Plato’s Republic 5: Lies, Noble Lies and Gymnastics
Summary
This episode covers the second half of book 3 of Plato’s Republic. Glaucon and Socrates develop a completely immersive education program for the guardians that controls every aspect of their social and physical environment. Then, they tell them it never happened because actually they were sleeping underground being built by the god to defend the city. Glaucon doubts anyone would believe this “noble lie,” but Socrates isn’t too worried. Ideology finds a way.
Credits
Glaucon: Zachary Amzallag
Ancient music: Michael Levy
References
Transcript
Note: this is transcribed using an online transcription service so it’s probably going to have a lot of errors. We do don’t have time to go through these all carefully but still thought that it would be more helpful than having no transcript at all.
Clif Mark 00:14
Today, the pillars of a guardians education, music, gym, and ideology. I'm Clif Mark. And this is good in theory.
So far, Socrates and the boys have built this imaginary city, and they decided it needed an army to protect it against external threats, and to keep order within. But the trouble with training a group of men for violence, is that, how do you keep them from using their power on the people they're supposed to protect? Well, one answer is education, you train them to be good. And that's why last episode, Socrates and Adam Mantis went through Greek poetry and mythology, and they took out everything that might have a bad influence on the young guardians. But censoring Homer, it turns out is not really enough to guarantee a virtuous military class. So in this episode, Glaucon is going to jump in and he and Socrates are going to continue to develop this idea of educating good citizens. There are three different bits of dialogue. In the first part, Socrates and Glaucon are going to continue purging other aspects of the Guardians lives aside from poetry, they're going to talk about dieting and phys, Ed, and dating and music. And they're also going to discuss the overall method and aims of the education program for the guardians. So this will take us from when the guardians are little kids to almost when they're ready to go and start defending the city. The second piece of dialogue is a bit of an aside, and it deals with ideology. In this part, Socrates is going to explain the noble lie, which is this ideological origin myth that he wants to teach all of the citizens to make them more obedient and patriotic. And then we'll have a third and final part of dialogue, which is quite short, and briefly sketches the kind of lifestyle the guardians are going to have when they're finished their official education, and ready to go start their jobs defending the city. As usual, Socrates is going to push all of his ideas further than most people would be comfortable with. Now, before we start the first part, I want to give a little bit of preparation because it's a long bit of dialogue. In it, Socrates is going to explain that the aim of education is to shape the souls of the Guardians. Now, the word soul is an abstract one, and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So when Socrates starts talking about souls and spirit, it may not be immediately obvious what he means. Now, Socrates, his theory of the soul is fairly complex, and he's going to be explaining it bit by bit throughout the Republic. But I still think it's we're saying something about how an ancient greeter who hadn't yet read Plato would have understood the word soul, because it may be different than how you are, I understand it. So first, the Greeks understood the soul as the animating force of all living things. It's the things that living things have that they lose when they die. So humans have souls, animals have souls, even plants have souls. But we're interested in humans. And when it comes to human souls, the soul is responsible for all our psychological functions like perception, reason, desire, emotion, all that stuff that's going on in your head, and heart and gut. That's your soul. Therefore, soul is also where virtue is. If you're adjust person, if you're moderate, and courageous, these are all properties of your soul. And this association with character in psychology should be easy to remember because the Greek word for soul is psyche, as in psychology. And like I said, Socrates is going to explain this theory throughout the book. But just to warn you. In this chapter, he's going to be talking specifically about the spirit and part of the soul, which is trained by gymnastic and the philosophical part of the soul, which is trained by music. So don't get spirit confused with soul. It's a different thing. Okay, let's get back to the dialogue. I domantas and Socrates have just finished their discussion of poetry. And now Socrates is going to turn to music and glaucon is going to jump back in the conversation.
Socrates 05:04
Given what we've said about poetry, I guess it's obvious what we're going to say about music.
