Introduction: Ship of Fools

Introduction: Ship of FoolsIn Alain Badiou's "hypertranslation" of Plato's Republic, masterfully brought into English by Susan Spitzer, not only does the French philosopher move the dialogue's stage to contemporary reality but also updates the imagery and references, adapting them to the twenty-first century. 1 It features mentions of figures like Marx, Lacan and Emily Dickinson, while examples are drawn from television and the internet.Among these, one particular image strikes an important chord in light of the ongoing climate crisis. 2 In the original version, one of the parabolic stories told by Socrates concerns a ship that metaphorically stands for Athenian democracy, an image representative of the "ship of state" convention widespread in Greek poetry at the time.3 The point is that the shipowner, who is ailing yet manages to keep the vessel afloat, yields before a rebel group of mariners who think themselves worthy of taking the helm but in reality have no idea what they are doing, confusing the position of power with that of knowledge.Plato's vignette is set within broader discussion of political philosophy as outlined in Book Six, exemplifying his contempt for direct democracy driven by emotion and demagoguery.Badiou's rendition further elaborates on this image, expanding it and remodeling certain vital details.To begin with, the "ship of state" is translated as "an oil tanker" that is further afflicted by an additional problem: "a hole in the oil tank, so the ship was leaving a big trail of oil behind it"; the ensuing brutal mutiny turns the vessel into a debauched "opium den, a saloon, and a brothel," with everyone's attention fo-1 Susan Spitzer, "Translator's Preface," in Alain Badiou, Plato's Republic.A Dialogue in Sixteen Chapters, with a Prologue and an Epilogue, trans.