Peter Jones

Plato and the problem with Netflix’s Atlantis

[Getty Images/iStockphoto] 
issue 03 December 2022

Whatever Netflix touches will almost certainly turn into trash. It’s the only way they know how to make money. In its latest example, it takes the fictional story of a ‘lost city’ called Atlantis and turns it into a ‘documentary’, a crock of evidence-free eyewash about a world-saving intellectual master-race.

It was Plato (d. 348 bc) who made up the story, and put it into in the mouth of an old man, who heard it aged ten from his grandfather, who heard it from his great grandfather’s contemporary Solon (c. 590 bc), who heard it from Egyptian priests who were talking of a period 9,000 years earlier. Might that not drop a hint of sorts?

The priests said Atlantis was an idealised super-state, built on an island in front of the mouth of the strait of Gibraltar. It became corrupted, and enslaved Africa up to Egypt and Europe up to Italy.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in