Glaucon 05:09
I wouldn't say obvious Socrates. What do you mean? Oh, good glaucon you
Socrates 05:15
can help with this your musical. We want our guardians to have good orderly souls. And that's why we chose poetry that would follow from that. And now we just need to choose music that's going to match the poetry.
Glaucon 05:28
Of course, I get it.
Socrates 05:30
Well, do you think they'll need sad songs that are good for crying and lamenting?
Glaucon 05:35
No.
Socrates 05:36
What about music for drinking and partying?
Glaucon 05:39
Hmm, I'm afraid not guardians.
Socrates 05:42
And what about music for just laying around relaxing? Nope. But what kind of songs will they need Glock on
Glaucon 05:50
their soldiers, so they'll need songs for war?
Clif Mark 05:54
Good point. And let's give them one more kind of song for any other activities that they might need to do. Like listening patiently or calmly giving advice or praying. If they're only going to need these two types of songs, which musical instruments do you think they'll need? glaucon? Do you think they're going to need harps and flutes and lutes?
Glaucon 06:17
I don't think so Socrates, if we only have two musical modes we could probably make do with the lyre and the Cithara.
Clif Mark 06:25
Just those two, we'll look at that cloud card. We've purged the city that we were just saying was too luxurious.
Glaucon 06:32
Yes, we have. I guess that's because we're such moderate men,
Clif Mark 06:37
then why don't we keep purging and see just how moderate we can be? music isn't the only thing that can be beautiful and harmonious. Paintings can be like that, an embroidery and architecture and furniture, and even living things.
Glaucon 06:54
Are you about to say what I think you're about to say?
Socrates 06:59
I don't think poetry and music are enough. We have to supervise all the arts. Ah,
Glaucon 07:05
he said it.
Clif Mark 07:06
Yes. And I said it. Because art and music are the most powerful parts of education. They reach into the deepest areas of the children's psyches. We want our guardians to grow up completely surrounded by beautiful things. And that way, before they're even capable of rational thought, we can start shaping their tastes and their likes and dislikes. And when they grow up, they'll just be naturally drawn to all the right things, like beautiful speech and thought, and good souls.
Glaucon 07:37
I agree completely, Socrates. But what does that look like? What kind of houses and furniture resemble the good soul?
Clif Mark 07:47
I don't know. glaucon. It's hard to say at this point. We don't even know what the good soul is yet. So we have to figure that out before we decide everything else. But there is something else that we should talk about before we end our discussion of music and education.
Glaucon 08:03
What's that?
Clif Mark 08:04
Love, Glaucon.
Glaucon 08:06
I'm listening.
Clif Mark 08:08
Imagine a person with all the best virtues of the soul who had a body to match? Wouldn't that be the most beautiful thing we could lay eyes on?
Glaucon 08:17
What could be better?
Clif Mark 08:18
And isn't the most beautiful thing? The most lovable?
Glaucon 08:21
Of course,
Clif Mark 08:23
does that mean glaucon that a man whose musical and well educated would only fall in love with this kind of person? And would reject anyone whose body and soul don't match?
Glaucon 08:35
I don't think so, Socrates. If there was something wrong with a person's soul, then yes, a good man won't love them. But if a person has a beautiful soul and happens to have some physical defects, I think he'd be patient and love him anyway.
Socrates 08:53
Really? glaucon? Yes, I remember. You had a boy like that, didn't you? I grant your point. But now I want to know what you think about sex. Can you think of any greater or sharper pleasure?
Glaucon 09:08
No way. There's nothing that can drive a man more insane. Indeed. glaucon?
Clif Mark 09:14
And does being driven insane have anything to do with moderation?
Glaucon 09:18
Exactly the opposite? I'd say.
Clif Mark 09:20
Then that means that good lovers can't have anything to do with sex? Can they? know? I guess they can't. So in our city, shall we say that a lover can kiss and touch his boyfriend but only like a father doesn't only if the boy can sense and if people think that they're going any further, they'll get a bad reputation.
Glaucon 09:43
Make it a law. Good.
