"Plato is boring." -
Nietzsche1
The Republic's main virtue appears to be that
it is old. Also,
it is Greek. It is also possible that reading it is intended to be an
ordeal of toil and pain to aid in the selection of future
rulers. This would explain its ubiquitous nature in introductory
political science classes. Having been compelled to read the text multiple times myself, I lean towards this last
explanation.
The Republic is Plato's attempt to devise a society based upon
justice, or rather the idealized
form of Justice. After an awful lot of poorly written pseudo-dialogue, the conclusion is reached by Plato's imaginary dinner party that the order and stability brought about by a caste society (with the possibility of some social mobility) is justice. The lowest, or
iron and
brass caste is to be composed of laborers, craftsmen, farmers, blacksmiths, etc. People who do
actual work.
The second, the Auxiliaries, or the silver caste, were to be soldiers and police forces in the city. They are to resist the common tendency of
People Who Have Swords to acquire personal wealth from others because they'll be taught not to. This strikes me as one of the more
ridiculous items in
The Republic -- in view of the world the ancient Greeks existed in, as it is my understanding that People Who Have Swords had a long tradition of taking things from people without swords. But on the contrary, the United States has managed to maintain a standing army of
People Who Have Guns for quite some time, relying on
indoctrination, propaganda, and various abstract concepts (such as duty and honor), so it appears that Plato was right on this score. Who knew? (Certainly not the
Founding Fathers, who had the same healthy fear of a concentration of People Who Have Guns that I have.)
The third, highest
caste, the
caste of gold, and the caste that (it goes without saying) would have contained everyone at the
imaginary dinner party is the Rulers or
Guardians.
Bred to rule (as membership in the castes was to be mostly hereditary), educated in philosophy, and set to many tasks designed to test their ability as future rulers, Guardians were to reluctantly accept the
burden of rulership and lead the community on a perfect course with
absolute authority.
The central concept underlying
The Republic, not addressed directly in the text, is Plato's form of
The Good. In other works Plato argues that
there is a knowledge of right and wrong (in contrast to the Sophist's perceived
relativism), that this
form (concept)
can be learned (although Plato explains the learning process as remembering innate ideas planted by the divine), and that anyone who has knowledge of The Good cannot help but follow it.
I'm willing to
grant these three contentions, but I think the argument for
The Republic falls apart in the space between them. Sure -- there are right and wrong choices, they can be learned, and once properly understood a ruler
would always choose them. But there is a far too likely probability that the Good will not be understood by the Guardians. The
best argument for complete
freedom of speech and expression is that the greater the variety of opinions offered on the subject, the greater the likelihood of the correct one being explored and accepted by a community, and the insular nature of the Guardians seems to be extremely susceptible to the sort of intellectual blinders that stymie progress (of course since the goal of The Republic seems to be stability instead of progress this probably would not have occurred to
Plato. But I like
air conditioning and
indoor plumbing.). Plato desires to see almost all traces of
individuality suborned to the interest of the state - but judging from the history of human understanding and growth on earth, it would seem that it is in the interest of the state to promote this very individuality.
In the safeguards he places before someone who is to become a Guardian, Plato seems to recognize this problem, and yet is satisfied by his solution. What is curiously missing is a mechanism within the community to correct mistaken
Guardians. The Guardians will just simply always be right. Why, I might think that sounded almost...
Utopian -- if everybody didn't always tell me that
The Republic is a blueprint for a
real state and not an exercise in
mental masturbation.
1. From Twilight Of The Idols: Or How One Philosophizes With a Hammer -- this is often misquoted as "Plato was a bore." I mean, even as it is, I took it out of context. Let's be as precise as possible when abusing dead white men. =)