This is a response to a YouTube video made by a Finnish vlogger that goes by the name of The Swan of Tuonela. In the video she poses ten questions to multiculturalists in the context of the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe. The video can be viewed at here. I'm not a multiculturalist though my coming over as one is simply an effect of the way I view the world and because of that I think I still qualify to answer. To explain my world view and to address the questions I will have to build a model that combines Plato's allegory of the cave, Bill Murray's 1993 movie Groundhog Day, and PoliticalCompass.org's political chart. It will set an objective benchmark against which subjective notions can be measured against.
Let's start with the first component: Plato's allegory of the cave. The allegory forms the model's metaphysical framework: it depicts the transformation of the desire-driven egoistic mindset, i.e. the prisoner chained to the wall of the cave, into a desire-free altruistic mindset, i.e. the prisoner that has been freed from the cave.
Its key idea: humankind's egoistic desires are played out in the physical world but, Plato says, that world is an illusion. The real world, he says, takes place between your ears. As a consequence, change cannot be brought about through the manipulation of things in the physical world; it can only be achieved through the mind. The prisoner that has been freed from the cave knows this to be true.
The second component, the Bill Murray movie, breaks down the metaphysical transformation into four desires the chained prisoner must see out before a breakout from the cave's confines is made possible. The desires are, from base to apex: survival, wealth, power, and knowledge.
Its key idea: Every person has to go through a progression of desires before a desire-free altruistic state of mind can be achieved.
The third and final component, the PoliticalCompass.org's political chart, links the metaphysical to the physical. It shows how the desires play out in the physical world with the desire for survival—the chart's social dimension—being represented by the Authoritarianism-Libertarianism y-axis and the desire for wealth—the chart's economic dimension—being represented by the Left-Right x-axis. The desire for power—politics—manipulates the axes not unlike a puppeteer operating a marionette using a control bar.
Its key idea: the people at PoliticalCompass.org brilliantly and astutely reduced the political system to a two-dimensional chart to give account for the social and economic dimensions of politics. It coincides with the progression of desires depicted in Groundhog Day though without acknowledging the desire for knowledge.
Plato making mention of the imperative for philosophers to become kings implies that an additional z-axis representing the desire for power needs to be added to the chart. This allows for the desire for knowledge—philosophy—instead of the desire for power—politics—to operate the control bar, i.e. rule by philosopher-kings instead of by politicians. Now let's assemble the model.
First I need to modify the cave's floor plan. Instead of having a single expanse I am going to put in a triangular (read: a two-dimensional pyramidical) structure to partition the space into four tiers with the widest section—the base—resting against the cave's wall and the narrowest section—the apex—pointing away from it. Each tier, from base to apex, represents a desire, i.e. survival (at the base), wealth, power, and then knowledge (at the apex). The triangle's tapering shape symbolizes the desires' hierarchical nature as the higher desires form an arch over the lower ones.
With the Bill Murray movie incorporated next I am going to incorporate the political chart but with the extra z-axis, and finish the model. The original two-dimensional chart allows for the expression of only the first three desires as it leaves the operation of the control bar to politics (the desire for power) by omitting philosophy (the desire for knowledge). In the cave, this would've had given us a three- instead of a four-tiered triangle but by having the latter in place humankind's desire for knowledge can now be accounted for.
In the original chart, both the axes represent scales extending between two extremes; Left-Right for the x-scale and Authoritarianism-Libertarianism for the y-axis. They point to dualism. What Left and Libertarianism have in common is they are both inclusive just as Right and Authoritarianism are exclusive. Thus the dualism pertains to inclusiveness and exclusiveness. I am going to apply the same idea to the z-axis (politics) and to the control bar, the desire for knowledge aka philosophy.