Clif Mark 09:45
Now that we've talked about music and love, we need to decide on physical education. Our guardians need to be able to endure all the changing conditions and hardships of war.
Glaucon 09:55
Absolutely.
Clif Mark 09:56
So then can we let them get drunk and have big banquets with pastries and Corinthian girls?
Glaucon 10:01
I'm afraid not Socrates, all of those things would be bad for the guardians, then it looks like gymnastic
Clif Mark 10:07
is just like music. It's best to keep it simple. And when you start getting fancy, you're asking for trouble, because people start losing their sense of moderation. And soon enough, half of your city is doctors and law courts.
Glaucon 10:22
Why?What do you mean?
Socrates 10:24
Well, if you have a well educated and musical soul, then you probably won't be bickering with your neighbors to the point that you wind up in court. Am I right?
Glaucon 10:32
I suppose not.
Clif Mark 10:33
And it's the same thing with gymnastic. If you have a simple diet and a healthy lifestyle, you're not going to need a team of doctors just to keep you alive?
Glaucon 10:43
I guess not.
Clif Mark 10:44
And that's because, except in emergencies, a good physical education will make you independent of medicine. And a good musical education will make you independent of the law.
Glaucon 10:55
For sure.
Clif Mark 10:56
You know, glaucon most people are wrong about the whole purpose of music and gymnastic. They think that gymnastic is about educating the body. And music is for educating the soul. But when you think about it, they're actually both for educating the soul. I mean, what happens to guys who spend all their time in the gymnasium and never consult with the Muse?
Glaucon 11:21
They're ignorant meatheads.
Clif Mark 11:23
Exactly! On the other hand, men who spend all their time listening to music and never do any physical training, they wind up being faint hearted, soft boys. Yes. It's like the sound of the flute has melted their spirit. Well, I think that gymnastic isn't really there to build physical strength. It's there to awaken the spirited part of the soul. And if you train it properly, the spirit should become strong and courageous. And music, music trains the philosophical part of the soul to be gentle, and well behaved. And the God gave us these two arts so we can tune souls to keep them in harmony. Music, soften souls that are too savage in gymnastic and raise the spirit of souls that are too cowardly, in the rulers of our city should have a perfect harmonious balance of spirit and philosophy in their souls.
Glaucon 12:16
Yes, we need men like that more than anything else.
Clif Mark 12:37
At this point, we're ready to talk about the content, method, and overall aim of the Guardians education. As for content, it's just like with poetry, Socrates and glaucon have a lot more to say about what needs to be purged from gymnastic in music than about what needs to go in. For example, no party music, no boozing no sex, no pastries. If you dig deeper into the text, you'll find they're not supposed to eat boiled meats, only roasted meat. And as with the purge of poetry, they seem to be getting rid of things that satisfy sensuous appetites or indulge certain emotions like mourning and lamenting. Another way of thinking of it, as I usually say is they're taking out all the juicy bits, and they do it for every aspect of the citizens lives. And that brings us to the method of education that they're creating. Guardian education is not about formal classroom lessons. Socrates and glaucon are proposing to control every aspect of the Guardians world. So it becomes a completely immersive 360 degree learning environment in which everything that the little guardians encounter is designed to guide them towards virtue. The houses, they live in the curtains, the poetry, the pottery, whatever, they make the whole world into a kind of ideology tank, and the aim isn't to teach guardians a set of facts or lessons. They want to reach into their subconscious, before they're even capable of rational thought, and shaped their tastes, their likes, their dislikes. And the idea is that when they grow up, that means they'll just be automatically attracted to the right things like thought and argument and reason and virtuous human souls. Now, personally, I find all of this a little puzzling, because I can't really imagine what kind of architecture or lampshades will make me attracted to virtuous human souls when I grow up. But this does seem to be what Socrates is trying for. Now, this whole immersive education proposal may sound creepy, and way too ambitious. But it is true that children don't just learn from explicit lessons they get at school. There's more to education than poetry and Real Life parents do use pretty much every aspect of the Socratic program just not altogether all the time. For example, parents fight to control their kids diets, their movie rating systems and Parental Advisory stickers from music. And toy makers usually generally mutilate all of their dolls