Everything is H2O, Lessons from Thales

So, it comes to pass that we, a philosopher of note are sadly lagging behind in our duty to philosophize. For heaven's sake we have seven posts about zombies and only two posts about philosophy! We are so ashamed!

So to recommence with a renewed sense of vigor we have traveled back to the dawn of Philosophy to the coast of Asia Minor and made contact with Thales. Thales told us that everything was made of water, showed us how to calculate the distance between three points by way of a triangle and said that there would be a total solar eclipse for the citizens of the United States on August 21, 2017. We asked him about the doomsday of 2012 and he said that that was preposterous superstition and swore by the Delphic Apollo that if his predictions were wrong the world would cease to float upon the great waters of the earth.

We didn't know what to do with all of that. We didn't know how we could relate this to today. So we kept digging and we learned some interesting things about Miletus, the Ionian city he was from. At the time of Thales, Miletus was being ravaged by class warfare. The land owning aristocrats and the peasants were battling with one another for power. The peasants, in modern terms we'd call them the 99% got the upper hand and killed many of the aristocrat's wives and children. Not to be outdone, the aristocrats started burning the 99% alive. Thales, a member of the wealthy was ushered away to Egypt to learn in peace.

Upon returning to Miletus he saw that the power of the aristocracy had waned. In their place was the gradual rise of wealthy merchants. The wealthy merchants ruled for a time until through a democratic process a tyrant seized power of the polis. It is in this backdrop that Thales pretty much gave birth simultaneously to philosophy and science.

So what lessons can we learn from this today? Class warfare leads to mass atrocities. When the 1% lose power it will be gradually replaced by wealthy merchants, i.e. modern corporations. Modern corporations will eventually lose power because democracy will elect a tyrant. Is our lesson too late?