary scenes, like the noisy battle scene – sparks flying from the sword-fight might excite sixth formers, but it contributes nothing to the play’s subtlety, or the ridiculous sort of Zulu dance to indicate the advancing Birnham forest towards Dunsinane. It might have given something to do for the extras and novices could have been excited by the innovation, but it added nothing to the gravity of the situation the Macbeth was in. The messenger’s announcement about the Birnham forest and Macbeth’s reaction would have been sufficient, as in the original play. The witches were grotesque apparition, more like furies of Greek tragedies, and not weird human beings. The magic of their appearance in a wind-swept desolate heath was not there. The second appearance of the witches was like pole dancing girls gyrating in orgasm ecstasy – both scenes could not convey the gravity of impending disaster that would befall upon Macbeth’s life. The sexual innuendo between Macbeth and his wife at their first appearance together is an innovation in which Reception theory has been taken too far. Lady Macbeth already knew the witches’ predictions, so she had more important things to do than cavorting with a tired and weary soldier. Macduff was superb in his delivery and dispositions. The scene between Lady Macduff and her son is classic and poignantly memorable. Alex Kingston’s Lady Macbeth has a steely resolution exuding from her voice and hardness from her facial expression. Malcolm was staccato in his closing speech, like a BBC reporter, which had no poetic flow and lacked the glory of the occasion of his coronation. The tragic figure as Macbeth is started beautifully and forlornly at the news of the Lady Macbeth’s death, and then his voice strangely broke into falsetto spoiling the effect. His soliloquy “Tomorrow, tomorrow..” was delivered in measured rhythms and one could have expected to sense a despair in him at the futility of the state he was in – but that sense was not there. Is it because he delivered the speech in turning away from the other half of the audience, or his voice lacked gravitas? If he faced the audience fully while delivering the soliloquy it would have been more effective. Macbeth is a tragic figure like Oedipus – his destiny is decided by others. He cannot escape the wheel of fate that started rolling out at the plain of Heath accelerated by the hands of his dead wife : all his efforts are in vain.

On the whole it was an enjoyable production by no less a figure than Kenneth Branagh and his associates – I will urge the Mancunians not to miss this opportunity to see Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth at their doorstep.

 

 

Amal Basu Manchester

It is perceived that the hot climate encourages homosexuality where there are plenty of outdoor opportunities to indulge to this kind of activities in the warm corner of the territory where the access to women are restricted either through social customs or some religious restrictions. In theMiddle East where the free association with the women is restricted, homosexuality is prevalent though not so overtly since it is a religious taboo. And apparently it is immoral act according to their social mores. Such phenomenon existed there from the historical time. The Greeks in their warm climates and having restricted women’s company indulged in this kind of activities from the ancient time and wrote poems, discoursed openly and wrote books on the same-sex love as if it is a part of the social structure. The ancient Greeks did not regard it immoral, since they had no moral or religious hang up on…

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Violence on an Indian Woman

 I am surprised and dismayed on reading the names of the perpetrators of this heinous crime. The first reported rape on a woman happened during the Calcutta Riot in 1946 when a Jat (Muslim) soldier from the Northwest Frontier regiment under a British command raped a Hindu wife of a professor in Calcutta who invaded their house with a pretext of searching for the weapons. I do not know the future fate of the housewife. Since then during the partition lot of Hindu women were raped in the then East Pakistan and the West Pakistan to drive the Hindus out of the area. There was no report that Muslim women met with similar fate in the hands of the Hindus. It was so bad that Gandhi made a walking tour in the East Pakistan. I did not expect the family environment and religious fervour for which the Hindus are renowned could produce the young generation who are devoid of morality and would stoop to such nefarious acts as happened in Delhi on 16^th December (2012). Indians youth which I used to know had respects for women – it was the generations of teaching the Hindu epical classics. Any unknown unmarried women used to be addressed as Didi (respectful big sister) or auntie. It appears that the sense of morality and justice in Indian psychic is being eroded by bad education and lack of leadership from the Indian leaders. It is a sad reflection of the environment in which the Indian youths are being brought up now. 

As to the naming of the proposed law – yes, it is done in the West as Sashi Tharoor (one of the minor Indian minister) suggested – but are Hindu families sufficiently progressive to accept the stigma that might ensue with the crime that is committed on the victim? I read in the yesterday’s Times of India that the family had no objection in naming the proposed law after her name. This is a brave and commendable gesture on her family’s part. At least the future would be perpetrators will be conscious of the punishment that will visit them in the name of the dead girl.

