Reading: The Republic by Plato

So I’ve started reading Plato’s Republic, one of the classics in Greek philosophy, although I’m not very far into the book. So far I’ve found it to be much more amusing than I expected, as well as being exactly as thought-provoking as I expected. One thing that I’m not yet certain will persist throughout the book is the fact that Socrates appears to be the “main character”, instead of Plato himself. I also was not expecting the book to be more like a debate club rather than simply laying out exactly how he thinks the ideal world should be run. Once again, I may be corrected from this assumption later on in the book, but so far it has been Socrates conversing with an old man and arguing with two other guys about justice and the nature of justice. So far, Socrates has not really made an argument himself, but rather spent a good amount of time tearing apart everyone else’s ideas about justice, the first being “he who is just does good to his friends and evil to his enemies” and the second “justice is just when it serves the interest of the strong”. It is very interesting to listen in on what I can perfectly picture in my head as Greek men filling a room and gathering around the two debating while listening intently and in general worshipping Socrates for his intellect and argumentative skills. It is interesting to think that this was a pastime that both the Greeks and the Romans would enjoy very much and it seems a shame that most people do not really care for intellectual debates much anymore. College debates nowadays seems to be about who can prattle off as many arguments as they can as quickly as possible, while presidential debates are also limited tremendously by time and always incredibly vague. Both candidates in presidential debates very obviously are trying to simply say what will be able to please the most of amount of people in the crowd rather than formulating a well-thought out argument. After reading even just a little of The Republic makes me wish Socrates was alive today to critique the arguments of our presidential candidates, it would certainly make a much more interesting show - at least for me. I wish the debates aired on television would take as much time and evaluation as they do in the book. You may get fewer viewers but at least the debates will actually mean something more. It’s not like many people watch them anyway.