The EthoPlasìn Philosophy and the EthoPlasìn Discipline are closely related to MeritoCracy, as a good midway objective in their pursuit of the ideal of an EthoCracy. Meritocracy is the short term political objective of EthoPlasìn, while EthoCracy is its long term political objective.

1. Ancient-Greece invented Democracy. It was however at that time much closer to what we would call Meritocracy than to what we call today Democracy or a form of 'Politocracy' to use an Aristotelian term, or to the ideal that EthoPlasìn would call today "EthoCracy". Pericles, appearing to the right, was the leader of the golden period of meritocracy in Ancient-Greece. In the same spirit that prevailed in those days, EthoPlasìn members always strive to help and tutor the weaker elements of society but, at the same time, to use and promote Excellence and best civic behavior, and in particular to give proper assistance and recognition to members and people in general on the basis of their best meritorious behavior, talent, efforts and achievements.

2. The two categories of Hoplites and Amazones (as described in our Soldiers page) even have a special role in relation to the promotion of Meritocracy and they receive special training for this purpose. One of their main  objectives in the daily routine life of all members is to to provide comfort, joy and in particular assistance in merit recognition where missing, in the life of their co-citizens. In all their endeavors Members use and promote good behavior, impeccable manners, politeness, gallantry, neatness and elegance in all circumstances. They are trained and prepared to proactively investigate, propose or defend the recognition of merit, and help correct the lack of it, wherever noted or needed on their way, in relation to least resourceful citizens, in particular with EthoPlasìn Members requesting help. With their EthoPlay Formation, in terms of physical Judo Sport but in particular in terms of mental and philosophical EthoDialogue discipline, they are even prepared to use strength if necessary for the mental or physical neutralization of persons using violence against defenseless citizens, in particular with weaker meritorious EthoPlasìn Members. In such cases they respect the pure EthoPlasìn EthoJudo Spirit of using and taking advantage of the adversary force, turning it against the aggressor’s own self, and just enough strength to achieve neutralization, not punishment, with the least harm possible. They try to resolve conflicts by encouraging reconciliation through EthoDialogue and the application of EthoPlasìn Concepts and Suggestions. For more information, see the separate pages on Hoplites and Amazones Special Status and on EthoPlay (EthoJudo and EthoDialogue).

3. The ARIUM has no political affiliation but will lobby in all circumstances, for Meritocracy, even with politicians and governments. However, an elected politician can only be an Empathizer or, if elected while already a member, must temporarily suspend active membership and return to be only an Empathizer while in office. The exceptions would only be for EthoCracy leaders affiliated formally to an EthoCratic political party acting under the official leadership of the PythagorArium.  

4. A real meritocracy promotes and assists each citizen according to efforts, talent, quality of behavior and achievements, but will never forget to recuperate the weaker ones, or the ones who made mistakes, giving them a new chance if possible, even support them entirely with dignity when they are temporarily in a state of complete need or incapacity. This is the purpose of the CivicArium (the mini Social Recuperation Center within the PythagorArium for victims of civic violence) integrated to the ARIUM. However this is not a charity center but rather a tutoring one. On the part of members, all other citizens will only receive tutoring, training or “fishing rods”, 'never' money nor “fish” (unless it is the desire of a member and done on a private basis, independently from the Academy). Citizens in need of charity can get it from other excellent organizations with a charity orientation. There are many with this orientation and unfortunately very few with a “tutoring” orientation, like the EPAcademy, which should stick to the role it has been assigned by its Foundation.

5. EthoPlasìn members, as citizens, very much behave like players in a competitive sport team discipline. From the EthoPlasìn point of view, all citizens should be educated to also behave this way as much as possible. In other words, a Meritocracy, in EthoPlasìn terms, is a country managed, in all its activities, very much like the complement of all the teams composing the various levels of the national sport where each player in the country reaches gradually and naturally the right level on the basis of specific talent, effort and demonstrated capacity. Some players stay at the parochial or city level, while others go up to the provincial or national level. The weaker players accept serenely their objective limitations and encourage their best performing companions to go forward by being cheerful fans of them. Accidents and wounds are well taken care of, through a good recuperation program, while least capable individuals are happy to cheer and applaud in the background as fans of the better ones. In the end, each player, as an EthoPlasìn Player, that is as an EthoPlasìn Citizen, gets fair and just recognition on the basis of merit. EthoPlasìn Members make sure no deserving player stays behind for reasons other than merit. With the right spirit, nobody feels 'behind' or 'ahead' as all feel happy they have reached their best possible level on the basis of merit: their natural talent combined to their best efforts, like in sports. This attitude is eminently part of the EthoPlasìn Spirit. From this point of view it is kind of a Social Olympic Spirit (SOS). This is the difference between the original Olympics spirit of Ancient-Greece and the Olympics today: the Olympics were not considered "games of competition" with adversaries but rather an "effort of emulation" in front of candidates better than themselves. It was even often qualified with a beautiful expression: "Polite Emulation" (Ευγενησ Αμιλλα). The holistic formation related to this spirit was very prominent in the Pythagorean school, and we talk about it quite extensively in our page on "Pythagorean Man Emulation". 