and action figures, presumably, so they don't have an unwholesome influence on the children who buy them. Parents even tried to use music to shape the soul. Back in the early 90s, there was this idea that went viral that listening to Mozart can make children smarter. So women started playing Mozart to their baby bumps and politicians like the governor of Georgia started trying to set aside money to send Mozart CDs to every newborn baby who was born in the States. And there were even Italian farmers who started advertising that they were playing Mozart to their cows to make them produce better milk. I'm not kidding about this stuff. I'll put a reference in the show notes. So Socrates, his ideas, they're not that weird in themselves, people try them. But he's just taking ideas that have occurred to a lot of parents, and he's applying them more consistently, than even the most helicopter of parents would be willing to do. In doing that exposes the latent weirdness in the ideas. This is classic Socratic technique, you take an idea that makes sense to people. And then you just follow it until the same people that it makes sense to start to get uncomfortable. In summary, the content of the education is to take out all the juicy bits, the sex and the sauce and the pastries. And the method of education is immersion in a completely controlled social and physical environment. And now I want to talk about the overall aim of the education. Because I think the aim of the Socratic education offers an interesting contrast to how people think about education today. Because today, when I hear people talk about education, politicians, and parents, and so forth, I hear stuff like skills, and job market and stem, the three R's. And these are all built around a very practical, utilitarian instrumental idea of education. Our education is there to teach us how to actually do things. And Socrates, he's not interested at all in that kind of thing. Remember, he is training an army, and he hasn't talked about spear class even once? No, Socrates is interested in moral education. He's all about shaping the souls or the characters of the Guardians. And in particular, he mentions two parts of the soul, the spirited part, and the philosophical part. When you hear spirit or spirit and part of the soul, this translates a Greek word through moss, through moss is a complex concept, it brings together a lot of different psychological ideas that we're not necessarily used to seeing together. And we're going to talk about it a lot more in coming episodes. But for now, Socrates is saying that this is the part of the soul that makes people courageous, it makes them brave in the face of danger. So if you've ever heard of saying like, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, the fight in the dog is spirit. And this is the part of the soul that gymnastic is supposed to train. This is similar to the idea that playing sports can help teach kids about teamwork and discipline, and courage and things like that. In the same way, every sports movie and TV show is actually about spiritual growth rather than physical competition. Right when you watch a training montage, it's as much about the hardening of the Spirit as it is about the hardening of the body. So for Socrates gymnastic is about character, not physique. And similarly, music class isn't about learning to play the flute. It's about developing the philosophical part of the soul. We don't know much about the philosophical part of the soul yet, but it has to do with loving reason and argument and speech, and also with being gentle with your fellow citizens. So proper musical training is supposed to help with that. In summary, to picture the point of the Socratic education picture, three sliders that control different parts of the Guardian souls. The gym slider turns up spirit. The music slider increases philosophy, and the censorship and other restrictions are supposed to turn down the part of the soul that likes to party and drink and fuck. And the ultimate aim is to create guardians who watch over the citizens of the city like nice sheep dogs, and don't feed on them like wolves. By now, Socrates and the boys have decided on the rough guidelines of an education system. And in the next section of dialogue, two big things are going to happen. glaucon and Socrates are going to decide who to pick to rule the city out of the big pool of soldiers that they trade. And then Socrates is going to tell all of the citizens the noble lie. The noble lie is one of the more famous concepts in Plato. And it's an ideological origin myth, that's supposed to help the citizens of the city understand their place in the world, and make them more obedient and patriotic. It's called the noble lie usually bought, the Greek is ambiguous, it could also be translated as the great lie, or grand lie or huge lie, because it's a lie that's noble in Providence, but also is very large in scale. Now that we've sorted out education, we just have to pick the best of our students to rule the city.
