“WE NEVER EXPEL A FOREIGNER” – GLOBALISM, INTERCONNECTIVITY AND THE EXPERIMENT OF THE OPEN SOCIETY

Abstract

IntroductionKarl Popper (1945) appeals to of Athens in the opening pages of The Spell of Plato, Volume I of The Open Society and Its Enemies with the following excerpt:For the Open Society (about 430 B.C.):Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.Immediately as a contrast Popper quotes from Plato of Athens:Against the Open Society (about 80 years later):The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war as well as in the midst of peace to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals . . . only he has been told to do so . . . In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and in fact, to become utterly incapable of it (p. 3).Popper uses these two r eferences to frame a critical discussion of Plato's historicism. As a critical introduction to political philosophy his aim is to that civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth, the transition from the tribal or 'closed society,' with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man. In the final chapter he continues in this vein: is no return to a har - monious state of nature ... if we wish to remain human, then there is only one way, the way into the open society. We must go on into the unknown, courageously, using what reason we have, to plan for security and freedom.His initial reference is to Pericles' Funeral Oration (after 490 BCE) from Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War. It is a speech by Pericles that provides a eulogy for the pr inciples of Athenia n democracy. The statement of its underlying principles in fact provides a better warrant for the political concept of openness:It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privil ege, but as the reward of m erit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private business we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor he does what he likes; we do not put on sour looks at him which, though harmless, are not pleasant.Our city is thrown open to the world, though and we never expel a foreigner and prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret revealed to an enemy might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. And in the matter of education, whereas they from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they face.1In these brief passages Pericles points to the advantages of democracy that thrives on openness and transparency, despite the fact that the words themselves are reported by an anti-democratic Thucydides who while admiring Pericles' leadership criticized the mob rule of democracy (Perry, 2012).George Soros, Popper's student, describes Popper's concept of the open society as an epistemological concept rather than a political one even though in Popper's hands it resembles liberal democracy and becomes a political instrument for societal improvement.Living in the twenty-first century it is necessary to revisit the notion of openness as it has become one of the most used concepts to analyze a welter of problems and situations, often with conflicting meanings. …