Recently I read Taleb’s “The Black Swan,” which is a book
about the monumental impact of unexpected events. Taleb belabors this point to
death, and by halfway, he is not really saying much more, but the same thing
over and over and over again. Things happen that we can’t predict and those
things can have a huge impact. In fact, according to Taleb, we cannot predict
anything, but should always be aware that a “Black Swan” is just around the
corner. He makes many good points, but if I read the phrase “Black Swan” one
more time in the book, I was going to lose it.
Though with a seemingly vast array of knowledge of various
subjects, and a very ironic self-deprecation, which is thinly veiling an “I’m
smarter than you” core, it smacks of very superficial on a few things he seems
most adamant against, most notably the term he uses ad nauseum, “platonizing.”
For Taleb, this horrific event is when people try to find order in the Chaos,
to find the Ideal amongst the riff-raff, to rarify the mess, or to make
theories or prescriptions for how things ought to be.
Well, yes, but I’m not sure he’s read any Plato at all. For,
if he had, there would be the finest example of a Black Swan in all of Ancient
Greece, namely Socrates. Socrates did not conform to any doctrine and shook up
a community so much that they wanted him dead. His appearance changed Western
Philosophy for good. And, about those Platonic Ideals, sorry Mr. Taleb, read a
bit closer, you might be surprised.
Most Socratic dialogues end, much to the horror and chagrin
and dismay of many, in an aporetic fashion, meaning, there is no solution. Why?
Because, it is impossible to Platonize as Taleb would say, but who is writing
this but Plato himself?? Taleb self ascribes his philosophy to be an empirical
sceptic. Ummm, that would be a pretty
good description of a Socratic investigation. Socrates rejected every
established doctrine of the time for the simple reason, “we can’t really know.”
That is Taleb’s point and he brandishes this banner of “why
can’t anyone see this?” throughout the book, seemingly ignorant that that was
Socrates’ motto, Kant’s doctrine, and Nietzsche’s delight, all three being
“Black Swans” themselves. The fact that the book is a best-selling seems to me
that it shows how anything that smacks of the new, the bold, the more people
will forget that it usually has been done and said before, in some other
fashion, some other time, and has likewise been lost to the sands of Time.
In the Republic, Socrates spins a very long-winded detailed
myth about the “perfect city” of Man that mirrors the real perfect city of God.
Many of the ideas are quite “modern” today, including equality of the sexes,
education for the masses, and a professional army that never has to return to
civilian life, but is cared for unto death. However, after ten books of
discussion, Socrates is asked if this city could ever be real. His answer is
simply “No, it is a myth.” The only way that it could ever work is via the
Noble Lie that is told to generation after generation about the perfection of
the city, and within three or so generations, the Lie becomes reality, because,
the Ideal is fiction on earth, because, there are “Black Swans.”
Yet, what is even lacking further in the criticism of
so-called platonizing, is the fact that within itself, whether black or white,
it’s still a swan.
