In Plato’s Republic, Socrates is describing the ideal system under which people ought to be educated under to have balance between the three tiers of the soul, with those being the spirited, appetitive, and rational parts. He goes into detail about how some aspects of education must be censored as to not skew people’s spirits out of balance. To critique Plato’s proposals for censorship, first we must outline his plans for education and analyze his proposal for education in his emulation of the “perfect city”.
The basic guidelines Socrates provides for governing the education of children and adults are mostly all encompassing. Such rules include the redacted mythology and epics, studying mathematics, geometry, philosophical literature, partaking …show more content…
He spoke a lot about censoring epics especially in regards to raising guardians, because he believed it caused them to fear of death, which is a form of cowardice. If this fear can take a foot hold in a guardian, he/she will not be able to function well, an as a result, not do their duties to the best of their abilities. For example, in book 3 of the Republic, he converses with Ademantus about redacting or outright banning some epics and mythos shared during his time because, he feared it would skew the soul of the people in his city due to the introduction and justification of emotions and actions fueled by fear, lust, vanity, recklessness and the like. Socrates specifically said, “You see, everyone will be ready to excuse himself when he is bad, if he has been persuaded that similar things are done an were done by “close descendants of the gods…That is why we must put a stop to such stories; if we do not, they will produce in our young a very casual attitude to evil.” ( (Reeve, C.D.C.) Book III, page 72, 391.5) This application of censorship is especially critical when training the guardians of a city. The guardians are meant to protect and care for the city and its citizens and have the potential of becoming philosopher king is they train long enough and prove themselves worthy …show more content…
Initially, he (assuming Plato is the Philosopher King) would have to find adults willing to give up their freedoms and predispositions to be retrained according to his education. In this, there is no guarantee for success because you essentially have a mixed bag of people your taking a risk with by training, with the assumption that how their taught could overpower old habits. This risk is further emphasized by the next generation of children born by this first one, in which there is no guarantee that they might not slip away, and get into something that may corrupt them. Since there are no preventative measures against this unforeseen factor, what will he do to that person who is ever so slightly off balance to make them right again? More importantly, would Plato even notice? Another flaw in his perfect education system is the point of artistic expression. Theoretically, musical expression affects people differently and there is no way to predict who will be affected by what pattern, timbre, or timing of music in what way. So, assume a citizens passion for battle for example could be enflamed by a simple A-B-A form. What if they were a guardian and harbored that hidden passion? The problem with utopias is that it assumes that people can be shaped into a pinnacle form in mass without any error in enforcement or room for outside