6. The development of this special SOS attitude, in terms of "Polite Emulation", associated with the study of the concepts of Merit and Meritocracy, and with the application of the related EthoPlasìn Discipline and Philosophy, ensures all members are properly formed to pursue this fundamental EthoPlasìn objective which is the promotion of Decorum, Meritocracy, Oneness responsibility in Civic Education and Philoecosophical Initiatives.

7. Nature is extremely meritocratic and humans are eminently part of nature. Each time politicians have tried to bring in equality between men, it always ended-up favoring the worst elements and penalizing the best ones. Their sense of equality is not only an utopia, but a lie that, as such, can only feed confusion and social conflicts. Both political and religious institutions have used that lie and illusion in order to increase their power. Being meritocratic however does not mean behaving mildly in the middle of a social jungle. It only means doing what we do extremely well already in the field of national sports and athletic competitions, where everyone finds its just level, on the basis of their natural talent and personal efforts, and only the very best ones go to the top. As Plato says in Laws [756E-757E]: "Indiscriminate equality for all amounts to inequality for all, and both fill a state with quarrels between its citizens. The general method of strict justice is to grant much to the great, and less to the less great, adjusting what you give to take account of the real nature of each, specifically, to confer high recognition on great virtue, but when you come to the poorly talented in this respect, to treat them as they deserve". The balance is a symbol of justice, but also the sword, and the two have to be used together for Strict Justice, on a pure meritocratic basis, as per the symbol up to the right.

8. From a political point of view, Meritocracy basically means appointing people and assigning responsibilities to individuals strictly on the basis of best demonstrated intelligence, ability, knowledge, dedication and honesty. It also means however to spend resources of the country, raised through taxes, in the most meritorious way. A meritocratic government cannot for example spend public money to subsidize unprofitable corporations that attend no common good, support able-bodied persons who refuse to accept available jobs, pay profitable farmers to refrain from planting certain healthy crops, or support, through some kind of endowment for the arts, artists of arrogant mediocrity who, through their ugly production, only degrade the beauty of the environment and destroy, in a relativistic way, the harmonious artistic aspect of the city and the cultural level of the population in general.    

9. Ass this is the Social Olympic Spirit (SOS). Being good to bad people is also against nature. As Plato well said in Laws [757A], talking about the bad aspects of a democracy that is not a meritocracy: "Indiscriminate equality for all amounts to inequality for all, and both fill a state with quarrels between its citizens".  Again this does not mean we have to be 'bad' to them, using indiscriminate violence, but only that the bad persons have to be held responsible for their bad behavior, and be punished, or put out of play, when required, like in sports. They too have to find their just place in society according to their own talent and efforts, and compensate in social work for the damage they have done to society, including if required in the new type of Prison-Farms promoted by the EthoPlasìn. 

10. For more concrete suggestions on how our Democracy could be improved, you can see some of our pages on Government Issues, Political Issues, Micro-Criminality Issues and Socio-Economical Issues located in our so-called list of Hot Issues mentioned at the bottom of the home page. To sense how Meritocracy could itself be improved, see our separate page on EthoCracy.

To achieve this objective of Meritocracy, Students who graduated at the Academy will always be limited in number, even over time, but Members at large, trained at distance by the Association in this SOS spirit and discipline, can quickly become thousands, if not millions, with the two groups formed to contribute, all together, each their own way, to the important EthoPlasìn objectives of pursuing the advent of better MeritoCracy, ideally even an EthoCracy, and the improvement of all civic and physical environments around the world.

ΗΤΤΩ ΥΠΕΡ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ
Να μαχεσαι για το δικαιο
(Struggle for what is just)