Anyway, I found it especially interesting how a "city" comes into being. This reading made me think of the expression, If you don't like the way it's done, you're welcome to do it yourself. Every day, I know that we all take turns complaining about something, no matter how petty, and talk about how we wish it was different or how we would do something differently. Maybe it's the way a class is graded or how someone conducted an interview. But sometimes it's even larger like how a country is ruled or how a powerful person decides to make a grand decision like go to war or create a new law. Often times, it's so easy for us to disagree or say what we would do instead because we don't actually have that real power to make a change or it's easy to say something when only so few are listening and the situation is purely hypothetical.
So when it comes to the case of creating a utopia, or even just a successful city, it's interesting to see how that plan comes into play. A person might say that we should not have laws because they feel that laws create a lot of pressure for society and restrict peoples' freedom. This all seems well and good until a store gets robbed or a person is murdered and there are no rules against it and no repercussions for doing these things. So then we go back and say, well, maybe laws aren't so bad after all because they protect us. The same trial and error could follow with government, education, guidelines, etc. Plato's writing goes along with this concept as it starts with a single person and the realization that one person cannot do it all, so obviously why not have more than one citizen in this city? So Socrates decides to have a handful of people who each provide different abilities and trades and in turn will use their skills to provide for the other city members. The list of people grows and grows as Socrates and the others realize that so many people are needed to make, share, export and exchange different things. If a person is amazing at a trade, it is better to let them spend all their time practicing and perfecting their trade than to make them juggle several different tricks and trades at a lower quality.
I also was intrigued by the discussion of heroes and leaders that make up a society. There were so many rules and quirks that were necessary to creating the ideal people for general city members to look up to. Heroes had to be tough and unafraid of death and had to be earnest and true. Heroes are designed to show what true justice is and to show humankind that you must be just in order to succeed in both life and the after life. Acting unjust can make you successful in the short-term, but it will catch up with you in the end. Characters in stories also had to act a certain way because young city members may not know how to separate fact and fiction and should only be shown the proper ways to act and values to have in a good society. All of these people, whether real people of the city or people just being talked about or passed around as stories need to be poised both in action and mind and cannot be vicious or graceless because that might give people the wrong idea. I agree with the theory behind this as I do think people are poorly influenced by celebrities who have gone off the rail or criminals who are sensationalized on the news, but I also disagree because I think there is something to be said for learning from mistakes or by learning stories that teach morals and lessons from failures and trials.
Finally, I find the brief discussion of medical necessity interesting. Socrates and the others agree that there is a need for doctors. They also agree that the doctors must be experienced and wise beyond their years, having seen a variety of illnesses and ailments so that nothing comes to them as a surprise. However, they say that these doctors must also have been diseased or injured themselves, because why else would they spend their life caring for the ill if they were not ill themselves? It sounds crazy to us, but if we think about it, a hospital is one of the easiest places to get sick in. We say to avoid them if possible because disease travels and is everywhere and we don't want to make ourselves unnecessarily sick if we don't have to. Maybe doctors should be the same way. You can only treat someone for something you have already been exposed to or had experience with. We also see the ever-popular Utopia-style view on life. Do we treat those with chronic, incurable disease or do we leave them to their fate? In books like The Giver, we learn about "the release" where older people are killed once they reach a certain age or in Utopia where we offer those who can no longer contribute to society an easy way out. Are we being kind by helping people prolong their lives if they are terminal or are we fighting nature? Would these people be more comfortable letting go and accepting their fate? Are we actually being too cruel by letting those live who are mentally ill and have no chance at a normal life?
We all have our own opinions, questions, faiths and morals that we would shape into a city or our own or even a world, but how much of what we want would actually work? Would we eventually run through trial and error and realize that the world we have now is how it should be or is there really a better way?
I agree with your discussions of both the heroes and the medicine. I found the discussion of the guardians/heroes and the attributes and characteristics that they were expected to have to be fascinating. I really enjoyed, however, the discussion of how those attributes were to be established. This discussion led to the discussion of stories and the way that what people see and hear help shape them into who they are. I thought that the big idea behind this discussion was wonderful. I loved thinking about one’s exposure to certain literature and ideals and how that exposure makes someone who they are. The men discussed that the guardians should not be afraid of death and therefore, there should be no stories in which the heroes were afraid of pain and death, but accepted it willingly. While I found this discussion to be interesting, it also made me wonder if this censorship would make a difference in the attributes that shape a person. Are personalities, fears and attributes shaped by nurture, or are we as humans naturally curious and inquisitive about things that we do not understand, like the concept of death?
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of medicine was also very interesting. I particularly found the discussion of who should be a doctor the most fascinating piece of the medical discussion. They determined that not only should medical help be given to those who actually need medicine and will benefit from its use, but that the ideal doctor would be someone who is not in good health and who has experienced many of the illnesses that they treat. I found this to make sense, but to contradict so much of what we believe as a society today. When we enter a doctor’s office, we expect it to be clean and sanitary and we expect the office staff to be healthy so that we do not catch whatever it is that they have. We have a large fear of sickness and disease today, and I found the idea that an unhealthy person would make the best doctor because of their experience to be very novel. It does, however, make logical sense.
There are so many other topics to highlight from these two passages, but I think you did a good job hitting the main points and analyzing them!
I like how in your second paragraph, you mention one of my favorite activities: complaining or as we like to call it "venting". I find it acceptable, however, to want to vent or complain about something that we cannot change. In a way, I think for a lot of us, the search for Utopia occurs especially when we come across an obstacle or quandary that is hard to solve. I am a firm believer that if you want to complain about something changeable, you should also act to change it. Yet, not everything in our society can be so easily solved. One can exclaim "I hate capitalism" but it would take a revolution of the people to get us away from capitalism.
ReplyDeleteI think it is rather easy to say what we would do instead of the current situation, as you mentioned. However, I find a lot of merit in having those kind of conversations with others. I think it is really great to share our ideas of a different world in the chance that maybe it will inspire others to think more about their lives and how they're living. While we see that Socrates and his followers seemed to agree on a lot of things in this text, I say dream on and continue the conversation, but have some action thrown in there as well.