History of the World

Andrew Marr’s History of the World (BBC1in 2012)
Though the first part of Andrew Marr’s World History is just a small part of the vast eight-part series and one should not be hasty to pronounce judgment on the programme, but I can not help feeling that it is going to be below the expectation. In the first part he jumped from the Babylonian settlement to the Egyptian agricultural civilization. This is not so – Babylonian civilization was agricultural based and contemporaneous to that of Egyptian. Indeed, some schools of thought are in the opinion that it is older than the Egyptian. Though Egyptian thought was expressed in hieroglyphically, but they were not alphabets. The alphabetical expressions of thoughts were found in cuneiform in the Babylonian civilization. The animated amateurish tableau of the first part gives the impression that programme is aimed at the schools, and not for the serious public.

I am beginning to doubt the country of origin of present day mankind. Andrew Marr is quite right in following the scientific and archaeo-anthropological conclusion that our ancestors originated from Africa. From the available examples of different physical features of different races it does not bear the fact. Argument will be that according to Darwin concept the end product is the result of our environment. That is why some of us are Caucasian, some are Negroid and some are Mongolian. The difference is so acute the origin becomes immaterial. We are the product of our environment; important thing is that our thoughts and mental capacity are shaped according to our environment. Therefore, origin of our species may be Africa, but we are what our environment made of us. We respect our primordial mother, but that is all. We have to accept the present scientific discovery, and the DNA test proves it as Andrew Marr asserts them, but we can not deny that we are Diverse.                        

(Note: However, looking at the facial features of the Japanese monkey one could see the similarity between facial features of the Japanese’s’ and that of their monkeys’. How that could happen if the mankind origin was in Africa. Did the Japanese monkey originated in Africa as well, or both Japanese monkeys and men went through the same evolutionary process? Who was then went first through the process – Japanese men or the monkeys? We see the certain African inhabitants have the same statures or gait as their native Gorillas which one could not find in any other species of men. Japanese monkeys are so different from the monkeys from other parts of the world. Andrew Marr’s assertions that our present human species were migrated from Africa and DNA test proves it, I am not quite certain if the scientific discovery is flawless in this respect).

The Story of India

The Story of India (in six parts) by Michel Wood By Courtesy of BBC 4 

 Michael Wood’s excellent series on India finished yesterday. It is interesting and scholarly exploration of a Great Civilization which is still alive and continuing to adapt itself with the changing world and yet has kept its ancient tradition in tact, unlike the Western Civilization which underwent innumerable metamorphosis. Michel Wood was right in finishing the story with the departure of British Raj from the subcontinent: “At the stroke of the midnight hour” when the world was at sleep, India woke up to redeem her pledge made at the tryst with destiny. That story will be a story of another discerning historian to tell us if India has kept the tradition of her ancient civilization alive and kept her pledge. The current story is finished. India’s destiny is now in her own hands unless something happens through her North-Eastern Boarder where enemies are rattling their sabres.

Platonic Soul

                                    Platonic Soul

To Socrates Man is his soul. In Alkabides Plato indicates that a man epitomizes his soul and soul alone.. Soul is the absolute identity of a man. [Here we find the hints of Hindu concept of man’s body in relation to his soul (Atman) as described in the Bhagavad-gitaabout 300 years before Plato (“Just as a person casts off worn-out garments and puts on others that are new, even so does the embodied soul cast off worn-out bodies and take on others that are new” (Bk.II verse 22)]. He than introduces the Delphic wall inscription “know thyself” and goes on to explain knowing oneself is much deeper meaning than the words imply. ‘The first duty of every man who means to enjoy good or happiness is to looking after his soul’ – ‘to see to it that his soul is as good as it possibly can be, that he is to get the insight which ensures his using everything rightly. Before a man can develop this quality of soul he must be brought to ‘know himself’ i.e. to recognise the imperative need of moral wisdom and the dreadfulness of his present state of ignorance (Apol. 29d-e, 34c). Man’s predicate being his soul self-knowledge is the necessary requirement to achieve the welfare of one’s soul.The body is an instrument used and therefore cannot be an agent who uses the instrument. The real self, the agent which ‘uses’ and ‘commands’ the body, must be the ‘psukhe’, that is soul is attending wisdom or self (Alk.130c). Delphic inscription “Know thyself” means “know your psukhe”.  ^{(Taylor, p.27)}      [The term ‘psukhe’ is a fluid concept; the Greeks sometimes used it to mean inner self – one’s intellectual and emotional self. In 115c of Phaedo, Socrates indicates that he is to be identified with his soul; his body will no longer remain Socrates after he dies.]   

