The Republic

In chapters five and six, Socrates more explicitly describes the life of the guardians. He also explains how the rulers among them are chosen. Plato’s ideal community begins to seem not just authoritarian, it also appears inhumane and brutal. The tests for the potential leaders of the guardians are a case in point. Socrates says, regarding candidates, that “We must watch them from childhood onwards” (117), deliberately tricking youngsters to test how easily they are misled. And “we should also set them tough and painful assignments and ordeals” (117). Nor is this harshness restricted to would-be rulers. The guardian class overall is expected to separate children from parents when the child is of a different “metal”. This is deemed especially important in their own cases. As Socrates says, “If one of their own children is born with a nature tinged with copper or iron, they shall at all costs avoid feeling sorry for it: they shall assign it to the status appropriate to its nature” (119). In other words, they must, without sentiment, banish “inferior” offspring to live amongst the workers and farmers.

Furthermore, all this is cemented by indoctrination. The “noble lie” about the origins of the castes is, on one level, a cynical bid to ensure that people, particularly of lower castes, do not question the hierarchical structure of society. Little wonder then that these aspects of the text have been criticised by liberal commentators. One of the most famous of these critiques is The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) by Karl Popper. He argues that The Republic legitimises oppression and a nascent totalitarianism. More generally, liberals have identified how little room there is for individual freedom in Plato’s state. Indeed, this is literally the case. Socrates says of the guardians, that “none of them is to have living-quarters and storerooms which are not able to be entered by anyone who wants to” (121). Individual space, like property, is abolished. The happiness and freedom of the individual is subordinated to the greater communal good. Moreover, this good and the means to achieving it are defined by someone else’s authority and the rigid social order they prescribe.

However, there are various ways to defend Plato from charges of authoritarianism using contextual points and justifications in chapters five and six. For one thing, this society avoids some of the problems that affect most societies. There will be no extremes of poverty or wealth. Among the guardians there will be no sexual or material possessiveness or jealousy. Further, as well as allowing some freedom in the specific customs of society, it will also be relatively meritocratic. Plato’s republic at least allows for the possibility of upward social mobility based on merit. This is more than can be said for many historical and contemporary societies.

More significantly, these liberal criticisms are, to some extent, anachronistic. In the Classic world the concept of the individual simply did not exist in the way it does now. One did not find happiness or meaning on one’s own or in a separate privately delineated space. Rather, happiness was found (as life in general was lived) through the polis, or community. This idea is summed up well by Socrates. As he says, “when the community as a whole is flourishing and rests on a fine foundation, we can take it for granted that every group within it will find happiness according to its nature” (124). In other words, in the well-ordered society, with each suited to their task, people will find happiness in being a part of a harmonious whole. Happiness resides in the meaning that fulfilling that role gives. That this is the case is never doubted. The real question is how to best accomplish it.

Finally, it is worth recalling Plato’s broader goal in describing the ideal state. Whether he thought it was realizable, or recognised problems with it, his primary intention is not statecraft. Instead, his purpose is to analyse the human mind, and his discussion of society is a means to this end. In this light, his ostensibly severe proposals seem more reasonable. His discussion of caste divisions, for instance, becomes not about forcing certain people into different immutable roles but rather about recognising that different functions (reason, passion, desire) perform specific jobs within the context of the human mind. To work successfully, these must be subordinated to reason and self-control. If passion or physical desire ends up ruling, or sharing rule, chaos ensues. Likewise, with the principle of harmony. On a political level, the idea of a “perfect unity instead of a plurality” (156) may suggest a monochrome and static collective. On a psychic level, though, harmony implies a calm, well-integrated state of balance. This is where different aspects of the self are given their due and contribute positively to the unity which we are. This is the very condition for true freedom. Conversely, plurality in this context may mean, at best, a disorganised skittishness. That is, it may entail someone easily disturbed by outside influences, and lacking a true sense of self. At worst, it could mean psychic conflict and angst. It is such outcomes which Plato wants to avoid in the ideal mind and hence in his description of the ideal state.