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Político

Index: Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan, Ficciones, OC,Obras completas. Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1974. 462.
Type
T

Plato, a probable reference to the Timaeus

Fishburn and Hughes: "One of Plato's later dialogues, commonly called the Statesman, in which ‘Young Socrates' discusses with a stranger from the Eleatic school the nature and function of the statesman. The stranger compares the present age of Zeus with the mythical age of Kronos when God took charge of the universe and the creatures living in it. There was no labour, the land spontaneously yielded its products, men were born from the earth fully grown and gradually returned to infancy, when they disappeared again into the earth, to give rise to a new generation of mature beings. But in the age of Zeus, taking no heed of divine guidance we head towards disruption. The interlocutor referred to is the 'Eleatic Stranger' who alludes to the different legends of the backward revolution of the cosmos, such as that of the sun rising in the west and setting in the east, or those related to the age of Kronos. All these legends derive from a 'common origin' and illustrate the 'regressive' direction that statesmanship should take. For, if there was a time when God guided the world, the world, when left to itself, must 'by an inherent necessity' turn back to the source from which it received its original 'intelligence' (Politicus 268e-274e)." (157)