Liberty Through a Child's Eyes
(c) Roberto Isaza

Plato’s Republic, Socrates’ City.
by Roberto Isaza September 16, 1999
Professor Emory Craig

In Plato’s “Republic”, we are told of Socrates arguing about the goodness of Justice and the importance of well-being and happiness. He also clearly demonstrates how the accumulation of wealth serves no one, not even he who accumulates it.

As part of his argument, to look for justice in the individual, Socrates extrapolates the individual to a city. He creates an imaginary city in which citizens are grouped into categories or Castes: Guardians -the Ruler of the city, Advisers and Soldiers (auxiliaries to the Ruler); the craftsmen, farmers and wage earners.

The Ruler would be chosen from among the Guardians, who are the group educated in fine arts and are physically fit. This person must be older than those ruled, the best of them, impeccable. A Philosopher. Strong by nature, gentle in attitude and fierce defender of the City, its citizens, moral values and to uphold the laws and to defend the City from other cities who might envy the well-being of this city. The Guardian should above all preserve the educational system so that there were no changes in the constitution. Therefore there would be no absolute freedom. Though I think that for any group of people to live together in harmony there have to be at least some restrictive parameters so that no one intrudes upon the other’s well being, there has to be some flexibility as to what constitutes reasonable laws.

Socrates defined a well set of rules or laws to ensure that the most of people’s rights would be protected. These included the no accumulation of wealth by the Guardians nor indulgence in banal pleasures. The young guardians would have to be tested and put through many trials to ensure their total dedication to the city and its inhabitants. The upkeep of the guardians would be had by taxation to the citizens.

Socrates proposed to tell the citizens a story of how the god had created them, mixing into the Ruler’s creation gold, because they would be honored the most; mixing silver into those to be the Ruler’s Auxiliaries; and bronze and iron into those to be farmers and workers. I think that he demonstrated how the religions of the world have come to be. Someone makes-up a story to justify how we came to be and how we inherited the world we live in. The generation in which this story is created might frown a little and say, for example: “hmm, the carpenter’s son was a little strange, and it is true he was killed as a thief, on a cross. When the only crime he committed was to negate the Roman empire and be hailed as the King of the Jews. But I never heard of the part of him being the only Son of God.” Generations later, this is the only thing true and very few question the validity of Jesus, Son of God, raising to the heavens on the third day of his burial. People effectively created a new religion.

In Buddhism it is said that at one point, and after many trials, one will become ONE with all. Unicity is not a created or attained state. One is ONE with everything. The task is to realize we are all ONE. We all have one primal objective here on earth: to live and to learn to love which is the same. So, one does not become one with the universe. One IS the universe.

In Socrates’ city each person would occupy a position according to his/her disposition and temperament. Also, the occupations would not be inherited, so that the children of Farmers could become rulers or have a craft. The purpose of this city would be that the most would have a happy and fulfilling life, each person doing what was his nature’s inclination.

The more I read about Socrates, the less surprised I am that he was sentenced to death. His constant search for the truth, and his proposals of bettering the spirit rather than the search of physical pleasures, had to make him a lot of enemies. If Socrates’ model for a great city had been followed, who knows what our society would be like. There is always the human factor. Everything might be running well, until someone greedy enough to go against the laws will tip the scales.

Still, there were many of his proposals for the city to prosper and run smoothly that I can not agree with. The way I was brought up, a person must have freedom of expression, even if this freedom means to be enraged about one’s circumstances, poverty, hunger, helplessness in decisions that may mean the destruction of thousands, or the path our lives will take. Socrates proposed to censure children’s stories, games, and even the possibility of expressing their feelings in the fine arts. Also censured would be the fine arts themselves, literature, theater, music, paintings and sculptures it is here that I feel a transgression of human values. You can’t make me feel what I should be free to choose what to admire, read, listen to. Present me with ideas and I’ll choose what to do with them.
Anything less than radically free is never enough. To have to settle for less and be slave of fate is a waste of soul and growth. We have done it throughout our history. And we seem to not have learned our lesson yet.

I think that Socrates expressed Socialism before anyone else. This City would be self-sufficient and Justice would rule. The people in it would accumulate wisdom rather than gold. There would be no rich, but also there would be no poor. Education would be available to everyone according to their needs. All people would be respected on their merits in their occupations. They would specialize in their trade and have the happiness and pride of a job well done. No one would have more nor less than needed to lead a comfortable life.

If the children were cared for in a communal state, it is true that the family unit we have today would be different. But it is also true that these children would be responsibility of all, all children being in need of our love and devotion as if they were our own. This would also create a bigger sense of responsibility in them toward one another, and in their adult life carry this responsibility into their trade and regarding their city as a whole.

Socrates found the origin of war in the taking of goods from others to satisfy our own greed. If our city were to take land or goods from another city to satisfy our luxurious needs and acquisition of wealth, then in wronging another people we are wronging our own, bringing upon ourselves the wrath of those wronged. This is the source of evils both public and private.
Socrates defines Justice as harmony that results when each person is actively fulfilling their role and does not meddle with the role of others. Injustice is the opposite. Plato’s Republic, Book IV.- Justice in the individual is defined as an inner state of the soul, with each of its parts fulfilling its own function under the rule of reason which enlists the aid of the spirited part (the feelings) in controlling the appetites. This will inevitably lead to just actions, while injustice is an inner state of discord and rebellion with an inferior part of the soul in command. -
To me, this is a true definition of what Justice is. More people would be happy if they could attain a better balance of their spiritual self. This, within a society such as we live in, is a contradiction. We are shown that the ideal state of being is when we acquire material goods. Therefore our success in life is measured by how successful we are in our occupation, having a car, house, fancy clothing, our social status. White teeth, smelling goooood, keeping thin, red lipstuck all day long, laser’s permanent body hair removal, full head of hair, not a white hair, not a wrinkle. All of this goes against Socrates’ thinking. It also goes against reason. Normally when we eat, and our hunger is satiated we stop eating. This is reasonable. To eat more, insane. So it should be with our life. Socrates says that to have more or less than we need would make useless efficient in developing our true selves.

Yet, we see it every day,
there’s always someone trying to get ahead of the rest,
doing the least work with the most personal benefit. They take much more than they need, accumulating beyond reason while many have just the bare-bones, or maybe a little less.

A very naive way of seeing the world, but it's Liberty through a child's eyes.