PLATO’S HUMANITY.

Socrates explains to the men of Athens

that a human being is what happens

when an animal is given a soul

and if you know that you are capable

to care for it and grow it to the full

you will King of virtue among the animals—

in moral goodness and self-control—

a new race of …humanimals.

Plato disagrees with his teacher

but always respectfully- he features

humanity by necessity

living together in a city.

He says humanity is a political animal—

we’re birds of a feather who do life together

in a city-state so that our fate

rests upon our ability participate.

One more idea if you’d rather,

Aristotle in turn disagrees with his father

and proffers this idea. He offers

that humans are a reasoning animal—

we are able to think scenarios real and unreal

and ask and test and collect and bask

in the glory of the sciences and techne—

the arts of mastery that come from inquiry.

Now friends,

These are all good notions and each one is a potion

that if you drink of its cup will show you what’s up—

how to be human with a soul we develop,

or with one unified soul achieved politically,

or thinking our way to divinity— all these envelope

a path with sure footing on a deep-space journey.

But only one definition can save humanity

and its the second of the three—

That’s right.

We have to learn life together politically,

not in a sense of left and right

but in the mystic sense of wrong and right.

We are the only animals that talk about justice

and think about how to advance as a team

if we became unified all under a common dream

and each found our purpose and place

in the advancement of the entire human race.