1. Plato’s concept of soul could be broadly divided into two – Cosmic Soul and Human Soul. In his Timaeus he discusses the cosmic soul very comprehensively. However, in the light of the subsequent scientific discoveries we can discount the Plato’s concept of cosmic soul. On the other hand, Plato’s concept of the human soul is still a debating point. Furthermore, western theology has accepted certain aspects of Plato’s human soul ideas. Certain Eastern doctrines also find their concept of human soul echoes in that of Plato’s. Most of the references to the human soul (soul) are made in Plato’s three dialogues viz., Phaedrus, Republic and Phaedo. Of course there are references to the soul to other dialogues where certain aspects relating to the soul have been touched upon in order to clarify some pertinent points.

In the Phaedrus, whilst talking about love and speech, Plato dwells upon the nature of the soul as opposed to its behaviour and its destiny. In the first of the last two dialogues, Plato deals with the behaviour of the soul and in the last one he discusses the destiny of the human soul. All three dialogues look at the soul as a whole from three different specific standpoints.

2. In Phaedrus, Socrates divides the soul into three parts and assesses the superiority and inferiority of the individual according to the outcome of the power struggle among the yearnings represented by each part. (See Charioteer simile below)

The noblest part of the soul is logos – the Greek has many meanings for the word logos. Logos can be taken as the genus: it connotes the content and often implies reasons. Logos as a part of the soul stands for ‘reason’, but the very same word also implies ‘speech’. The logos-speech is perceptible by sense of the logos-reason, therefore, it relates to ‘nature’, the ‘physical world’. Therefore, by ‘speech’ the nature of the soul could be dealt with. Logos also means argument or reason, and that could be further extended to mean ‘order’ as perceived in the world or as given to it by some divine creator.

On the other hand, the part of the soul most closely related to nature to the visible world is epithumiai, which is manifested in desires, passion, appetites, whose common driving force is the thirst for pleasure, which is encouraged by some sort of ‘love’. What better topic to investigate the nature of the soul than ‘Eros’ and more precisely, logoi on Eros. Speeches on love will find their justification, their rationale (another meaning of logos) in a speech on speeches, logos on logoi.

The statement “Human soul is immortal because the soul is self-moving”, to a Greek, it means divine. This is because whatever is always in motion is immortal and the soul is always in motion. The soul is the source and initiator of its own motion. This motion does not come from without, but spontaneously originates from within. They are never started by anything else and the soul being the fountain of them, they can never cease. If the soul could come to an end, there would be an end of nature: “would collapse, and never have cause to start moving again” (Phadr. 245e). This implies that souls are the only things which can move from within and so are the only possible sources of movement. Therefore, a body whose motion comes from within does have a soul, that being a nature of soul – and it follows that it should have neither birth nor death. Since life and motion go hand in hand, the soul being ever moving is also everlasting (Phadr. 245b-246a). Everlastingness differs from Eternity in that Everlastingness exists as long as Time exists, but eternity is not in time at all, so the passage of time does not affect it. (Timeaus (37d): everlastingness and eternity – Form (SeeRepublic) is eternal. Plato calls time a “moving image of eternity” (Tim.37d). ‘One’ is not in time and has no share of time^{. (Sorabji p.108-12)}. However, what is the characteristic of this ‘self-moving’?  What is the source of all movements?

Socrates resorts to a simile (245b) of a team of charioteer and two winged horses (Reason & Passions), one of which is obedient (the spirit) and works together with the charioteer; the second horse which represents appetite works against them. In the human soul the driver has to manage the two horses of different strain and this what makes his task so difficult. While the horses keep their wings they travel around the circuit of heaven. But, due to the incompetence of the charioteer some souls jostle around and loose their wings, fall to the ground and acquire an earthly body which seems to be able to move itself (because of the self moving soul within the body) and it is this combination of body and soul which is the mortal animal. Then Socrates goes on to describe what happens to those renegade souls (by now wingless due to jostling). The magnitude of the fall is shown by the kind of life, which now the incarnated soul leads in the body. Those souls when they had wings while circling heaven in procession led by the gods seen the ‘most’ becomes the philosophers in the wingless soul state, a lover of wisdom or of beauty, or who will be cultivated in the arts and prone to erotic love; The second sort of soul will be a lawful king and in descending order some will be men of affairs and business, next will be athletes and physicians who will cure the body, the prophets and initiators, poets and artists, mechanics and farmers, professional sophists and demagogues, tyrants. The rule, which applies to all, is that after each life a man receives the rewards of deeds done in the bodily state. None may regain wings and return to his place of origin until a period of ten thousand years is passed, except one who leads the life of a “philosopher” or “philosophic lover” three times in succession. In this case his ten thousand years is reduced to three thousand years. For others, the scheme includes reincarnations in animal form as well as the human bodies, but no one can finally recover its wings after such degradation until it has once more passed through the human body. But the soul that never saw the truth cannot take human shape, since a human being must understand speech in general forms and could bring many perceptions together into a reasoned unity. That process is the recollection of things our soul saw when it was travelling with the god in procession (248d-249c). The myth is reminiscence of the myth of Er and the scheme looks like the schemes stated in the Republic, the reincarnation principle is also partly of orphic origin, which has echoes of Hindu concept of reincarnation.