Glaucon 21:05
What do you mean by best?
Socrates 21:07
The best guardians are the ones who are most Guardian like, they should be wise and powerful. And above all, they should be completely devoted to the city. We want men who truly believe that their own success and failure in life depends entirely on success and failure of the city. We want people who never forget what we taught them.
Glaucon 21:30
Why would they forget?
Clif Mark 21:33
people change their minds all the time. Sometimes it's because of fear or grief or pain. Sometimes pleasure can make people change their minds just like magic. But we want guardians who will keep their musical education no matter what. So we'll test them, we'll put them through painful trials will tempt them and try to persuade them throughout their whole lives. And the ones who can never lead astray, they pass will honor them, and will make them rulers of the city and will reject anyone who fails. Of course, just to clarify, earlier, we were calling all of the soldiers guardians, but it's actually only the rulers who are the true guardians. We'll call all the other younger soldiers auxiliaries from now on. Sound good?
Glaucon 22:16
Sure. Good.
Clif Mark 22:18
And do you think it would help to use one of those useful lies we were talking about earlier? I'm thinking of one giant lie that could persuade everyone in the city, even the rulers? And if not the rulers, at least everyone else?
Glaucon 22:32
What kind of lie do you have in mind?
Clif Mark 22:34
Nothing that hasn't been done before. Something like the finishing story, the kind of thing that the poet's talk about happening in the past. Although I'm not even sure if this kind of thing is possible, it would take a lot of persuading.
Glaucon 22:48
Why are you being so cagey Socrates,
Clif Mark 22:50
you'd understand if you knew what I was going to say?
Glaucon 22:53
Then say it,
Clif Mark 22:56
okay. Here it goes. I want to persuade everyone in the city, that their whole rearing and education was just a dream. What? Yeah. And I'm going to tell them that the whole time that they thought they were growing up and being educated, they were actually asleep underground, being built by the god along with their weapons and equipment. And now that they've been released from the earth, they're responsible for defending the country just like it was their own mother. And all the other citizens are their brothers because they were all born in the earth.
Glaucon 23:36
That is wild Socrates. No wonder you are ashamed to tell us
Clif Mark 23:39
I am not finished. We're also going to tell them that the God who built them mix metals in with their souls, gold for the rulers, silver for the auxiliaries, and iron and bronze for the farmers and craftsmen.
Glaucon 23:53
Gold for the best bronze for the rest.
Clif Mark 23:57
Right. And occasionally, gold parents will give birth to a bronze child. And when that happens, they have to cast the child outward belongs among the farmers and the craftsmen. And if a golden child is born to bronze parents, they'll welcome into the Guardian class. And we'll have a prophecy in the city that if a bronze or iron man ever rules, the city will be destroyed. Now cloud con, Can you think of any way we can get people to believe this?
Glaucon 24:29
No way, Socrates. Nobody would ever believe that. Unless maybe their children or grandchildren might believe it.
