A history of social thought

by Emory S. Bogardus

Although Plato was averse to change, he advocated a dynamic type of education. This educational system, however, is to be definitely controlled by the guardians. It is also paternalistic. Common education shall be of two kinds: gymnastic, for the body; music, for the soul.[V-63] Gymnastic training will produce a temper of hardness, and music will lead to gentleness. The extreme of the one is ferocity and brutality; the extreme of the other is softness and effeminacy.[V-64] When taken together, they produce a well-ordered personality. The one sustains and makes bold the reason, the second moderates and civilizes the mildness of passion.[V-65] Gymnastic exercises provide for the care and training of the body through childhood and youth so that in maturity the body may best serve the soul.[V-66] Music, including literature, trains through the influence of its qualities of harmony and rhythm. For example, through exercises in harmony the child develops a harmonious temperament.

Education is not a process of acquisition, but of the development of the powers within the individual.[V-67] It is a life-long process; it begins with birth and continues until death. It, however, slows up as the individual grows old. An aged person cannot learn much, no more than he can run much.[V-68] Education in the early years of life is the most important. As a child is educated, so will his future be determined.[V-69] A child should be taught early to respect his parents. Great care should be given to the first years of life. From three to six years of age the children in Plato’s republic come under the supervision of chosen matrons and nurses.

Education shall be universal, but not compulsory, that is, all shall be taught, but not compelled to learn. Education shall be made attractive, almost a form of government.[V-70] The laws of imitation shall be utilized. The tutor shall carry out his teachings in practice.[V-71]

A well-trained individual is a replica of a just society. Plato draws a parallelism, which is inaccurate, between the three classes in society and three traits of the individual. The rulers, soldiers, and artisans are compared respectively to the reason, the spirit, and the passions of the individual. The passions must be subordinated to the spirit, and both must be controlled by reason. The result will be a just individual.[V-72] In society a similar hierarchal relation shall hold between the rulers, soldiers, and artisans. The fundamental aim in education shall be to secure a change in the attitudes of people. Such changes are more important than modification in external matters. Thus, according to Plato, the divine foundations of a state are laid in education.

Religion plays a basic rôle in the ideal Republic. Plato held that belief in God superseded in importance the doctrine that might is right. Impiety undermines the strength of the social kingdom. God created the individual for the whole, but not the whole for the individual. The worship of God is necessary for the individual in order to prevent him from reverting to selfishness and from making his humanitarian beliefs purely egoistic phenomena.

Inasmuch as Plato outlined at the start a perfect republic, any change would likely constitute a deterioration. But even an ideal state is not immune to the entry of destructive ideas. The wise men, the rulers, are not proof against the temptations of absolute power. To remove the stirrings of self-interest in the minds of the guardians, Plato planned a communistic order. He overlooked, however, the weaknesses of communism, but these were pointed out at a later time by Aristotle.

In spite of excellent safeguards the wisdom of the best rulers will occasionally fail them. Sooner or later they will err. In examining the youth they will allow warrior youth to be trained for the guardian class. With their spirit of contention and of ambition for honor these adventitious guardians will start the perfect state upon the downward road.[V-74] When the rulers seek personal power and honor, the ideal republic will be superseded by a timocracy.

In a timocracy the ruler with the most private wealth will possess the greatest personal power and receive the highest honor. Moreover, other persons will be stimulated, thereby, to acquire wealth and power. In the meantime the masses will lose nearly everything. The result is an oligarchy in which the wealthy are honored and made rulers.[V-75] The poor are treated with dishonor and deprived of position.

In such an oligarchic state there is a fundamental division; there are two states instead of one. In spirit, the rich and the poor comprise separate states. They live in the same territory but are conspiring against one another.[V-76] Social stability is destroyed by the conflicts between the extremes of countless riches and utter poverty. The propertyless hate and conspire against the propertied.[V-77] Civil war ensues. Because the wealthy have fallen into carelessness and extravagance, and because the poor possess superior numbers, the poor are the victors. A democracy—the rule of the Demos—comes into being. Everyone rules.

But the populace is not fitted to rule. They are without experience. Since the drones are numerous among the common people, the drones manage almost everything in a democracy.[V-78] Excess of liberty among people untrained for liberty leads to anarchy. Individuals will set themselves up as the special friends of the common people. These self-appointed friends of the people will prove to be self-seeking tyrants; the democracy will be transformed into a tyranny—the lowest state of all in Plato’s five-fold devolution.