3.         Though the Greek word Psukhe denotes soul, in many contexts it is closer to ‘life’. So Plato’s talk of soul here is rather like our talk of someone’s ‘mind’ or of a certain mental phenomenon. Plato does believe that the soul is eternal and distinct from the body, but when he talks about this in Bk 10 (Rep. 608d-612a), the ‘soul’ concerned here is simple and without parts. The existence of conflict within a person’s mind proves that there are different ‘parts’ to the mind. He propounds his theory of the tripartite mind or soul in the Republic. The parts of the soul are dealt with in a more extensive argument in Bk4 (436a) implying that the opposite cannot be the same thing at the same time.

Plato’s main interest in the theory of parts of the soul is based on the assumption that man’s different kinds of actions and lives have their origin in the different parts of soul. So let us consider the account of each part of the soul in the Republic as a whole (Bk.4, 8 and 9).

There are three parts of the soul – (a) Rationality or Reason, (b) Spirit or Assertive, Courage and (c) Desiring or Appetitive

(a)   Reason – (439d) – It is also called “that part that loves wisdom and love of learning”. The Reasoning part has two main functions – searching for the truth and increasing one’s own knowledge – this is the part in our soul, which desires to seek truth and finds pleasure in the task (581b). In seeking truth it explores practical as well as intellectual aspects of life. Its other function is to rule in the soul (441e, 442d). The Rational part is the source of practical judgement about what is best for the person as a whole. It is the part that cares for the interests of the whole soul, unlike other parts who are only interested in their respective domain. The other ground for rationality is ruling over the whole soul in order that a life which is shaped by devotion to the aim of reason, searching for truths, is a better life for the person to lead than a life shaped by devotion to other parts. Plato puts more stress on Rationality’s capacity to plan for the person as whole. Spirit or Assertiveness (441a): At 581b it is called “that that loves honour and winning”. Assertiveness towards others in the pursuit of what one wants. It is the part that delights in victory and honour, not only getting it, but also getting one in which one will delight and be proud of (581a-b). But from the example of Leontius, the spirit sometimes appears to be crude desire. In 410d, in respect of training the young, Plato says that spirited part can become harsh and rough if it does not get the right sort of training. When it does, it makes people brave. Spirit is not only emotive; it also involves reason and reason-giving and only motivates a person when certain reasons are present. Spirit is Reason’s ally (441a), unless it is corrupted by bad upbringing. Spirit is analogous to the Auxiliaries in the IdealState.

(b)   Desires/ Appetitive – In 439d it is called a ‘desiring part’. Plato says that because of the intense desire for drink, sex and other things, which follow from these, he calls it appetitive. He also calls it mercenary partly because desire of this kind invariably leads to need for money for their fulfilment. (580d). Each of three mental categories has its particular features

It is interesting that Plato’s assumption is that happiness can be assessed by means of pleasure. In earlier dialogues he condemned pleasure as base and bodily. Here he is careful to distinguish between the acceptable and the non-acceptable pleasure. It is the model of pleasure to this distinction. Here Plato is not hedonistic but realistic. (580d note) In this respect we should also refer to Plato’s comment on pleasure and pain in Phaedo when he was rubbing his recently released legs from the fetters.

It is not at all uncommon to find a person’s desires compelling him to go against his reasons and to see him cursing himself and venting his passion on the source of the compulsion within him. It is, as if there are two warring factions, with passion, fighting on the side of the reason (440b). Plato envisages that there are two separate parts, one of which is rational and the other is irrational and desirous (439). The first is the mind’s capacity to think rationally and the second, which is an ally of certain satisfactions and pleasures – for its capacity to feel lust, hunger and thirst and in general to be stirred by desire (441a). Desire is blind to any considerations beyond those of getting what it wants. The spirit and desire parts of the soul can try to usurp what is not their proper role (442a-b, 443d-e). Spirit is said to retain what reason declares (442c2). The individual mind /soul are like the community, identical in nature and number. (441c). Since there are three mental parts which are precisely analogous to the three social classes of the community, Plato analyses individual wisdom, courage and self-discipline. All three parts have the cognitive capacity to recognize one another. However, the desiring part is capable of means-end reasoning. In 571c-572b, it is said to be responsible for creating wish-fulfilment dreams in order to gain its own gratifications while the other parts are asleep and off-guard. Plato says that oligarchic men subordinate all other concern to getting money and keeping it, democratic men divide their time between worthy and trivial pursuits and tyrannical men are dominated by unfulfilled lust. These kinds are dominated by the desiring part, so desire cannot be limited to bodily desire only. A person can desire something and tries to get it regardless of their estimate of the rightness or prudence, of such a course. (Annas, p.130)

