Plato's Republic
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Plato's Republic describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that sort of life within the context of a civil state. What Plato seeks in this dialogue is a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state to promote and sustain that life. The Ideal State is a concept and not a reality, either in Plato's time or since. Plato lived in a time of turmoil and warfare, and he created a society that would be free of strife if it lived up to the ideal. It seems likely that few people today would want to live in the society Plato proposes, and this may be because Plato ignores or subsumes human nature. one of the elements Plato sees as necessary to his perfect state is a powerful and extensive censorship to control certain forces in the populace and to reduce the sort of individualism we prize in Western society today. His view of the need for censorship is bound with his primary conception of justice. Plato was much concerned with justice and offered one of the most complete discussions of the topic in The Republic, where different speakers offer their views of what justice might be, and indeed should be. The first conception of justice offered in The Republic is justice that underlies traditional morality, and it is Cephalus who suggests this definition. He looks back over his life and states that justice is found in speaking the truth and paying your debts. This leads to the argument o
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t to be avoided because of any concern for individualism. Plato does not see these controls as tyrannical, and for Plato, such controls secure freedom for all that is human about us. Plato says we need a political reformer in order to rescue us from the ignorance in which we are enmeshed and the social chaos that can appear at any time. He imposes a system of censorship that is a logical conclusion from the society he creates.
One of the most important elements Plato emphasizes for his new society is education, and his sense of the need for censorship is related to the development of the young and the inculcation in the young of virtue and justice. Plato carefully details the program of study for the leaders of this society, for example, beginning with their selection and extending through every course of study they are to receive. He links changes in direction in education to the age of those being trained, with selections taking place at each age level to determine who goes on and who does not. In order to give the young the proper mental outlook, the courses of study are carefully arranged, and Plato even states what order instruction should be given in so as to shape the mind correctly. In such a system, any external
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Approximate Word count = 1882
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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