Tell me a story...

Regardless of how we feel about the strict rules of censorship that Socrates proposes for his kallipolis, there can be no doubt that he is a firm believer in the importance of stories.

Big Bird and Friends gather 'round for a good story.
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Read_Me_a_Story

Socrates tells us that the stories we listen to as a young child play a key role in forming our morality. They also teach lessons - whether intentional or not - about the types of behavior that are permitted.

To be honest, I'm not sure that I find Socrates to be that far off the mark. I don't know how many of those good ol' Greek myths I'd want to use as bedtime stories for young children. Those gods and heroes do get up to some wacky hi-jinks, don't they?

But aside from the concerns of the content and form of the stories, something that struck me about Socrates' discussion is how it highlights a group of people that we wouldn't naturally associate with loads of power in this particular utopia. Not just the storytellers, but the "nurses and mothers" (53). They are the first educators, the ones who nurture the guardians when they are their youngest and most vulnerable. (Not the philosophers, who will presumably get their hands on the young men - literally and figuratively - once they are ready for a more formal education.) It's those nurses and mothers who must be "persuaded" to choose good tales for the wee guardians. Is it me, or does Socrates seem a bit insecure about whether or not those nurses and mothers will listen to his persuasion?

So let's hear it for those mothers and nurses. They are the linchpin of the kallipolis, whether in Ancient Greece or the contemporary US. Our stories are still what teach us our morality and guide us in our behavior. And is that is as it should be.

Establishing a Utopia

One interesting aspect of Plato's Republic that is unlike other well-known Utopias like Omelas, Utopia as Thomas More invented it, and others is that Plato sets out to illuminate the process of imagining a Utopia, rather than simply placing his characters and reader within one that the author has already fleshed out. This is one of Plato's greatest authorial strengths, because we as readers never know what Plato thinks.

The characters in this dialogue, Socrates, Glaucon and Adeimantus, decide that in order to determine what is truly just in a man, they must discover what justice is in a city. In this sense, Plato opens the door to an enormous overarching irony, when by the end Socrates has banished the poets from the city based on the postulate that they are furthest from the truth, meanwhile the bedrock of the entire text is founded on an extended metaphor.

More importantly for our purposes, the three parties involved spend Book II raising a city up from scratch. First they begin with only a core crucial craftsmen, but eventually the city expands more and more. This expansion is based on the fact that each person is best suited to be well trained at one specific task, and that they should be allowed to focus all of their energy on their specialized craft, so that they are capable of performing it as best as possible. However, this also leads to the invention of currency, because each person needs to be able to trade their skills for food, unless they are a farmer, in which case they need everything else.

When Socrates believes he is finished describing the just city, Glaucon famously rebuttals that it sounds like a city fit for pigs. Socrates then proceeds to describe the luxurious city, wherein the development of justice and injustice should become more transparent. I think one take-away from this argument is that injustice, or to put it another way, the need for justice, comes from a surplus of goods which allows people to live luxuriously and therefore want more than they need. Surely this is the origin of a great many crimes and acts of injustice.    

The world is humongous. It is filled with many people of varying cultures, religions, races, and ideologies. Every person on the planet is unique in their own way; differences exist between every human on Earth. No two human beings are the same. Schisms between groups of people are largely based on conflicting beliefs. All too often in the history of man, it can be noted that because of these differences a multitude of tragedies have befallen mankind: wars have been waged, racism has ingrained itself within communities, and oppression of certain groups has become commonplace.

It becomes apparent that to establish a utopia these differences that exist between people must be considered. One solution could be that everyone could accept one specific set of values that would essentially make everyone more similar, thus making the differences between everyone less apparent. However, this concept would never be feasible. Assimilating multitudes of people under one pattern of thinking would prevent any other pattern from arising. The diversity of human society would be lost as everyone began to hold similar beliefs. Furthermore, this assimilation would stifle the advancement of other cultures, causing unrest with those that want to maintain their cultural identity.

A much better solution to this dilemma is understanding. Rather than trying to erase differences by instituting a collective culture, learning to appreciate the qualities that make everyone different should be a key factor in establishing a utopia. Altogether too often, differences in culture, political stance, and race lead people to avoid interaction with others. If others are perceived to be unlike oneself, people will tend to avoid contact with an individual or group of people, never really developing an understanding of what they stand for and in what they believe.

