Today during lunch I finally finished reading
Plato's "The Republic" & it was pretty much a waste of my time. I found a copy from one of my siblings on the bookshelf at my parents' house, so I took it
to read on vacation the other week. It was so disappointing that I have to comment on it.
I was already familiar with
Plato's general biography & work. In high school, the great teachers I had for Intellectual Heritage exposed me to Plato's
'Allegory of the Cave', which is a small part of "The Republic". That allegory was pretty much the only enlightening aspect of the book for me.
While hiking with my brother-in-law in the mountains I was trying to describe my problems with the book & the one word I came up with was 'bullsh*t'. I'm sure this analysis wouldn't go over well w/ philosophy scholars, but oh well. Even though I'm aware it's a translation of a Classic... I personally found almost no value in reading it. These ancient Greek intellectuals seemed to have hours on end to B.S. about their opinions, and now we call it philosophy. I guess I was looking for logical discussions using factual observations of the topics presented, but all that's produced are arbitrary rules and theories based on
many questionable assumptions.
The premise of the book is that Plato's mentor, Socrates, & some other Greeks of his time were discussing the nature of justice vs. injustice. Out of this search for moral clarity arose the attempt to theoretically design the ideal city. I can appreciate their effort to come up with a blueprint for a new way of governing society. Every step of the way, however, the main speaker Socrates throws out one conjecture after another & conveniently treats them as objective truths.
I know it was written over 1500 years ago, but it's hard to take any of it seriously as when these guys are talking about the value of personal freedom & individualism... while also assuming it's okay to own slaves. There were inconsistencies in all the arguments made, from what makes a man "just"- to what type of ruling class would be best for a city.
The last chapter was the most annoying to me, because Socrates tries to explain the
unimportance of art such as painting, music, or theater. In the ancient Greek world, these professions were seen more as we today view as 'crafts' as opposed to 'fine art'. In the book, however, Plato (through Socrates) goes another step & claims that these skills are mere 'imitations' of reality & not reality itself. A carpenter makes a table, and is therefore of a higher ability than a painter because a picture is a mere "imitation" of the table. This coming from the same man who believed made-up numbers &
abstract geomeric solids are the basis of reality.
So basically, my review summary is:
"The Republic" is undoubtedly a historic work of literature, but I still think it sucks. :P