Clif Mark 24:42
Well, glaucon even that might be enough. Let's not worry too much about this one. We'll just let tradition and popular belief and rumor take their course. When the musical and gymnastic education is done, Socrates and glaucon have an entire army of guys trained as watchdogs for their fellow citizens. And now, they have to pick some selection of that army to rule the city. And who do they pick, they pick the people who are best in school, the people who took most to their education, and who don't change their beliefs no matter what they do to them. And this promotion creates three classes of people. So you can picture the social structure of the city as a three level pyramid, guardians on the top as rulers. In the middle, you have all the soldiers, the auxiliaries, and at the bottom, they're the producers. They're the workers, the farmers, everyone else. And all of them are told the noble lie. The noble lie is a story that everyone's whole life was a dream. And they were built underground, with different metals alloy to their souls. And that all explains which class they belong to, and why they should defend the city like it's their own mom. The noble lie gets a lot of attention. It's almost become a kind of catchphrase for Plato. And I think that the reason is just that the name of it feels scandalous, and a bit paradoxical. Because we know lying is bad. But now Socrates is saying that long is noble, spicy. And that's as far as people usually get. So if you ever read the phrase noble lie in a magazine article, or if someone says it, they probably just mean lying to the people, but for the greater good. Now, I think this is a superficial interpretation of the noble lie passage. And I want to spend a few minutes going beyond that. It is true that Socrates thinks it's okay to lie to the people. That's the very first thing he says to Adam Mantis when they start talking about education. All the myths and poems told the kids are lies, in a way. But in my opinion, that's not what this passage about the noble lies about. The noble lie is specifically about how political ideology works, about how stories like the noble lie, are related to useful political sentiments. So one theory of how ideology works, that's really common, but which Socrates does not believe, is what I call the ideas first theory of ideology. It works like this, you cook up some crazy story, and then you convince a whole bunch of people to believe it. It doesn't matter how you do it, maybe you have to repeat it a bunch of times, maybe you have to use flashy lights, incense chanting, whatever. This is how brainwashing works in cartoons and comic books. And it's how a lot of atheists think that religion works. Basically, you're waving a shiny watch in front of someone's face until their eyes turn into spirals, and then you put beliefs in their head. And that's the key because according to this theory, once you install the beliefs, you control the believers, you can manipulate them for politics and profit, whatever you want. Now, I call this the ideas first theory of ideology, because you start with the ideas, you install them in people's brains, and then you can manipulate their emotions and actions. The discussion of the noble lie in the context of the whole musical education program shows us that this is not how Socrates thinks it works. Notice this about the whole light discussion. First, the origin myth that Socrates tells is totally implausible. He's telling people their whole life was a dream that they were born yesterday. This is unbelievable. And glaucon confirms it's unbelievable when he says, nobody will believe this. But even though the story seems ludicrous, Socrates is also not at all worried about persuading the citizens. When glaucon says no one will buy it, at least not for a couple of generations. Socrates is very casual about it. He just says, You know what, let's let popular belief and rumor and tradition take care of this one. It says if Socrates thinks that convincing people of this crazy myth is just going to take care of itself. Why? Why is Socrates so relaxed about making people believe the unbelievable? it's because he has an ideas last theory of ideology in the city and speech, they start with the immersive musical education. This is an implicit education that subconsciously shapes the likes and the dislikes and the commitments and the loyalties of the citizens. You can even think of it as how the citizens are socialized rather than how they're educated. So I picture these kids hanging out with each other, making friends getting a sense of camaraderie with their fellow students and their teachers. Maybe they tour the territory of the city and learn to live the land, maybe their public festivals and national anthems and public honors for patriots. Maybe everyone in the city stands whenever a guardian comes into the room. Social Life has all kinds of implicit messages about who's your friend, and who deserves respect and authority. And over time, they're going to start to notice that there are three basic types of people in the city, there are producers, and they always defer to the soldiers. And all the soldiers and the producers have this deep respect for the guardians. This just seems like the natural order of things. And all of this is happening on a subconscious gut level. The citizens, they're having their emotions and their instinctive commitment shaped, and they're being made to feel patriotic, and to respect the political order. And so when there's word of an invasion in the city, they all feel this ardent urge to take up arms and defend the homeland. And they probably feel disgusted by selfish cowards. And when there's some kind of big