Understanding (or even attempting to) would make everyone more sympathetic to another’s situation. Instead of judging from the outside with little to no context, people could seek understanding, giving them insight to another person’s point of view and perhaps even changing their own. If there was more understanding, there would be more sympathy. More sympathy would reinforce camaraderie among various groups of people, and with more camaraderie, peace would be more easily achieved.

For some, developing understanding and sympathy can be very difficult because there must be a willingness to develop such things. Deep-seated animosity is the worst enemy of understanding. It is a wall that prevents the process from ever starting. Therefore, people must be taught about other cultures and was of thinking before developing these biases. In schools, children should be taught to appreciate all other cultures and their fellow men and women across the world.          

Where To Begin When Creating Utopia?

The idea of defining utopia seems an impossible task. Even Socrates and Adeimantus can't agree on how to create their theoretical “city.” There seems to be too many variables to consider— what to include and what to leave out. As I continued trying to think of what constitutes a utopia, I was struck by some questions that I could not get away from regarding the idea of utopia being a “perfect place.” Doesn't perfection remove the need for desire? How can innovation exist? How can a true sense of joy be attained  if all you ever know is fulfillment; how would you be able to make a distinction between good and bad while only knowing perfection?

Two things that seem necessary to create utopia and avoid dystopia: fluidity, or adaptability, and balance.

Fluidity would accommodate for the fact that people's needs, wants, and desires are constantly changing. Omelas accounts for this in their utopia by providing an option for everyone. For example, there is religion and everyone worships as they choose or choose not to. Another idea regarding fluidity is one discussed in class while attempting to define utopia: the idea that utopia needs to be thought of as a journey and not a destination. Along that principle a utopia could be a society working together to achieve harmonious perfection. By that standard utopian happiness would be created from hope.

As I contemplated utopia further, I thought of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and the “perfect” society that is portrayed. In exchange for not feeling pain, the society also doesn't feel happiness and all of its occupants are resigned to “Sameness.” So in order to avoid a gray world, another element that would have to exist in the definition of utopia would be balance. Many scenarios of utopia have vast extremes, for example The Giver. Balance or “everything in moderation” is necessary in order to avoid creating a dystopia.

Freedom seems to be another struggle when defining utopia. Too much freedom would lead to chaos, but with too little freedom you live in a dictatorship. Again, the idea of balance needs to be applied, but how would it be decided who regulates the rules? Freedom existed in Omelas but only in the sense that the people could walk away if they found the inhuman treatment of the child wrong. They couldn't choose to free the child or that whole society would cease to exist. Choice seems to be the most important freedom in a utopian society.

One Man's Utopia is Another Man's Dystopia

Books II and III of Plato's Republic comprised Wednesday's reading assignment. Socrates, Adeimantus, and Glaucon, discuss what components are necessary in the foundation of a city. The "first and greatest need," according to Socrates, is food (44). His arguments, to start, are relatively standard. Food, shelter, medical care, etc., are all necessary, and things that generally come to mind when one considers city planning. The incomparable Socrates, however, soon shifts the conversation onto the city's residents, delving into a discussions of censorship, and the like, and how it is necessary in order to keep citizens temperate and without too much passion.

Socrates discusses how he plans to control what stories may be told, and what stories must be "thrown out." He declares that storytellers must be "supervised," and the only sufficient stories are ones that "are fine or beautiful... since they will shape... children's souls" (53). He plans to censor stories that give "a bad image of what the gods and heroes are like," for fear that examples of these mythic figures' debauchery, violence, unvirtuousness, and the like, will create a bad example for young people to follow (53-54). Socrates' willingness to selectively censor the literary/poetic canon of his city's inhabitants, in an attempt to hide any and all notions of bad behavior, is somewhat disturbing. This act of censorship seems quite Orwellian, and to me echoes some of the reasoning certain folks have when trying to ban or censor books today. 

Socrates continues his reasoning for banning certain stories, not only wanting to ban stories of war crimes or the licentious pursuits of the gods, but of excessive laughter, appetite, etc, in an effort to encourage moderation among his citizens. He emphasizes self-control. While I agree that moderation, applied to certain aspects of life, is generally a good practice, the fact that Socrates wishes to control and censor the media consumed by his residents in order to keep them loyal, unfeeling, and "moderate," is worrisome. He decides what the truth is. To me, this seems like the erasure of passion, and he pursues this desire to erase passion, in his specific discussions of the "guardians" dispatched to lead the city, of their education, of the types of music played, etc. To Socrates, censorship is a utopian necessity, in other to keep his citizens mild, emotionless blobs. The classic Greek stories of the gods getting into less than savory activities must be hidden from this city's constituents, because "they are harmful to people who hear them, for everyone will be ready to excuse himself when he's bad... For that reason, we must put a stop to such stories, lest they produce in the young a strong inclination to do bad things" (68).

