On Board the Ship of Fools

 Fig. 1 Woodcut illustration by Albrecht Dürer for Sebastian Brandt's  

Das Narrenschiff (1494)  

 Fig. 2 Photo by Fabrizio Villa of Greta Thunberg with some of her crewmates 

 preparing to depart Italy for Gaza on a boat - the Madleen - organised by 

the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (June 2025)

 

 

Seeing "professional tantrum-thrower" [1] Greta Thunberg and her dysfunctional crew of activists aboard a sixty-foot sailboat heading across the rather lovely waters of the Mediterranean to Gaza in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of this Palestinian enclave [2], I was reminded of Plato's ship of fools [3] ...  

  

For aboard the Madleen we encounter a group of entitled young people who, despite believing themselves to be politically clear-sighted and possessing an acute sense of hearing attuned to the cries of the oppressed, are actually cloth-eared and blind to reality; people whose knowledge and experience is limited, but who are certain that they are always in the right and therefore justified in shouting down anyone who disagrees with what they say.   

Now, to entrust moral leadership to those who shout the loudest and make the most extreme claims is, I would suggest, profoundly mistaken. 

 

And whilst Greta and her chums may not be wearing traditional jester's costume - having swapped multicoloured motley for the distinctly patterned black and white keffiyeh [4] - they are fools all the same - or useful idiots, as some might say - and theirs is less a humanitaran mission and more a game of larping for Palestine [5] (i.e., a game of role play, virtue signalling, and self-promotion that shamelessly exploits the very real suffering of the people of Gaza). 

 

Having said that, however, the voyage of fools carries great symbolic weight in the Western imagination and perhaps Foucault is right to suggest that the figure of the madman, or joker, or even an autistic and bipolar activist is not merely a ridiculous and marginal one, but one who "stands centre stage as the guardian of truth" [6].      

 

Perhaps, therefore, we should at times write in praise of folly ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] A description provided by Julie Burchill in 'Greta Thunberg's pathetic Gaza voyage', The Spectator (4 June, 2025): click here. For those who would like to see Miss Thunberg speaking to the press prior to setting off on her voyage, click here.  

 

[2] The Madleen departed Catania, Sicily, on 1 June, 2025. The 1,250 mile journey is expected to take seven days. As well as the Swedish doom goblin, there are eleven other über-privileged activists on board and 64-year-old Irish actor Liam Cunningham. 

 

[3] See Book VI of Plato's Republic (c. 375 BC). 

      Without actually using the phrase 'ship of fools', Socrates speaks (allegorically) of a ship with a mutinous and foolhardy crew and readers are meant to take away the idea that sound governance always requires expert knowledge and strong leadership; that statecraft is essentially the same as seafaring. 

      The ship of fools analogy has been influential throughout history, appearing in various works of art and literature, often as a criticism of societal chaos and a lack of authority in difficult times. Sebastian Brandt's satirical work, Das Narrenschiff (1494), inspired by Plato's text, further extended the concept.

 

[4] Use of the keffiyeh as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism and resistance dates back to the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine. Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, the keffiyeh has gained increasing popularity among activists and is widely considered to be a sign of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.  

 

[5] See the post of this title published on 8 may 2024: click here. 

 

[6] Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization, trans. Richard Howard (Tavistock Publications, 1967), p. 14. 

 

 

On Plato and Starmer: Noble Liars

Noble Liars: Plato and Keir Starmer

 

 

I. 

 

Q: What unites Plato (an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period) and Keir Starmer (a British politician and lawyer currently serving as Prime Minister of the UK)? 

A: Both believe in the political necessity of falsehoods; of deliberately propagating a noble lie in order to achieve and secure social cohesion and stability. Both understand that this might be seen as morally questionable, but justify their mendacity by appealing to the greater good - and, indeed, their own inherent virtue. 

 

Plato wished to found his ideal city-state - ruled over by golden philosopher-kings - on a myth about the metallic origins of class difference [1]; whilst Starmer, on the other hand, wants to defend his ideal of a multicultural society - ruled over by a woke liberal elite - on a myth that has the red letters DEI running through it like those in a stick of rock. 

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, as someone who has previously written in praise of three great liars - Nietzsche, Twain, and Wilde [2] - and argued that lying is an art not only vital to the functioning of society, but necessary for the preservation of human life in a violently chaotic and inhuman world, it would be hypocritical for me to now condemn Plato and Starmer for their mixture of political pragmatism and cynicism, and to start defending the ideal of Truth at all times and on every occasion (as Kant does, for example). 

 

Nevertheless, I am concerned that when a noble lie is exposed, it can have unfortunate consequences; triggering the very things that those who posit such fear and seek to prevent (e.g., a loss of trust in authority figures and institutions, as well as a breakdown of social order). 

 

And the thing with Starmer is he's such a transparently dishonest figure that everyone knows he's lying all of the time. Starmer risks destabilising the UK and pushing the electorate into either political apathy (they no longer vote), political extremism (they start to vote for maverick figures), or violent protest (they start to throw bricks); for if nothing is true, everything is permitted [3].

 

Notes

 

[1] Plato presented the noble lie - γενναῖον ψεῦδος - in the fictional tale known as the Myth of the Metals in Book III (414d - 415e) of The Republic (c. 375 BC). 

      In it, Socrates describes the natural origin of the three social classes - all born of the same good earth - who compose the Kallipolis. First are the men of gold, who make the best rulers; second, are the men with more silver in their souls, who make the best auxiliaries and are thus destined to assist the men of gold; and thirdly, are the hoi polloi or men of bronze, who have a different set of strengths (and weaknesses) and make the best farmers and craftsmen. 

      Interestingly, although once born into a certain class one cannot leave it, parents with one type of soul can nevertheless produce offspring with a different metallic nature, so there is a degree of social mobility even in Plato's ideal state. Socrates claims that if everyone believed this myth it would have the positive effect of making them care for society and each other.        

 

[2] For the post on Nietzsche in the series on three great liars, published in June 2020, click here. For the post on Mark Twain in the same series, click here. And for the third and final post in the series, on Oscar Wilde, click here. 

      Readers are also invited to click here for a follow up post entitled 'Tell Me Sweet Little Lies' (23 June 2020). 

[3] This so-called assassin's creed is a nihilistic statement par excellence (even if it doesn't simply mean that any action is justifiable or without consequences). For many people, the phrase is taken from a video game first released in 2007; for others, it comes from the 1938 novel by Vladimir Bartol. But I'm sure readers of TTA will recall that Nietzsche also used this phrase in the Genealogy (1887); see Essay III, section 24.