question facing the city, they'll automatically look to the guardians for wisdom and for guidance. And in general, when people have strong feelings, they want to have reasons for those feelings, they look for explanations and rationalizations. And that is where the noble lie comes in. The myth doesn't cause the feelings and commitments and loyalties, you get those from the socialization, the musical education. The noble lie just pulls all these feelings together and make sense of them. It gives them a vocabulary to articulate these political sentiments that they already have. Why is king What's his face? So why is? Well, it's because he has a golden soul, may it shine in our city forever? And why doesn't this blacksmith laugh at my philosophy jokes? Well, that's bronzes for you. strong arms, thick heads. Once you give them the myth, then you can use it to reinforce and channel their political emotions by talking about them. But the story itself isn't doing the heavy lifting. And so the reason that Socrates is so casual about persuading people to believe this crazy, noble lie, is because all of the persuasion happens in the education phase. After all, that subconscious indoctrination, these citizens are so emotionally primed for the myth that it won't even sound crazy to them. It'll just seem like a natural common sense way to understand the world that they've always lived in. They'll believe it. And they'll probably even hold on to it with all the tenacity of their subconscious emotional convictions, without questioning how weird it is. And that's because one of the things about ideology is that from the inside, it's usually invisible. To me, the cutest and cleverest thing about the whole noble lie passage is the very first part of the lie, which is that their education never happened. And they were born yesterday. Because this is the most insane, unbelievable part of the story, when you take it literally. But when you take it figuratively, it's very true. Because the citizens, they know they were educated, they remember that. But they mostly know the explicit parts, the poems, the songs, the gymnastic exercises. But they probably didn't always notice how all of that was subconsciously shaping their outlook on the world, giving them the lenses and the frameworks and the emotional commitments through which they'll interpret everything. And so at the end, they just look at the world. And they see things, how they see things. They sort people into bronze, silver and gold automatically. And they forget all the work that went into shaping their vision. And to be honest, I do the same thing. I know on an intellectual level that my outlook on the world has been shaped by my upbringing and education. Sometimes I can even name the book that gave me the framework for seeing things in a certain way. But it still doesn't feel that way. When I look at the world, I just see what I see. It's like I'm forgetting I was ever educated. Because ideology is invisible from the inside. But if you're on the outside, like loud cons on the outside of the city and speech, then ideologies look crazy and impossible. This is why he thinks that the story is so insane. Now, eventually, we're gonna find out that the joke was on cloud Khan, and that normal Athenian guys get just as much indoctrination and implicit education as the guardians, but just with a much lower quality. But that's not till book seven. Right now. We're going to get back to the dialogue. glaucon and Socrates have educated the little soldiers indoctrinated all the citizens into the patriotic noble lie and now They're going to very briefly describe the kind of life that the soldiers and guardians will have, after they finish their musical education, and go on to guard the city. Now that we've educated in on the citizens, we have to decide how they're going to live. I say we find them the best spot in the city, a place where it's easy to control anyone in town who doesn't want to obey the law, and where they can see any external invaders. They should set up camp there.
Glaucon 35:40
You mean they'll build their houses there?
Clif Mark 35:42
Yes. But houses for soldiers, not businessmen?
Glaucon 35:48
What's the difference?
Clif Mark 35:49
The last thing we want to do is to rear dogs that act like wolves and attack the flock. Which means that we should do everything we can to make sure our auxiliaries are allies to the citizens, and don't become their masters.
Socrates 36:02
Absolutely. But isn't that why we gave them the best education?
Clif Mark 36:07
Well, I hope we did. I'm not sure. But even that might not be enough. Maybe we should also give them the right kind of houses and property, so they won't have any reason to harm the citizens.
Glaucon 36:20
Yeah, they should get that
Clif Mark 36:22
glaucon tell me if this is how you think they should live. First, nobody owns any private property beyond the necessities. And they should have no private rooms or houses, where they could store property.
Glaucon 36:36
Okay,
Clif Mark 36:37
they live on a food stipend from the citizens. And they'll eat all their meals and live in common together. And they won't be allowed any money or jewelry or even to drink from gold or silver cups will tell them that the golden silver in their souls will become polluted if they touch any real gold or silver. And will also tell them that if they ever own any land, or houses or money, they'll no longer be guardians. Instead, they'll just be regular householders who are also masters and enemies of the people. And that will be rushing towards the destruction of the city. Do you think this is the way of life we should provide for the guardians? Welcome.
Glaucon 37:20
It certainly is Socrates.
