Critical Analysis of Plato's Concepts for a Perfect Society in His Work The Republic

Contrast Plato’s “ideal state” (“Utopia”) with my ideas of people’s roles in society, freedom of speech, equality and society, freedom of speech, and familial structures. I will provide a definition of the concept and then explain his ideas that contrast with mine, by discussing the allegory of the cave, his views on social roles, human nature and a just society.

In Plato’s work, The Republic sets up concepts for a perfect society and the ways for it to be put into practice. He used this text to establish what he felt was the way society should be set up and run. I hold many a different opinion than this political thinker. Plato's concern was mainly with a theory on how to have a good society, where I think that human behavior cannot be controlled by absolutism that dictates a good society. Plato's main design was how to create a perfect society, I am more inclined to believe that things can be improved by giving people options to choose what is right.

Allegory of the Cave

The main character of the play, Socrates, explains to his friend Glaucon the imaginary situation: three people live in a cave since their birth, and their legs and hands are chained so that they can’t move and can see the things only in front of them; there is a fire behind them and a above it there is a path by which people pass.

The allegory is here that many people live like those in a cave, i.e. they do not realize that there is an upper world. We can see here Plato’s view on the role of the State. He believes that State is the supreme and that individuals do not possess rights against the State.

The released person is compared to the educated person, in Plato’s view, the enlightened should be forced to return to the lower world, i.e. to uneducated people, and teach them. I don’t agree that the guardian should have to go back into the cave and elevate the cave dwellers to the upper world, it is an individual’s duty to themselves to lift themselves from their situation. It is a choice to be enlightened, not a forced upon education, but an individual’s path to to break free of the chains that keep them in the cave.

People’s Roles in Society

“The ideal state” contained three social classes. The guardians, auxiliaries and craftsman. The guardians or elite were skilled and educated to rule the state. The auxiliaries made sure people observed the regulations, and the craftsmen do all the hard work. In this social system, citizens have a fixed function in society, they are offered no actual opportunity to expand from one class to another. A comparable country that derived from this and genuinely practices it is India, they use a “caste system” which creates social stratification. Here human beings aren't authorized to have freedom of choice and its rulers have complete control to manipulate society, politics, and financial systems.

One concept of Plato's Republic is that of class and its structure. Included in Plato's discussion of division is the principle of specialization. This concept states that each person must perform the role for which he is naturally best suited and that he must not meddle in any other business. https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/republic/section2/page/3/ This principle relates to the fact that human beings have natural inclinations that should be satisfied. Specialization stresses the distribution of labor. Only in this way is Plato certain that all in society will be carried out to its maximum potential.

People’s roles in society should be at their free will, it is for the individual to decide if they want to join the military, go to college, write a book, I believe that some of our best innovators in society are spawn from their ability to make choices that leads them to inspire a field of study. Steve Jobs is a great example of this, if he had not ditched his class at Reed and stumble into calligraphy class, he would not have developed fonts on our computers. If he had been born into one of Plato‘s castes, then his contribution would not have been so impactful. If Jobs have been born into an auxiliary class, he would not have gone to college, and been void of an opportunity to drop into a calligraphy class, ergo, no contribution to word processing or any other wonderful Apple product, for that matter.

Family Structure

Plato explains how there is to be specific divisions in society. He says that an individual is born with a certain type of blood given by the God that created them and this determines what station they will hold in life. The gold standard being guardians, second silver tier being auxiliaries, and the craftsmen (the labor force) being bronze. At some point golden blooded parents may produce an offspring that contains silver or brass blood, as well as brass or silver blooded parents may create a golden child. The purpose of his description of this is to explain how each class is not hereditary, but the fact is all societies are tied to their ancestry.

Guardians were not to know their own child and must be absolved of their kin. This concept was only applicable to the guardian class, as they were to be held to a standard of virtuousness. Where auxiliaries and craftsman could have a family and own property. To take it even further, guardians were not to know their own children and were released from family obligations. Plato did not really think about the nuclear family environment for Guardians, he thought that a child would respect all them because they never knew who their parents were.

I disagree with separating children from their parents. I think that there is no benefit and in not knowing who your parents are. Parental love is a precious bond between humans, it shapes us and should be fostered to create loving, kind, and caring individuals. Plato was ok with auxiliaries and craftsmen maintaining a family unit. Children are the best practice of any ideology.

Freedom of Speech

Free Press is vital to democracy, Plato thought that it should be controlled and that all knowledge and I wholeheartedly disagree, to Plato’s ideology that all information should come from the “King Philosopher” this is brainwashing, cultish, and very undemocratic. There is no freedom if an individual cannot express an opposing opinion. It is important to understand the definition of citizenship. The exact definition of the citizenship can be very much debatable. A general definition of citizenship is ‘A status of having the right to participate in and to represent in politics’ (John Baylis, 2011, p. 560).

Plato’s definition of citizen was that an individual should have full right to search the certainty within their state. Plato’s work is based more on the idea of duty and ethnics.