Reason has the capacity to rule by virtue of knowing what is best for the soul as a whole and not just to itself (441e & 442c). Reason enables us to act in a co-ordinated way on our life as a whole, ignoring any short-term gratification. Reason loves and searches for the truth in all its manifestations. In Bks. 8 and 9 we see when reason does not rule in the soul, how an unjust man behaves. The ‘timocratic’ man cares for honour and physical prowess (538-9) and on the other side of the spectrum; the ‘tyrannical’ man (556-576) has a soul enslaved to lust which produces a state of unfinished need.

4.         Plato reassures us that the human soul’s destiny is his own making. For a man there is no reason to worry about the fate of his soul. As long as, ‘in life’, he has abandoned those other pleasures and adornments, i.e., the bodily ones, as foreign to his purpose and likely to do more harm than good and has devoted himself to the pleasures of acquiring knowledge and so adoring his soul not with borrowed beauty but with its own – with self control, goodness, courage, liberality and truth – has settled down to await his journey to the next world (Phaedo 115a).

In Phaedo 71e Socrates argues that the soul is immortal since life and death are opposites. The idea that opposites come into being from the opposite appears to be based on the Heraclitean concept that the whole universe expresses the creative unity of opposites: strife and tensions are fundamental structuring principles throughout the universe. The PythagoreanSchool developed a list of opposites in terms of which the whole universe is structured (^{Melling p.76).} Unlike our body, the soul is invisible; however, it does resemble changing as well as the unchanging, depending upon whether or not it is in contact with the body. The soul has intelligence, is independent of its bodily state and acquires its knowledge of pure essence. Although it is not an argument for immortality, it becomes so when combined with Socrates’ argument for the cyclic process of life and death. The Theory of recollection in Phaedo 72e explains how a general concept (e.g. Equality) classifies many perceptions (such as sticks of equal length). Since a perceiver has never seen Equality, but is aware of the concept each time he sees that two sticks are equal, the perceiver must be recollecting the concept each time he sees it. The doctrine of recollection in the Meno shows that the soul is not merely life-principle; it is also the intellect. The soul is like pure essence, the good itself and possesses knowledge; it is indissoluble, self-consistent and invariable (Phaedo 80b)

A soul will never allow itself to be occupied by the opposite of the character it always carries with itself. That is, life may be essentially predicated of the soul and therefore death can never be predicated of it. Thus the soul is, in the literal sense of the word, “undying” (athanatos); that is, the phrase “a dead soul” would be a contradiction. So much has now been actually demonstrated (Phaedo105e). But it cannot be proved that there cannot be dead souls, though there are dead bodies. There is no proof that soul continues to live after the body dies. If ‘dead’ cannot be predicated of a soul, the soul must either be annihilated or ‘retire’ when the body dies. Socrates prefers the second alternative, but the emphatic “so much has been demonstrated” in 105e8 shows that, when all is said, this remains for him an article of faith, not a demonstrated proposition of science (Taylor, p.206). The Phaedo deals with the destiny of the soul – its ultimate goal and that goal is to find internal unity and harmony with the whole (attunement?). It is thus normal, Dialogue stresses, the unity of the soul when it is about to leave the body. The soul is at the border between visible and intelligible, between time and eternity, with a ‘foot’ in each realm, so long as it is within the body. Once freed from the body, it ‘gathers’ in the intelligible realm for eternity. Phaedo shows that dialogue is no more concerned with life, as it is with death and after-life, whatever that is. The tripartite structure of the soul is still very much in its background. “When death occurs, the soul-side of the living man is simply dispersed like smoke or like a breath of wind and not to be found anywhere at all” (Phaedo 70a). To prove the continuity of soul, even after the body perishes, Plato sets up arguments:-

There is perpetual change from one opposite to another, but in such a fashion that the total quantity or measure of each opposite and of the world in action is always preserved. Change is not unidirectional but circular – large is reducing while the small is growing, strong is losing force but the weak is getting stronger, aggregates is being dispersed and the dispersed aggregated (70d-71b). If these were not in this circulatory or in perpetual compensation, Socrates implies, the universe would have collapsed. That there cannot be a generation of an opposite from or into nothing, but only from or into it’s opposite. Socrates is also suggesting the opposites in the world require one another and that they can only be if a rough balance is struck. The conclusion of the universal dependence on opposite on opposite could be applied to life and death. It is like combination of body and soul when its origin must be from its original constituent part, which exists, independent of each other and it must pass away into a state of togetherness. This justifies our belief in the myth that when souls in Hades return after time spent in the flesh, they go back to Hades and the recycling goes on.