Does Socrates, the self-imposed founder of the city become the person that decides what is good or bad? What myths are too sexy to be seen? Who determines who decides? His city is based censorship and control of his citizens. He plans to manipulate the media, to hide many of the stories central to the literary canon from the city's unwitting residents in order to keep them completely dispassionate, boring, blah. Bummer!

Congress

I think Capitalism is behind a lot of America's current struggles but I don't really have the socialist vocabulary to articulate exactly what to do and how to do it. That being said, I think that America would become a much more virtuous place if the people in charge (i.e. Congress) were not so apt to ignore the intentions of the vast majority in order to acquiesce the insanely wealthy sliver of the population who financially contribute to their campaigns and ask for favors in return. The Affordable Care Act, for example, could have been improved or tweaked if the issue was the issue average Americans were facing with it. Instead, the most significant problem posed was the tax breaks that the wealthiest 200 families in America would receive if it were repealed.

Therefore, my solution is to send Congress toward the medium of American culture, meaning that their salaries and campaign funds would be shredded. I think Congress should make the minimum wage, actually, and that their health care should match that of their constituents. This would ensure that the minimum wage and the most basic health care are both capable of providing living conditions, because the people in charge of operating it would be utilizing it. Furthermore, if Congress made the minimum, it would inspire more people to be engaged for its own sake, rather than running simply out of greed and potential profit, which is exactly (one) of the things our country needs right now.  

Controlling the Narrative is Controlling the Masses

My original idea for this post was about global food distribution--something that blogger Noel Jones did an excellent job of explaining earlier on this site. Noel mentioned that we produce enough food to feed the planet, but we currently don’t have the means to distribute the food to the people who need it. I absolutely agree with everything Noel has to say about the topic and strongly recommend reading the post here.

 One method that is being developed to combat the global food insecurity crisis are genetically modified organisms, more commonly referred to as GMOs. The phrase is at the forefront of a long contested battle between science and public opinion.What many people don’t understand is that the goal of genetic modification is to create abundant amounts of vitamin-packed food that take less chemicals to produce and can even last longer on the shelves of supermarkets.

pic.twitter.com/at1nGeNWh7

— jesse Williams. (@iJesseWilliams) January 22, 2017

In a perfect world, scientific evidence would reign supreme over the noise of public opinion. Most opposition aimed at GMOs and other technological advancements in society is the result of misinformation and fear. People absolutely have the right to be suspicious of new discoveries. In fact, I encourage people not to take every single article they read on a topic as fact. There are many people who push agendas designed to capitalize on the polarization of consumer opinions, simply because there is money in playing both sides of the field.

 I’m talking about monopolization of the agricultural industry by companies who produce and market both ‘conventional’ and ‘non-GMO’ food products.We have seen this across many aspects of industry, surprisingly with items as common as eyeglasses and as important as EpiPens. In my utopia, it will be illegal for privately owned corporations to mask their ownership over all aspects of production of a good or service as the illusion of choice. The fact that this is allowed in our country today shows that the greediness of few outweighs the needs of the majority. I picture a utopian society as the complete opposite of this. Understanding the ideologies behind these corporate giants is key to combating them. As part of my push towards utopia I will advocate for mandatory courses in marketing and mass media production. It’s important to understand the tactics that are used in advertising, as well as why they are effective if we are going to move past them towards an enlightened society.

 

Another step that I would take is to outlaw all fear mongering, sensationalized, inaccurate, and ‘click-bait’ forms of media. I strongly feel that the field of journalism should focus on integrity and truth. Given the amount of satire news sources that exist globally, I’d say that many other people are fed up with the current state of news and media in America. The messages being portrayed to us are currently a controlled narrative by people who profit from the scared and under-informed. In addition to this, I would aim to turn privately owned news outlets and journals in to publicly owned and operated thought collectives. The technological advancements of the past decade give those with access to the Internet a platform from which to share a positive, widespread message. My favorite example of this is an online magazine created by a sixteen year old girl.

In the words of Alice Walker, "the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."  Give people the agency to make choices about the products they buy, the discoveries they feel are important to their communities, and the information they want to share, and they will prosper.