More on Plato

  In my history class today, we further discussed Plato. We delved into the the topic of family structure in an ideal society. In Plato's point of view, women and men should do what they are naturally best at. However, women are the weaker sex and should be given less to do. So if a woman is best to be a ruler, she should rule but she shouldn't have as many responsibilities as a man. Therefore, Plato's argument isn't for the equality of men and women but rather to do what one is naturally suited to do.
    Plato discusses an ideal society- one where the rulers, or the guardians, are the best of the population. They are chosen at birth, and their birth is arranged by a rigged lottery. Only the best guardians get to participate in the mating rituals, and the main goal of sex is to reproduce. No woman or man is allowed to know which child is theirs to prevent them from distractions to their job. That way, there would be no loyalty to the family. The guardians are all to have communal property- thus, private property is to be eliminated. That gets rid of want to material things. This way, the guardians can concentrate only on ruling, which is what they are best suited to.
    There were questions asked by some of my classmates as to whether or not the guardians' happiness had anything to do with their ruling as it seems a rather suck-ish way to live. My teacher directed us to a passage in the book. In short, Plato's argument is that the happiness of the whole community is greater than the happiness of the individual or one class of people. However, Plato does not favor the third class as he has them working all the time to make things for the guardians to use. I'm not saying which side of the issue I'm agreeing with- I just want to write out what Plato says as I find it very interesting.

    We also discussed Plato's view on democracy. To him, democracy is a terrible system of government where the mass gets to rule and the ruler is distracted by propaganda. One analogy Plato uses is of a ship. The captain of the ship knows where he wants to go but doesn't really know how to sail. He represents the general population. The ship crew is pulling the captain this way and that to try and get control of the ship. The crew are the politicians that try to get the population's vote. Finally, there is someone Plato calls the "true navigator." He has true knowledge of the seas, stars, maps, etc. He knows how to sail, but yet he is ignored. This is representative of the people that actually understand what is going on. Through the push of the ship crew, the captain is changed many times and yet,  the ship is not navigated correctly. According to another analogy Plato makes, the crew is like a bad animal trainer. This trainer does not set out to train an animal but rather to give it pleasure. The trainer is pulled more by the interests of the horse rather than the task he was sent out to do. Plato believes politicians act similarly. They tell people what they want to hear in order to receive votes to put them in office. Plato's disdain for democracy is evident throughout the entire novel, but through analogies, he makes his best points.