Republic Part I - A Critique of Democracy.

I am loving The Republic. There, I said it. What's more, I meant it. Plato was a genius and so was Socrates. The Republic is a masterpiece; possibly the best book I have read this year (maybe even -gasp- replacing The Iliad as my favorite!)

What hit me pretty hard was how intensely Socrates attacked democracy. That is a dangerous, dangerous thing to do nowadays. Don't we all praise and glorify democracy every chance we get? It is a huge (if not the) reason the United States is occupying Iraq as of this writing. The President holds democracy on a pedestal and represents the people when he does so. No doubt the future President will do the same.

Before I continue it is necessary to compare Greek (Athenian) democracy with American democracy. I find that they are very similar. The Greek democracy was in a more pure form than ours because they did not elect representative officials - every citizen voted on every issue. Granted, they did exclude women from voting but that is not different from the American system - what difference does it make if half of the population does not vote by choice or by coercion? I see little difference. Aside from that fact (which riles feminists to this day), Greek democracy in Athens was very close to the idealized form of American democracy.

That said, Socrates attacks it ruthlessly. He calls it "rule of the appetite" because people are ruled by their appetites and democracy is rule of the people. True justice and moderation are not to be found in a democracy, and wow, that looks horrible but I said it anyway. Socrates believes that the philosophers must rule as kings and gives very concise yet very elaborate reasons why this is the case. And indeed, if you share his premise (human beings all desire what is good - evil is but a matter of ignorance), everything else follows. Everything, even censorship and the abolition of the family.

Naturally I disagree with Socrates there - I believe human beings knowingly and willingly choose the ugly and the evil over the beautiful and the good - we are both deceived and will to commit evil. I can still see the validity of Socrates' position however - it makes perfect sense to me.

I do think he is right about democracy. I agree with him in the Meno that not all men (in fact few) desire the True, the Beautiful, and the Good - that is, desire philosophy. Certainly we see that with Callicles and Meno. I agree with Socrates that most men are indeed ruled by their appetites - pleasure, sex, food, drugs, etc. That can certainly be seen in popular American culture - go to Chicago, New York, Los Angelos, San Fransisco, and Las Vegas. Most Americans, I think, live for pleasure, especially the young.

Man there is so much to write about in The Republic - there is the idea that justice in a city merely arises from out of what is inside man - harmony. When a man's soul is harmoniously sound, when his intellect rules his passion by means of courage, then he is just. Because he is inwardly just, he is truly externally just. Therefore a city, which is constructed upon the individual, is both inwardly and outwardly just. I find that idea very intriguing.

It is a good thing we still have three seminars left on The Republic, is it not? Thursday we read the cave and the divided line. I am so exited!