Clif Mark 37:31
Nowadays, there's also no such thing as tough lifelong education programs. I know lots of people who work through their whole childhood and adolescence in a scramble to get into a big name University. But usually, the implicit or explicit promise is that if you work hard when you're young, you'll be rewarded, you'll get to finish and you'll get an easy job that pays you lots of money. And then you can have a nice house and eat in restaurants and go on vacation and pay people to rub your back or whenever you want. But not the guardians. In our world, we study hard to have a nice life. But the auxiliaries and guardians, they study hard to have a hard life, no property, no house, lunch in the cafeteria, forever. Why? The key conceptual contrast in the section is between a house fit for a businessman and a house fit for a soldier. And glaucon is a little bit confused by this. And that's because in Athens, the soldiers were just the citizens. There were no professional army guys. So there was no special soldier houses volcon Adam and his Polo, Marcus, Socrates, they all served in the armies. And they all lived in their own houses. And with the exception of Socrates, all of their houses were probably really nice. So glaucon, he's probably listening to this story about the city and speech and picturing himself as a guardian, living in his own nice house, at the top of the Acropolis, guarding the city. But Socrates, he says, No, the life of the Guardians and the auxiliaries is going to be totally different than the life of an Athenian citizen. Because you can't live like a businessman and be a guardian. There's a fundamental incompatibilities between these two ways of life. And that's because as soon as you have your own land and property, as soon as you live like a businessman, you'll have a conflict of interest. Because if your money in property guy, and a political power guy, then there'll always be a temptation to use your political power to expand your wealth at the expense of your fellow citizen. And when that happens, you're no longer a guardian of the city. You're a master of the city. And since you're exploiting the citizens, instead of protecting them, you're going to have to start worrying about rebellions. The whole point of the education was to avoid that kind of conflict. And that's why a huge part of it was to suppress All the desires and appetites that money could be used to satisfy Socrates and the boys. They wanted to avoid developing any private interests that might interfere with public interests. And since this potential conflict between private and public never disappears, education can never really end. That's why the soldiers can't have property or land or fancy clothes or travel abroad or even give gifts to their girlfriends. This may all seem like a bad deal, to have to spend your whole life in the super strict education, only to graduate and have to live in a barracks for the rest of your life. It sounds like a bad deal to Adam Mantis. And next episode is going to stand up for the poor guardians. And as Socrates, why he's making them so miserable. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, and you would like to support the podcast, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or any app you use to listen to podcasts. And also, if you know anyone who'd be interested, please share the podcast with them. We'd love to get into your friends ears. To close this episode, I would like to tie some of the theoretical stuff from this chapter back to some of the contexts that we learned about in other episodes, because if you were listening to this intense education program, and weird communistic style of life that the guardians are made to live, that may have reminded you of a previous episode that we did on Sparta. Because Sparta also had a super strict state run education program. They had restrictions on music and art and so on. And they were also not supposed to own property. They also lived on a food stipend and ate and lived in common instead of in private houses, at least for the most part. These practices they weren't in full effect in Sparta, but it was the way it was supposed to be. So the city and speech that Socrates and glaucon and Adam Mantis are designing is kind of based on a very idealized version of what Sparta was supposed to be like. Way back in the apology episodes, you may remember that I was arguing that Socrates may have gotten into trouble with the democratic faction of Athens because he'd been walking around saying oligarchic sounding talking points that may have upset some people consider that when the conversation of the Republic is supposed to have taken place. Athens is in the middle of a 30 year period of war with Sparta. Sparta is the enemy, they're the bad guys, they are trying to destroy Athens. And here Socrates is recommending that Athenians adopt common meals and no property and other very Spartan policies. Anyone who heard these things would have understood the reference. Now, I stand by my statements that the republic should not be read as a practical policy guide for Athens. But I can see how a lot of people hearing this in the context of a war with Sparta and then after two oligarchic coups may have gotten a little suspicious of Socrates. But then Socrates wasn't really about making people comfortable.