0:00 In 2023, public trust in government institutions across the developed world hit a record low of just forty-one percent.0:09 Last week we asked if capitalism's invisible hand could create a just society, but that question presumes the state itself is on solid ground.0:21 What if the very foundation of how we govern is the real problem?0:26 And that question, um, forces a choice.0:29 Do we trust the people, with all their flaws, to rule themselves?0:34 Or do we trust a select, brilliant few to rule for them?0:39 Precisely.0:39 At its heart, it is a debate between two ideas of the good life.0:45 One that prioritizes collective harmony, and one that champions individual liberty above all else.0:52 So today, we're staging that debate.0:55 We have two of history's most powerful advocates for each side.1:00 I am Plato.1:01 I argue for a republic governed by reason, where justice is the harmony of the whole.1:08 And I am John Stuart Mill.1:10 I argue for a society that protects liberty, because it is only in freedom that humanity can truly flourish.1:19 Let us begin.1:20 A just state, Mr.1:21 Mill, is like a just soul.1:23 It has three parts: the producers, the guardians, and the rulers.1:29 Justice is not everyone getting what they want.1:32 It is each part performing its proper function, and ONLY its proper function, in harmony.1:40 And who, pray tell, decides what that "proper function" is?1:44 You see, the problem starts right there.1:48 Your system requires a ruler with the authority to put everyone in their designated box.1:55 The ruler is the one who knows what is best.1:58 Not through opinion or popular vote, but through rigorous, lifelong training in philosophy.2:06 The philosopher-king is the one who has seen the true Form of the Good, and can therefore design the state in its image.2:15 Oh, I see.2:16 A "philosopher-king." A benevolent despot.2:19 But power, um, corrupts.2:21 Even the best-intentioned ruler, given absolute authority, will eventually serve their own interests, not the "Good." You mistake knowledge for power.2:33 The philosopher does not want to rule.2:36 They are compelled to, as a duty, because they alone see the path out of the cave of ignorance.2:44 Leaving governance to the whims of the masses...2:48 that is not freedom.2:50 That is abandoning the ship to the loudest, most ignorant passengers.2:55 I'd rather be on a ship run by its passengers, even if they sometimes steer poorly, than one run by a captain who has chained them all to their oars.3:07 The only just limit on any person's liberty is to prevent harm to others.3:13 That's it.3:14 The Harm Principle.3:15 The Harm Principle.3:17 So simple.3:18 So dangerously naive.3:19 What of the harm a person does to themselves?3:23 What of the slow, corrosive harm of a society that values trivial pleasures over virtue?3:30 That is THEIR choice to make!3:32 A person's own good, whether physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant to compel him.3:40 He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so...3:47 because in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise.3:52 But their foolishness infects the state!3:55 An ignorant populace will elect charlatans.3:59 A society addicted to spectacle will lose its capacity for reason.4:04 Your "liberty" is the freedom to decay, and to drag the entire polis down with you.4:11 And your "harmony" is the peace of a prison yard.4:15 You speak of virtue, but virtue cannot be dictated.4:19 It must be chosen.4:20 A person who is "good" only because they have no choice to be otherwise is not a virtuous person at all.4:28 They are merely...4:30 well-behaved livestock.4:32 That is an insult to both reason and the citizens.4:36 I am not proposing livestock.4:38 I am proposing an education system so perfect that citizens will desire the good.4:45 They will understand their place and find happiness in fulfilling their role, just as the heart finds its purpose in beating, not in trying to think.4:57 You see?4:57 You always come back to putting people in their "place." I believe in something quite different.5:05 I believe in what I call "experiments in living." A society thrives when it allows for the greatest possible diversity of lifestyles, opinions, and pursuits.5:18 Even those that are demonstrably false or degrading?5:22 You would allow a man to preach that the earth is flat, or that injustice is profitable?5:29 Yes!5:29 Absolutely.5:30 If an opinion is silenced, we lose something.5:34 If the opinion is right, we are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth.5:41 And if it's wrong, we lose the clearer perception of truth, produced by its collision with error.5:49 So truth, for you, is something that emerges from a brawl in the marketplace of ideas?5:56 Where the loudest voice or the most appealing lie often wins?6:01 It's not a brawl; it's a process.6:03 Progress is messy.6:05 But the alternative — your system — is stagnation.6:09 You find a single "truth" and then freeze society in place forever to preserve it.6:15 You trade the possibility of progress for the certainty of control.6:21 I trade chaos for order.6:23 I