This morning Ilooked for a good newspaper besides my breakfast and I saw that one magazine had chosen Old Hellas as this weeks theme, so I took this. Their were some good stories .One was about Aristotle. Seems, that their exist still a few people, who value the old philosophers. One little note was rather funny,given as an example for his tendency to observe and comment almost everything :his observations regarding the excessive use of alcohol[I guess, he had a lot of opportunities to watch this as the macedonian
kings had a little lack of temperance]:
People who have drunk any kind of alkohol except beer, shift and tumble in any direction, those who drink beer only shift behind and then lay on their backs.
Back to theme-
As a little intermezzo-how can the virtues be brought back to peoples focus?
Aristotle himself had some hope in the States responsibilty .He said, that polititians should care for the people learning to become virtuous. Therefore they should have knowledge about the human soul same way as medical specialists know about the whole human body.
Thinking about todays politicians I´m not too optimistic.
As Ben wrote, governments value virtue to a certain degree- as long as it makes people easy-to-rule-subjects, but they don´t want citicens who think and judge independently and follow their moral principles.
so, if not the government-who else.We can ay, then the family has to take over the resposibility. Nice idea, but in a society, where so much is already lost, that will not be enough.As Aristotle says, Prudence belongs to those virtues that are learned by teaching and experience,Justice, Fortitude and Temperance we learn mostly through constant discipline.
Where is the place for this?
Iustitia est ad alterum.