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.    

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!