His second argument is based on The Theory of Recollection to illustrate that our souls have an existence prior to this earthly life. Men appear to have a clear concept of equality itself, untainted by any imperfection of an earthly pair of equals. The difference between the earthly equals and actual equality could be established the way in which earthly equal may look unequal from a particular point (75e). If it is true that we acquire our knowledge before our birth, but afterwards by the pertinent exercise of our senses, recover the knowledge which we had once before, I suppose that what we call learning will be the recovering of our own knowledge. Surely we should be right in calling this “recollection”? Recollection is the process of learning to recover in our memory the knowledge which we had before our birth in the present life. If the combination of recollection, argument and opposite argument is used to prove the existence of an afterlife, then the problem arises as to the origins of those disembodied and intelligent souls waiting to be born.  Soul has something of the character of Pure Nature, which may be presumed to be lastingness of pure-nature, therefore, incapable of dismemberment, which is found in these Natures (even if the body holds together for a while after death). ^{(Findlay p.135).} If the idea of Beauty, Goodness and all such entities really exist, then the physical objects that we refer to as our perception is the pattern of these ideas, as we rediscover our former knowledge of them. This indicates that some must exist before our birth. Realities (ideas) exist; therefore, one cannot exist without the other (Phaedo 76e). Socrates here seems to be associating Form with the soul.

If soul lives forever it takes with its own unseen world nothing but its own intrinsic character for good or evil, on which soul’s future depends. This is the Orphic story about judgement of the dead. The wise and disciplined should follow the guidance of a guide (Hermes?). On the other hand the souls that are deeply attached to the body are forcibly made to follow the appointed guardian spirit (107c-108c). Here we see that the hope of immortality is used for a moral purpose, as in the Republic.

This raises the question of what manner of men we ought to be, if there is an endless future through reincarnations before us. We are given a choice for moral good or evil (Phaedo 107c). So through death a wicked man cannot escape his wicked deeds performed in the material world. Through reincarnation he, time and again, will force the consequence of his evil doings (Phaedo 107c, Republic 608b, 621b-d) on to himself. The same theme is enlarged in Laws (904a-905b). Immortality thus poses a practical reason for our behaviour in the present world.

5.         In the three dialogues, i.e. Phaedrus, Republic and Phaedo, Plato elaborates his idea of the human soul’s nature and immortality, the religious character of philosophical life. The Phaedo contains several arguments of the soul’s immortality. His soul terminology in the Phaedo reflects Bacchic, Orphic and Pythagorean ideas all at once. Morgan (p.238, Kraut) thinks in Phaedo Plato introduces the Form as unchanging, pure, eternal objects of knowledge (Phaedo79d and 80d where it is called pure, and 80a and 80b these are called divine). The Republic does not use the ritualistic vocabulary, but the general framework of religiosity is present in Plato’s mind. His conception of philosophical education in Bks.6 and 7, we see a kind of conversion of soul as it passes through the stages of mathematical curriculum on to the dialectical understanding. In Bk.10 of the Republic Plato argues for the soul’s immortality and then the myth of Er is presented to us with the proposition how to conduct our own lives to influence our destiny in the cycle of reincarnation, and worldly virtue has its importance – Plato is not otherworldly here, he is also very much worldly. The Phaedrus, with the framework of an account of interpersonal love, Plato argues for the soul’s immortality and its experience and aspirations. Plato’s argument for the human soul’s immortality in 245c-246a (Upanishadic imagery Bk.1.3, 3-4) found the same status in the heavenly soul in Bk. 10 of the Laws.

To Plato man is between both worlds – world Becoming, of passing away because of his body and the lower parts of his soul; and also world of Become, because of the eternal part of his soul. Plato’s “ideas” excludes man from the undivided world and forces him to the “body and soul” (Friedlander, p. 29).

The concept of tripartite soul in the Republic Plato visualizes man’s complexity, which needs explanations. It is difficult to determine a man’s complex action, unless we find the sources of his actions are not single, but of multi-sourced origin. If we accept that human complex behaviours originate form multi-sources, we can relate his behaviours with the respective sources, which are his inner-self. This is the precursor of psychology and Freudian ego, super-ego and id. Plato’s theory of the parts of the soul is based on the assumptions that the different kinds of actions and lives have their origin in the different parts of the soul.

