Plato Wants Your Children but That’s Not Necessary

How would you react if Plato came knocking on your door, demanding that you hand over your ten year-old child? I imagine we’d all react similarly–with shock and refusal, unless your kid was just an absolute monster. But how about after he explained himself? Plato isn’t just kidnapping your child, he’s taking them away to be trained for a better life. He wants to sweep all the ten year-olds away to a distant country, and have them be given the finest education–but only that which they are willing to receive. If they are willing, then he will give them stringent athletic, tactical, and philosophical training, with the final goal of whittling the group down to one philosopher-king who will begin their rule of the city at fifty.

Still no? Still don’t want to give the strange man your child? Well…maybe this specific application of Plato’s ideas concerning education doesn’t exactly have a modern pull. But regardless of how extreme this may seem to us, he had a lot of insightful and relevant ideas concerning education. In the Timaeus he talks about the creation and purpose of man, and in his Republic Plato introduces us to one of his most famous allegories: that of the cave.

A lot of the Timaeus is Plato going on about the creation of our body. It’s actually an interesting and poetic read if you don’t try to interpret it literally–I particularly enjoyed the bit about how our blood and veins were formed. But that aside, the real meat (heh) of this book is in the conclusion. Plato touches on his idea of man’s purpose (hint–it isn’t to collect a skeleton meme for every day of October, which is news to me). There’s some real value in what he says. He talks about the two things one could do with their life: devoting oneself to learning and everything else. A bit of a broad category on the second one, but we’ll roll with it. The real point to be found in the Timaeus isn’t that those is academia are superior–it’s that if one ignores and scorns learning in life (which could be many things) then that will be a sad and purposeless life indeed.

The value and nature of education is expanded on in his Republic, where he conveys these ideas via a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon (for the sake of simplicity I’m just going to keep referring to Plato). I mentioned his allegory of the cave earlier, and I’ll explain that here. Say we have some prisoners in a cave, who are only able to see shadows on the wall. Then imagine one gets led out, possibly by force, and sees the sun and the real world. Their eyes get opened, although it is bright and difficult at first, and they learn that the shadows are not everything but only shades of something bigger and better. (Disclaimer: this is an oversimplification and for the full scope, just read the Republic. You’re here for my ideas, not me just restating Plato. Anyways, back to the cave.)

The cave represents ignorance, and the people inside are those who don’t know any better. They don’t know the things that the educated do, simply because it’s never been presented to them. The real world and the sunlight is education and true learning. Those led out of ignorance can become educated (though of course, they will be learning the rest of their life). Plato (Socrates) goes on to explain that it is necessary for someone who has “seen the light” to go back into the cave and help drag others out. The most important job of the educated philosopher is to care for society by teaching it. This reveals Plato’s idea of the purpose of life, using the Timaeus as well: that it is men’s job to seek learning and education, and then use this learning to better society by impressing it on others.

This is such a necessary idea for the functioning of society, and I find myself agreeing nearly fully with Plato. The only nitpick I have is his somewhat narrow view of what is worth learning–people have different interests. Not everyone wants to or can learn mathematics. God knows what happened when I tried to take calculus. There are so many things worth learning and devoting that energy to–so long as you make sure you are bettering society in the process. This may be as simple as going to a 9-to-5 job during the day and then pursuing a passionate hobby of yours afterward, bringing yourself joy and nurturing creativity and a healthy home environment. I know that I can get inspired by witnessing someone’s passion for a topic, even if said topic is “inconsequential”. Not everyone will find that their love is in their work–and that’s OK. We are a curious and creative people, so why not feed that desire?