Re: NY Times' article on Ecuador's Constitution Granting Rights to Nature

The new Ecuadorian Constitution, as I have read it, is an authoritarian, centralist and abortionist one:
It concentrates most powers on the executive branch by controlling, in an undemocratic way, inalienable rights such as freedom of speech, right to privacy, and freedom of the press.
It cuts most ties with the private sector, and by the same token, it nationalizes these companies.
It stupidly acknowledges "5 genders", rather than 2 [male and female]. One thing is to acknowledge different sexual orientation -as there actually are-, than to acknowledge 5 different genders -when there are only 2!
It does not defend and guarantee life FROM conception -hence it gives right to abortion.
It trivializes and eventually negates cities' autonomy, where all cities' production goes straight to the government to later be "equally" distributed nationwide.
It has created an impossible and unrealistic economic plan that heroically and, by means of magic, pretends to provide for all the Ecuadorian people, when in actuality economists nationwide, that have studied the plan, have consistently said this plan is burdensome, and unrealistic given the production and the economy of the country.

In other words, this constitution is a utopia that pretends to adapt a bad copy of socialism as its main ideology, when really what Mr. Correa is doing is not socialism, but rather totalitarianism.

While there may be some good articles as you have mentioned here (nature's inalienable rights), there are many more that are just the opposite. For this reason, it is childish and ignorant to believe that this new constitution is going to be Ecuador's savior. Sadly, and by contrast, it seems this constitution and its main promulgator are set to doom the country.

Plato’s Symposium: The Real Meaning of Beauty

Plato’s idea of beauty is quite complex for common minds to grasp, however, that is not to say that his idea is incomprehensible to us but rather that we need to dedicate more time studying and analyzing his words and concepts to get through his meanings. Plato’s views of this concept pass beyond physical awareness and human sensations and take on in what follows to be an intelligible realm or knowledge. He believes that once one knows the real meaning of beauty one will obtain knowledge, and in order to achieve this he conceives a very specific approach.

According to the Symposium, Plato states that in order for a man to grasp the real and profound meaning of beauty, he has to start in his youth, “A lover who goes about this matter must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful bodies” (par. 210). Plato believes that in order to achieve this higher concept of beauty one has to follow the rites correctly from an early age in order for them to work –he even suggests that Socrates, being and old man, might not be capable to follow them. He may think this way because a young man is easier to be persuaded and thus be taught these ideas [by a leader], more than an older man who may already have formed his own concepts.

In other words, Plato believes that loving the bodies correctly is pursuing the beauty in and of itself, not as a sensible matter but rather as a higher concept of form and intelligibility; concepts that based on the leader’s teachings will make the lover understand that there is only one beauty to everything and to all bodies and he will then disregard his previous understanding of physical beauty. Therefore, the lover will be able to value people’s souls and minds more than the physical beauty of their bodies. He will see further beyond the sensible and visible beauty that we all know. He will worth people’s souls even if their bodies are aging, or if they are not physically attractive, “After this he must think that the beauty of people’s souls is more valuable than the beauty of their bodies, so that if someone is decent in his soul, even though he is scarcely blooming in his body our lover must be content…” (par. 210c).

Consequently, the relationship that Plato suggests the lover must have now, with all his knowledge about real beauty and love itself, is one that is immutable and unchangeable. Plato believes that perfection of soul and mind consists in the unmovable forms, the real and the intelligible knowledge. In this same way he views the relationship between the lover and the beautiful things: “it is not beautiful this way and ugly that way, not beautiful at one time and ugly at another, nor beautiful in relation to one thing, and ugly in relation to another” (par. 210). In other words, beauty, loving and knowledge do not change; they always stay the same for everyone and everything, even when they could physically change, the idea of beauty or objects does not suffer any change. Hence, the relationship the lover should have with beautiful things is one that remains the same; one which is timeless and ageless.

As a result, all these beautiful things and all the processes that the lover has seen and gone through all along his journey will serve him as “stairs” or steps to help him climb up to the highest form of knowledge possible; the knowledge that “in the end he comes to know just what is to be beautiful” (par. 211c). The lover uses all these tools as a support to ascend to the next step and from that one to the following and so on –like an escalating wall— thus achieving the final goal which is to know beauty in itself and by knowing what true beauty is, he will obtain true knowledge.