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.
Your post made me think of the Republic reading in a way I hadn't before which I greatly appreciated. The idea that other readings provide us with the framework for an already set utopia but Plato broadens the conversation and allows us to debate along with him.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Plato took us through the creation of his utopia is probably one of my favorite parts of that reading. It was different from the normal which I appreciated. Most utopian literature that I have been exposed to starts with the utopia already formed, so it was interesting to see the thought process that comes before!
ReplyDeleteI think your takeaway is exactly aligned with Plato's authorial intent. I can definitely see a strong argument about an overabundance of pleasant and convenient 'things' leading a population to materialistic self-destruction. One trend I've seen in pop culture lately is a minimalist faction gaining an increasing amount of public attention. From YouTube videos to documentaries and everything in between, there is a growing trend centered around the idea of owning less 'stuff.' Could this be a step towards utopia for some of those people?
ReplyDeleteI liked how you included in your post an emphasis on how describing the city as a city fit for pigs should be analyzed. It is interesting to consider how a life of luxury and abundance may be something that could cause humans to lose their human-like qualities. That having such a blissful life could affect our character and actually make us have a lack of humanity since complications promote creativity, and without struggle we are no different that a content pig in his pen.
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