Headline Aug 22, 2014/

''' QUIET -PLEASE !? '''

JUST TAKE IN THIS SCENE :

It is very, very simple' Sires!   '' Then we'll expunge all these things  {from the just and pure city}  I said,  beginning with the verse:

I would rather be on the coal, a slave to another.

To a man without lot whose means of life are not great

Than rule over all the dead who have perished..............

Well, that's the great  Master Socrates, in Plato's Republic  Book III.

The  ''desire for recognition''  sounds like strange and somewhat artificial concept, the more so when it is said to be the primary motor driving human history

''Recognition''  enters our vocabulary from time to time, for example when one of your colleagues retires and is given a watch  ''in recognition for years of service."

But we do not normally think about political life as a  "struggle for recognition". To the extent we generalize about politics. we are much more likely to view it as a competition for power between economic interests, a struggle to divide up wealth and the other good things in life.

The concept underlying  ''recognition''  was not invented by Hegel. It is as old as Western Political Philosophy itself, and refers to a thoroughly familiar part of the human personality.

Over the millennia, there has been no consistent word used to refer to the psychological phenomenon of the  ''desire for recognition" . Plato spoke of thymos,  or  ''spiritedness",

''Machiavelli of man's desire for glory,  Hobbes of his pride or vainglory. Rousseau of his  amour proper.  Alexander of the love of fame and James Madison of ambition, Hegel  of recognition,

And Nietzsche of man as the   ''beast with red cheeks".

All of these terms refer to that part of man which feels the need to place value on things    -himself in the first instance,  but on the people. actions, or things  around him as well.

It is the part of the personality which is the fundamental source of the emotions of pride, anger and shame, and is not reducible to desire,  on the one hand, or reason on the other.

The desire for recognition is the most specifically political part of the human personality because it is what drives men to want to assert themselves over other men, and thereby  into  Kant's  condition of   '' asocial sociability ''.

It is not surprising that so many political philosophers have seen the central problem of politics as one of taming or harnessing the desire for recognition  has been to succeed in the hands of modern political philosophy that:

We citizens of modern egalitarian democracies often fail to see the desire for recognition in ourselves for what it is.

The first extended analysis of the phenomenon of the desire for recognition in the Western philosophical tradition appears, quite appropriately, in the book that stands at the very head of the tradition,  Plato's Republic.

The Republic records a conversation between the philosopher Socrates and two young aristocratic Athenians, Glaucorn and Andeimantus, who seek to describe the nature of a  just city  in a  ''speech''.

Such a city,  like cities  ''in reality,''  needs a class of guardians or warriors to defend it from external enemies.

According to Socrates, the chief characteristic of these guardians is thymos, a Greek word that may somewhat awkwardly be translated as  ''spiritedness'' .

He compares a man with  thymos to  a    ''noble dog''.  who is capable of great courage and anger fighting strangers in defense of his own city.

In his first approach to the problem, Socrates describes thymos from the outside; we only know that it is associated with courage   -that is:

The willingness to risk one's life..............and with the emotion of anger or indignation on behalf of one's own.

Socrates then returns to a more detailed  analysis of thymos in Book IV, which contains his famous tripartite division of the soul.

So, in the meantime,  Quiet Please ! The Pakistani students, led by:

Mariam, Rabo, Dee, Haleema, Saima,  Talat, Aqsa, Sarah, Meriam, Hussain, Ali, Aneela, Ehsan, Sanan, Dawood, Ghazi, Reza/Canada, Danyial/UK, Rahym/UK, Shazib, Salar,  Mustafa, Ibrahim, Eman, Ahsen, Sanyia, Hamza, Paras, Sorat, Anne, Armeen, Arslan, Hiader, are:

Thinking content and hopefully, a more serious participation and contribution to Sam Daily Times  "the voice of the voiceless." 

Long Live The King!

The Honour and Serving of this writing continue. Thank you, for reading and don't miss the next one.

With most loving, and most caring dedication to the young Students of Pakistan. 

And with most gratefully acknowledged dedication to all the thousands of you, Students. Professors and Teachers,  the world over,  who sent in most kind messages and words of honour to the Pakistani students, and the undeserving me.

See Ya all on the  ''Sam Parliament avenues''   and  on  !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers, Internet-Wireless:

''' The Tinkerer's '''

Good Night and God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless