Plato and Aristotle would have understood Corbyn’s appeal to the young

Whether the youth vote had any serious impact on the result of the general election or not, Jeremy Corbyn knew how to exploit it in a way both Plato and Aristotle would have understood.

In his Republic, Plato argued that democracy resulted in rulers behaving like subjects and subjects like rulers, with teachers pandering to the young, and the young in turn despising them. As a result, youths make ‘every conversation or action into a trial of strength with their elders’, while their elders ‘patronise them, exuding bonhomie and a sense of fun, and imitate them, because they do not want to appear disagreeable or despotic’: Corbyn rapping with assorted ‘grime artists’ to a T.

Most popular

Gavin Mortimer

Why is Gisele Pelicot a hero but not the girls of Rochdale?

For Aristotle, it was the young’s innocence that was an abiding characteristic. ‘They are not cynical but guileless, because they have not seen much wickedness; credulous, because they have not often been deceived; and optimistic, because they have not often experienced failure.’