Plato's Republic
... should be dangerous to their enemies and dangerous to their friends. The task of educating the guardians is very important in Plato’s thinking. Through Socrates, Plato argues for a different approach to educating the guardians. Plato advocates censorship of all written material past and present. Plato feels that all creative works such as literature and poetry should be revised so that they fall in line with his standards of valuable works. Plato seeks to take away individual choice in occupational, educational and social settings. Plato seems to be convinced that he can determine which ideas; thought and intellectual works are valuable. Regardless of how smart a person is, there are always things of value that can be overlooked. Not even Plato should be entrusted with determining what information is available to all of society. I believe that societies are better off when there are competing ideas to choose from. First of all, if one person makes all determinations, then there is always a chance that corruption will enter the process. If the public is allowed to choose from competing ideas then there will always be alternatives to the ideas that dominate for any given period of time. For example, if Plato’s way of thinking were in place in nineteenth century America, then the abolitionist ideas may not have come to the forefront. If the rulers were able to convince all that it was the desired nature of African-Americans to be slave, there would have never emerged any resistance to slavery. Because there were competing ideas the notion of the Black as the “natural” slave was eventually dismissed. People, as I see them, are naturally aggressive in their interactions with other people. Most of the time humans try to take advantage of one another. This has clearly been the case throughout history. My biggest concern is that a group of men trained like dogs and limited to one line of thinking would be a problem not a benefit for society. For example, in modern society we see that those with the “right” to use force are often abusive in performing their duties. Police in cities all across the country are cited time after time for a...