In 436b Plato says “the same one thing can not simultaneously either act or be acted on opposite ways in the same respect and in the same context. Consequently, if we find this happening in the case of these aspects of ourselves, we will know there is more than one of them”. In the note Waterfield explains to say that strict application of this principle to the issue of dividing the mind into parts would result in infinite parts of the mind – as many as there are conflicts within (defined by the object they desire). Plato uses it, however, to point to conflicting source and types of motivation, rather than the conflicts between the objects. This conflict emanates from the tripartite nature of soul, which is labelled as Principle of Non-contradiction/ Principle of Conflict. The principle shows if there is such a conflict then the person is not a unity, but is in a way two ^{(Annas, p.137)}. To illustrate the point Plato quotes from Odyssey “He struck his breast and spoke sternly to his heart” (Bk.20, 7). The principle is used to show that despite apparent unity in an individual, the facts of human behaviour make us to assume his more than one motivational source.

As Waterfield says, Plato locates the conflicts in the motivation themselves rather than the objects and that is why he distinguishes reasons from desire. However, to Plato that simple desire or craving is different from desire for certain objects, which is a qualified desire. Desire itself is a blind kind of craving; desire for any specific thing might be the work of reason. The result is that it divided the soul into two parts – rational and irrational parts. Has Plato unintentionally reduced the concept of desire into basic biological desires, which originate in having a body, which is independent of one’s belief? This view, of course, contradicts what we may call desire in general. We have also seen mercenary soul (580e) because money is a means of gratifying desires and how goes to the extent of agreeing with the other parts of the soul. We are also aware when the desiring part is strong; the fulfilment of intention could be adequately rationalized though reason may take the back seat. Therefore, Rationality and Reasoning are in danger of being confused.     

Plato’s theory of soul in the Republic is an attempt to explain human behaviour. In Plato’s Soul we find desire and spirit and although they sometimes affect human behaviour, their scopes are limited. Reason’s role in the welfare of the soul is demonstrated in 588b-589b, where Plato gives a graphic image of the tripartite soul consisting of three creatures – human being (reason), a lion (spirit/passion) and a mutable monster (desire). Morality feeds the human being, tames the lion and subdues the monster. Immorality, if it goes undetected makes one a monster. Self-discipline as a result of educational programme (376d-412a, and 521c-541a) is best, but externally imposed disciplines of law and convention are second best and one must use the imaginary community as the model to bring up one’s inner self.

Plato’s theory by modern standards may appear crude and unspecific, but it is more understandable and fruitful than the psychological theory which Annas terms as ‘bottom up’, where man’s intentional behaviour is explained in terms of entities, which cannot themselves be characterized in a way that human behaviour can be. Intentional behaviour is explained as ‘colourless’ pieces of behaviour.

In the light of preceding comments how can we relate justice to the human soul? We cannot deny that justice produces inner harmony between mind and body, as well as among the various parts of the mind/soul. This state of affairs is more desirable than the inner conflict and the conflict between soul and body. In the question of justice what matters most is the person himself – whether he is just or not. Justice as a state of the agent is given by the Guardians (Republic) to the lower order (389b-d). In Bk.4 Plato tries to show that the justice is the fulfilment of human nature – it does not come from external demand, it comes spontaneously from inner goodness of one’s self. In Bks. 8 and 9 he shows that justice brings happiness in the human soul (agent). This happiness is not the utilitarian happiness for oneself. This happiness does not spring from certain beliefs or behaviours, but from the state of person one is. This happiness may not have a utilitarian value; instead it has a spiritual dimension, which is independent of his material happiness. The ideal state on rational lines matter to him less, since it is only retained in heaven as a paradigm (592b).  What is imperative is that its role brings about justice in the individual (590d).

(a)   The Argument from the opposite was adequate, nonetheless Plato wanted to give additional credence to the notion that the soul can live apart from the body and cannot kill itself. Hence the introduction of Doctrine of Recollection, of which we had a glimpse in Meno. This particular doctrine has been used to demonstrate that a man could be made to give the true solution to the problem by asking him questions, as in the case of Meno’s slave and the geometry diagram. The answer was produced from within without the questioner’s help. All the questions do is elicit the answer, which is in possession of the interviewee. “.. while he is and while he is not a man, true opinion which can be aroused by questioning and turned into knowledge ….”, “And if the truth about reality is always in our soul, the soul must be immortal and one must take courage and try to discover – that is, to recollect – when one doesn’t happen to know, or (more correctly), at the moment” (Meno 86b).

Socrates maintained that either we were born with knowledge and retained it throughout our lives, or else, when we speak of learning, they are simply recollecting what they knew before – learning is recollection (76a). Therefore, Socrates concludes that the souls have a previous existence before they took human shape: they were independent of our bodies and had intelligence (76c). Socrates is here suggesting that the soul is intelligent because it has comprehended ideas of objects or virtues. It is what he experienced in the previous incarnation and is now recollecting it through learning in the present life.

