Shut Up, Socrates

      While reading “The Republic,” I couldn’t help but to be distracted by the three men contributing to the dialogue. In fact, during the entire section on the ways in which music should be limited, I was thinking, “If Socrates doesn’t shut up soon, I swear I am going to refuse to complete this reading assignment.”

I’m simultaneously annoyed and intrigued by the way he handles his conversation with Adeimantus and Glaucon. You see, Socrates is someone who is desperate to display his own intelligence—fixated on preserving/creating a particular image for himself; one of knowledge and respect. We all know someone like this. Or, at least I do. And I’ve got to say, listening to someone babble on and flaunt their sophistication isn’t much better than reading about someone doing the same thing.

       What angered me the most about the dialogue wasn’t Socrates’ lines, but Adeimantus and Galucon’s. I stopped reading their responses to Socrates about two pages into the reading. I didn’t need it. I knew exactly what they were going to say. In fact, Plato could have made this into one long lecture by Socrates, and he could have cut at least five pages. What’s the point of having a conversation with someone if they are only going to agree with every single thing you say? That isn’t a conversation—that’s a soliloquy.

http://kateswaffer.com/2012/06/27/socrates/

      If Socrates truly believed that he knew nothing, I don’t think he would have spoken so condescendingly to the others.

      Once I made it past Socrates’ unpleasant manner, I was able to focus more on the “Utopia” these men are attempting to create. I was following the logic of their society up until they spoke about the necessity of encouraging men and women not to show their emotions (63). The judgment that today’s society aims toward individuals who are not afraid to show how they feel , was born from this kind of thinking. If they are attempting to create a community which is just, they are unwise to assume that having to hide your emotions in order to be seen as self-sufficient, is fair.

      As for the concept of death, I wonder whether it would be more helpful NOT to avoid the subject around the young member of the city. Death can be a scary concept, yes, but isn’t it scarier to avoid the subject as a whole? Wouldn’t that teach children to dread death even more?

      I need some help with page 79. I got the feeling that Socrates is trying to approach the subject of pedophilia. Am I completely wrong in assuming so? If I’m not crazy, and he is indeed speaking about a music teacher becoming involved with a student, I must say that Socrates comes about it in a rather odd sort of way. I was surprised to see that it was a matter of defining love which leads Socrates to determine the wrongfulness in this type of relationship. I get the sense that he is saying true love for poetry and fine arts does not include love for a young boy. And if you find that to be the type of love you stumble upon, than you are not a real lover of music or art.

      Socrates did get a few things right though. On page 86, he reviews the importance of maintaining physical and mental health. This is something so many of us wrote about in our first blog posts. Physical and mental health are the keys to a happy individual life, and a happy life as a society. I think Plato could have added a little more on this subject, and a little less on the subject of a music’s permitted meter. 

Work Cited:

Plato, C. J. Emlyn-Jones, and William Preddy. "Book II, Book III." Plato, Republic. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 43-121. Print.