We no longer live in a time when college freshmen get shocked by much of the reading material assigned to them. Counterintuitively, the texts that do retain their power to disturb young minds (presuming they can read texts in the first place) tend to skew old — and in one prominent case, about 2,400 years old. Even the most superficial interpretations of Plato’s Republic challenge the political assumptions held by almost every student today, at least in the developed West. Many of them hold those assumptions so deeply that they’ve never articulated them. Encountering the arguments made by Plato’s Socrates in favor of a society ruled by an enlightened upper class, tightly controlled from above in everything from the division of its labor to the content of its art, prompts them to do so.
Or rather, it prompts them to do so in an ideal educational setting, but then, Plato was dedicated to nothing so much as the ideal. When he casts Socrates as making the case for the best possible relationships between ruler, state, and individual, he creates less a how-to manual (as Machiavelli did nineteen centuries later, in a brutally quasi-satirical spirit) than a means of better understanding extant societies by bringing their characteristics into relief through comparison.
We may reflexively quote Churchill’s remark about modern democracy, vulnerable as it is to manipulation by all manner of unsavory actors, being “the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” but we nevertheless flinch from holding it up too closely against any kind of ideal system.
It’s tempting to declare that we wouldn’t want to live in the republic of the Republic. (Some of us may have succumbed to that temptation in the political-philosophy lecture hall.) But a more reflective reading reveals a good deal about Plato’s time as well as our own. In the 78-minute video above, Jared Henderson takes us through the Socratic dialogues that propose and refine this Utopia, with its philosopher-kings, noble lies, spiritual aristocrats, breeding festivals, and guardians trained from the cradle. He arrives at certain unfashionable ideas, such as the ultimate task of refining one’s own soul and the necessity of persuading those impervious to philosophy with myth. Even those of us who regard ourselves as sophisticated thinkers, impervious to the crude rhetoric of ideologies and demagogues, would do well to ask ourselves: how much of that thinking has been shaped by the stories we’ve heard all our lives?
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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
Did this article have a point?
Facts Only
* College freshmen do not typically receive shock from assigned reading material.
* Texts that retain power tend to be very old, in one case about 2,400 years old.
* Interpretations of Plato’s Republic challenge modern political assumptions for many students.
* Plato’s arguments favor a society ruled by an enlightened upper class controlled from above regarding labor division and art.
* Plato presented an ideal rather than a "how-to manual" for governing, unlike Machiavelli's approach.
* The text references Socratic dialogues that refine the concept of Utopia involving philosopher-kings and guardians trained from birth.
* The reflections prompt consideration of how much thinking is shaped by inherited stories.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The central tension in the passage lies between accepting philosophical ideals as aspirational guides and critically examining the historical and cultural narratives from which those ideals emerge. The text shifts the focus from passively accepting Plato’s political structure to actively interrogating the role of myth and inherited stories in shaping contemporary political and ethical frameworks. This suggests that intellectual sovereignty requires acknowledging the deep imprint of pre-articulated societal assumptions before engaging with abstract systems. The implication is that even positions considered rational or sophisticated, such as views on democracy, are inherently mediated by foundational narratives. A critical pattern emerges where the pursuit of ideal systems risks becoming an unexamined adherence to inherited structures, requiring constant self-reflection into the origins of one's own beliefs.
Bridge Questions: How do specific historical myths influence the contemporary framing of "enlightened" rule? What mechanisms exist for distinguishing between an enduring philosophical insight and a culturally imposed political assumption? What is the responsibility of contemporary thinkers when engaging with foundational texts that articulate societal hierarchies?