Tag Archives: Republic

My Dinner with Mladen

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2018

An account of a dinner with an old Slovenian friend and intellectual.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged intellectual conversations, Ion, King Lear, Mladen Dolar, Oedipus at Colonus, Pierre de Marivaux, Plato, Samuel Beckett, Sophocles, Wayne Booth, William Shakespeare, Worstward Ho | Comments closed

GOP Tax Plan and the Invisible Man

By Robin Bates | Published: December 4, 2017

If the GOP tax plan panders to the wealthiest Americans, maybe it’s because they are like H.G. Wells’s Invisible Man and believe they can act with impunity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, GOP Tax Bill, H. G. Wells, Invisible Man, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Plato | Comments closed

Defending Homer against Plato

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2016

Plato’s attacks on Homer have to do with the bard’s focus earthly concerns rather than higher ones. Following Plato’s prescriptions, however, will not produce very interesting poetry.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Henry Fielding, Homer, Odyssey, philosophy, Plato, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Plato Anxious about Lit’s Pyschic Impact

By Robin Bates | Published: July 2, 2015

Plato’s complaints about literature show up in censorship battles today. They testify to power of literature to invite imitation.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aescylus, Hesiod, Homer, Iliad, mimesis, neurocriticism, Plato | Comments closed

Plato’s Warning: Beware of Poets

By Robin Bates | Published: June 25, 2015

While Plato advocated banning poets from the ideal republic, his censure works as an indirect testimony to literature’s power.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Ion, passions, philosophy, Plato, reason, Socrates | Comments closed

The Classics, Better than Business Guides

By Robin Bates | Published: March 30, 2011

The Republic, The Art of War, The Social Contract, The Prince, and the Tao Te Ching gave me a way of understanding the broader implications of the business choices I was making. They helped me look beyond the immediate challenges to find a greater purpose. My individual efforts seemed part of a legacy of thinkers and doers who had come before.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Art of War, Business, Darien Bates, Education, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Liberal Arts, Machiavelli, Plato, Prince, Social Contract, Sun Tzu, Tao Te Ching | Comments closed

Analyzing Loughner’s Booklist

By Robin Bates | Published: January 10, 2011

Like much of America, I am still in a state of shock over Saturday’s shooting of a Congresswoman, a judge, and 16 others. Like many I wonder if this was an example of a disturbed mind encountering the inflamed political rhetoric that has come to characterize American political discourse. (Add Arizona’s permissive gun laws into […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Adolph Hitler, Aesop, Aldous Huxley, Alice through the Look Glass, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Arizona killings, Ayn Rand, Brave New World, Charles Bukowski, Communist Manifesto, Ernest Hemingway, Fables, Fahrenheit 451, Gulliver's Travels, Harper Lee, Hermann Hesse, Homer, James Barrie, Jared Lee Loughner, Jonathan Swift, Karl Marx, Ken Kesey, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Mein Kampf, Meno, nimal Farm, Norton Juster Phentom Tollbooth, Odyssey, Old Man and the Sea, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Peter Pan, Plot, Pulp, Ray Bradbury, Reading George Orwell, Siddhartha, To Kill a Mockingbird, violence, We the Living, Wizard of Oz | Comments closed

Christopher Hitchens, Literary Bully

By Robin Bates | Published: July 6, 2010

I confess to bristling when I hear the name Christopher Hitchens.The intellectual provocateur has been in the news recently, first for publishing his memoirs and second for contracting throat cancer.Although he is smart and well read, he has always struck me as a self-righteous intellectual bully, one who is more interested in toppling icons than […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Christopher Hitchens, Darkness at Noon, David Brooks, George Orwell, Graham Greene, Hitch-22, How Green Was My Valley, Plato, politics, Richard Llewellyn, Wilfred Owen | Comments closed