trade ignorance for knowledge.6:25 You place your faith in a process, a mechanism of voting and debating.6:31 I place my faith in the perfected human intellect.6:35 But who perfects it?6:37 Who guards the guardians?6:39 That's the question you never seem to answer.6:42 You assume a perfect, incorruptible ruler can be created.6:47 I assume all humans are fallible, and therefore no one should be trusted with absolute power.6:54 That is the fundamental difference.6:57 Let us speak of this "Good" you think is so subjective.7:01 For me, the Good is a real, objective, and eternal truth.7:06 It is the ultimate reality upon which all other truths depend.7:11 It is not a matter of opinion.7:13 It is a matter of sight...7:16 for the mind's eye.7:17 Oh, I don't doubt that YOU believe that.7:20 But what if you're wrong?7:22 What if your "vision" of the Good is just...7:26 your preference?7:27 You would impose your personal preference on millions, for all time, with no appeal.7:34 It is not a preference!7:36 It is the conclusion of pure reason.7:39 Just as a geometer deduces the properties of a triangle, the philosopher deduces the properties of a just state.7:48 To govern is a science, not an art.7:50 It is not about what feels good; it is about what IS good.7:55 A science!7:56 No.7:56 I'm sorry, but no.7:58 There is no single "Good." There are goods, plural.8:02 There is the good of the poet, the good of the engineer, the good of the farmer, the good of the contemplative recluse.8:11 Human flourishing is radically diverse.8:14 And all those diverse pursuits must be ordered toward the health of the whole!8:21 The poet's song must encourage virtue, not vice.8:25 The engineer's bridge must serve the city, not his own vanity.8:30 And there it is!8:31 The cage.8:32 Your "harmony" is just a pleasant word for a world where everyone is forced into a single mold, even a supposedly perfect one.8:42 That is a dead society.8:44 The value is in the variety, the eccentricity, the struggle!8:48 Your harmony is the silence of a graveyard.8:52 And your "liberty" is the cacophony of a mob tearing itself apart!8:57 It is the freedom to be wrong, the freedom to be sick, the freedom to be unjust, and the freedom to drag the entire state into the abyss with you.9:09 That is not freedom.9:11 It is license.9:12 It is the logic of a cancer cell, celebrating its own unchecked growth while it kills the body.9:19 Okay.9:20 Okay.9:20 Let's be fair.9:21 I will grant you this.9:23 The tyranny of the majority is a profound danger.9:27 My own work expresses deep concern about the crushing weight of public opinion and its tendency to stamp out individuality.9:37 So you see the problem.9:39 You see the cave.9:40 But your solution is to simply ask the shadows on the wall to be kinder to one another.9:47 No.9:47 My solution is not to appoint a permanent dictator of the enlightened.9:53 The cure is education, public discourse, and, crucially, institutions and laws that explicitly protect minority views and individual rights FROM the majority.10:06 And who designs these institutions?10:08 Who writes these laws?10:10 Who provides this education?10:13 If not the wisest...10:14 then who?10:15 The wealthy?10:16 The charismatic?10:17 You are simply replacing the authority of reason with the authority of chance or brute force.10:25 We are replacing the authority of ONE person's reason with the collective, albeit flawed, reason of many, evolving over time.10:35 It's the difference between a blueprint that is declared perfect and can never be changed, and a living garden that must be constantly tended.10:46 A garden, Mr.10:47 Mill, requires a gardener.10:49 Someone who knows a weed from a flower.10:52 Without that knowledge, your "tending" is just aimless wandering.10:58 You are trusting luck.10:59 And you are trusting a fantasy.11:02 The fantasy of a perfect, incorruptible human being.11:06 I'd rather trust the messy, difficult, but ultimately self-correcting process of free people learning from their mistakes.11:16 It's slower, I grant you.11:18 It's more painful.11:19 But it's the only path that respects the dignity of the individual.11:25 You speak of dignity.11:26 Is there dignity in allowing a man to ruin his life?11:31 Is there dignity in a state that cannot tell virtue from vice, truth from falsehood?11:37 Your world is flat, gray, and ultimately, meaningless, because it dares not declare that some things are truly better than others.11:48 No.11:48 My world is full of color and texture because it allows individuals to seek their own good in their own way.11:57 Your world has one color: the color you have chosen for everyone.12:02 So we are left here.12:04 With two visions of justice.12:06 One is a perfectly designed structure, a cathedral built by the wise to shelter the many.12:13 And the other is an open field, where each person is free to build their own shelter, or none at all.12:21 The question that remains, then, is not just about politics.12:26 It's about what we believe humanity is.12:29 Is our freedom the goal itself, or is it merely the raw material from which a greater, collective good must be built?