(b)   Although the concept of Form has entered in the dialogue earlier, in the final argument, a direct deduction from immortality from the fundamental idea that Form exists is made. Socrates begins by stipulating accurate expression if we are to avoid the fallacy. He agrees in saying that the object which possesses opposite qualities is not the same if we speak about the qualities themselves, i.e., the statement that bigger can come from smaller and smaller can come from bigger is not the same if we say that A is shorter than B but taller that C, since A has not lost his identity in either case. The expression for an object has no references to opposite terms. Here the quality “opposite” is essential, whereas, “shortness or tallness” is an accidental quality of the object. The difference may be termed as intrinsic and extrinsic denomination. Therefore essential predication is important. Therefore “virtue is vice” or “unity is plurality” cannot exist in the same object at the same time. Therefore, if shortness is an essential quality of A; we in no way could say A is tall as well. We cannot use contradictory predicates in an object. Opposite Form cannot sit side by side jointly in an object (103b).

Additionally, there are certain things that are not Forms, but in which participation in a given form is essential. Thus Fire is not ‘warmth’, nor is Snow ‘cold’. When ‘cold’ attempts to ‘occupy’ Fire, the essential character of the thing must extinguish or withdraw. Similarly, the same rule applies to soul. Soul is concomitant to life and the ‘opposite’ is death. Therefore, life is a predicate to Soul, or death. When death occupies life’s place in a body, the soul withdraws, because its predicate is no longer in the body, Therefore, Soul is undying. (Taylor,p.204). “(The soul is) uncleavable, He can not be burnt. He can be neither wetted nor dried. He is eternal, all-pervading, unchanging and immovable. He is the same for ever”.(The Bhagavadgita, Bk II, 24)

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[Timaeus – Cosmic soul has three constituents (a) Being, which is intermediate between that which is always the self-same and which ‘becomes’ and is divisible in bodies, (b) a similarly ‘intermediate’ kind of sameness and (c) of ‘otherness’. The World soul is between the eternal and temporal. The result is then divided according to musical scales as described in 35b-36b (Imagine a long ribbon with interval marks). In 36e we are told that the creator finally constructed the body of the world ‘within’ its soul and adapted the two; this begins the ‘unceasing and reasonable’ life.]  

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Bibliography

Annas, Julia  (1981) An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Clarendon Press,

Findlay, J. N.   (1974)  Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Friedlander, P. (1958)   Plato,  Routledg & Kegan Paul Ltd.,London.            

 Morgan, Michael Plato and Greek religion” in Kraut (Ed), The Cambridge Companion to Plato.

Melling, D.  (1987)  Understanding Plato, OxfordUniversityPress

Taylor, A. E.   (1960)   Plato: The Man and His Work, Methuen, London

Arabian Spring

  Some spring, some life.       Hillary Clinton’s strident support for the advent of Arab spring is still ringing in our ears. One can visualise her flowing golden hair with her blood-red painted nails appealing to all good nations of the world to come forward in supporting oppressed Arabs deprived of democracy in their struggle to be freed from their own countryman’s one party regimes in Libya, Egypt, Syria. It is once again the 19^th century gun-boat democracy which US tried to export to the Americas during President Wilson’s time. Hillary Clinton, like Pandora, opened her box to bring out the unexpected evils for which her country is suffering now from the excesses of her liberated protégées. UK government like a tugboat went along with her. These Western supporters of the so called revolution did not realise that in the tropics the spring is followed by the scorching summer, which is unlike the summer of the Western world. The West is now getting the taste of their American follies. Libya’s Benghazi is teaching the West how not to upset a stable government in the Arabic world. Egypt is now in the grip of Moslem Brotherhood where Coptic Christians are facing precarious existence since the Mubarak’s departure. Islamists are trying it on through the Sinai. The minorities in Iraq, who were safe during the Saddam Husain’s time, are systematically eliminated because they do not conform to the ethos of the present type of Islamic regime. Syrian ancient Christian minorities are terrified at the advent of the so called revolutionaries. These most ancient Christians would be uprooted to make way for the Wahabi fundamentalists who have spawned in Syria by the Al-Qaida. It beggars belief that how blindly our western intellectuals fell for the so called people’s revolutions. It amuses one when one recalls the Western media reporters’ vociferous support for these bearded revolutionaries. Where have they gone? Why aren’t they reporting the atrocities these freedom fighters are meting out to the “freed” minorities? I hope Mrs. Clinton and her allies would think twice before they open their mouths in support of the so called people’s liberators of the Arab Spring