Abstract
Under Plato's system of the rule of the philosopher-sage, the popular will and all knowledge disseminated by the media would be controlled by oligarchs, namely a tribe of philosopher kings or sages. This paper examines Frank Fischer's and Brian Martin's recent analysis of the failures of the American political system, in which they do not offer as radical a solution as the ancient Greek. However, Frank Fischer's analysis does implicitly propose that there is a fundamental lacking within the texture of American government, and American political culture as a whole, in terms of citizen involvement within American political society and decision making. The paper examines Fischer's suggestion that the solution to this absence of involvement is not a more responsive governmental structure, but the institutionalization of the "sage" within the American political frame of discourse, that of an individual who is distanced from the issues to some extent and can offer commentary and intellectual and intelligent perspectives upon issues of the moment and also put the perspective of politics within a forward-thinking view. In contrast, the paper looks at how Martin stresses that, rather than look to experts for knowledge, one must become one's own 'sage'; profound challenges to government and conventional wisdom have been proposed by many relatively ordinary individuals all over the world, from the author's native Australia to India.

From the Paper
"So why do not more individuals take a more involved role in the political process regarding environmentalism, asks Fischer? Yet the American citizen stands back, while interested economic and political parties continue to wreck economic destruction upon the land. Contemporary experts may understand the environmental issues at stake, but they have profound personal and economic interests that cannot be ignored when evaluating their opinions. Furthermore, citizens can only glean the full impact of environmental, and other scientific issues (such as issues pertaining to health, health insurance, and Medicare, to name just a few) from such experts, as most citizens are laypeople regarding such issues."

Tags:environmentalism, Mark, Diesendorf, Sharon, Beder