Plato's Republic Book V: Guardians, Women, and No Private Sphere

The discussion of Plato's Republic continues, focusing on Book V while reviewing the preceding four books and broadly addressing themes of community, injustice, inclusion, exclusion, and communitarian education. The primary topic is the education of the guardians, with specific attention to the role of women and Plato's proposal to abolish the private sphere.

Review of Books I-IV

Book I: The Question of Justice

The initial question posed is "What is justice?" Cephalus and Polemarchus offer common-sense views, defining justice as telling the truth, returning what is owed, or helping friends and harming enemies. Thrasymachus challenges this, asserting that injustice is more profitable and that justice is merely the advantage of the stronger. Socrates then undertakes to defend justice against this moral skepticism.

Book II: Why Be Just?

The focus narrows to "Why be just?" and the rewards of justice. The core question is whether justice is pursued for its own sake or for its benefits. Plato's answer is both. Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato's brothers, reiterate Thrasymachus's challenge. They use the Ring of Gyges story to illustrate how injustice can be more profitable and argue that people value justice primarily for reputation. Socrates shifts the discussion from individual justice to justice in the city, introducing the need for guardians trained in "gymnastic for bodies and music for the soul," thus introducing the theme of education.

Books III and IV: Education of Guardians and Justice in the City and Soul

Books III, IV, and V form a unit on the education of guardians. This spans character and community, as excellent character in guardians is achieved through a communitarian upbringing. Key aspects of guardian education include:

• Censorship of Poets: Homer and other poets are censored to provide suitable role models.
• Musical Education: Focuses on simple modes, proper rhythm, and harmony to cultivate gentlemen. This is likened to a harmonious soul, where different parts are well-aligned, similar to a C major chord.
• Selection of Guardians: Character tests are used, but the results are presented through a "noble lie": rulers have gold in their souls, auxiliaries silver, and craftsmen/farmers bronze and iron. This myth aims to foster acceptance of a stratified society with three classes.
• Justice in the City: Defined as each person doing their own job ("minding of one's own business"). This concept has parallels with the Bhagavad Gita's notion of dharma (duty) and influenced ideas of civil disobedience, as seen in figures like Jesus, Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King Jr.
• Justice in the Soul: Analogous to justice in the city, it is described as a harmonious mental health where different parts of the self are aligned. The virtues emphasized are wisdom (rational part, rulers), courage (spirited part, auxiliaries), and moderation (desiring part, farmers/craftsmen). Justice is the correct alignment of these parts.

Plato emphasizes that character education and community are intertwined. Education is about developing virtue and inculcating good habits. The school, as a social institution, fosters character through cooperation and competition. This communal development of character is central to Plato's vision, influencing traditions like English and American boarding schools and Ivy League colleges.

The Role of Women and the Abolition of the Private Sphere

Plato's proposals regarding women and the family are radical for his time and, in some ways, even for today.

Women's Education and Status

In Plato's Republic, women and men receive the same education. This contrasts sharply with ancient Athens, where women had extremely low status, no legal rights, no property, and were largely confined to the home. Athenian culture also featured prominent erotic relationships between high-status men and younger men/boys, distinct from marital relations.

Socrates argues that if a man and a woman are suited for the same art (e.g., medicine), they have the same nature. He contends that the only fundamental difference between sexes is biological reproduction, which does not preclude women from serving as guardians. Plato believes women are as capable as men in character and leadership. This idea was so counter-cultural that some later readers thought he must be joking. The widespread acceptance of women's equality in leadership and education only began in the 1960s, as exemplified by the delayed admission of women to Yale College until 1969.

Abolition of the Nuclear Family

Plato proposes that sexual relations are not regulated by monogamous marriage but by a complex system of "breeding" to produce the best offspring. Parents are separated from their children, who are raised collectively. This aims to prevent preferences associated with the nuclear family, which Plato sees as competing with loyalty to the state. This anti-nepotistic stance is designed to ensure that leadership is not hereditary and that guardians prioritize the city over personal family ties.

Plato states, "All these women are to belong to all these men in common, and no woman is to live privately with any man." Children will also be held in common, with neither parent knowing their offspring nor child knowing their parent. This system is reminiscent of dystopian fiction like Brave New World, where children are genetically engineered and assigned roles from birth, though Plato relies on character tests rather than genetics.

The Abolition of the Private Sphere

Plato's ideal city features a communal education where guardians eat together, women receive the same education as men, the nuclear family is abolished, children are reared in common, and there is no private property. The rulers are philosopher-kings.

Plato emphasizes the city's unity: "Have we any greater evil for a city than what splits it and makes it many instead of one? Or a greater good than what binds it together and makes it one?" He envisions a "community of pleasure and pain," where all citizens rejoice and suffer together, much like a single human body where pain in one part is felt by the whole. Rulers, in particular, should have no private pleasures or griefs, dedicating themselves entirely to the collective good. This vision is antithetical to modern liberalism, which values a private sphere for individual freedom.

This collectivist ideal has parallels with Rousseau's concept of the general will, Marx's abolition of private property, and Proudhon's assertion that "property is theft." In popular culture, it resembles the Borg from Star Trek ("Resistance is futile") or the "Pluribus" organism from a TV show where individuals merge into a single collective consciousness. These examples highlight the tension between radical collectivism and individualism.

Plato's Republic, in this sense, anticipates a world where all information is shared, and individual pain or pleasure is subsumed into the collective, much like an advanced AI drawing from all human knowledge. While this offers collective wisdom and efficiency, it lacks individual perspective and identity.

The Philosopher-King

Plato recognizes that achieving such a unified city is immensely difficult. He concludes that societal ills will persist "until philosophers rule as kings or those who now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize." This ideal regime requires "a total change in people's hearts and minds," a profound conversion to complete devotion to society.

The interlocutors, and even Socrates, acknowledge the impracticality of this ideal. Book V concludes with Glaucon's demand to know how such a city could come into being, leading Socrates to introduce the philosopher-king—one who is "awake" and governs with true understanding, unlike those living in dreams. This leads into the discussion of Forms and a theory of knowledge in subsequent books, connecting justice, politics, and ethics to epistemology.

Plato's journey from emphasizing well-educated guardians to advocating for a thoroughly communitarian education, where individuality is suppressed for the city's good, sets the stage for exploring how these ideals contrast with actual political systems and the challenges of real-world citizenship.