Virginia Woolf, Plato, and Citizenship: Core Insights

Today's discussion centers on the theme of citizenship, beginning with Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" and its connection to women's education, before moving to Socrates' concept of the philosopher-king and the metaphor of the ship of state.

Personal Anecdote: Women's Rights and Education

The speaker shared a personal story about their mother, the first female president of the Students' Administrative Council at the University of Toronto in the early 1960s. Unlike Yale at the time, the University of Toronto was fully coeducational.

A striking anecdote from this period highlights the challenges women faced: despite her leadership role, the speaker's mother had to enter a private club where she met the provost through a separate women's entrance and was restricted to the second floor, as women were not allowed on the main floor. This occurred as late as 1963 in a university considered progressive enough to have a female student president.

This story serves as a stark reminder of the historical context for discussions on women's education and citizenship, even in institutions that were relatively advanced for their time.

Virginia Woolf and the Argument for Coeducation

Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" (1929), a collection of essays based on lectures given at Girton and Newnham, the women's colleges of Cambridge, is a foundational text for understanding the historical struggle for women's education. Born Virginia Stephen in 1882, Woolf came from an upper-middle-class intellectual family; her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a renowned philosopher and agnostic. While her brothers attended Cambridge, Woolf herself, despite her intellectual background, could not attend university—a common plight for women of her era.

Woolf's work argues for the necessity of coeducation and challenges the prevailing notion that women lacked genius or the capacity to write great literature. She highlights the societal constraints that prevented women from achieving their full potential, contrasting the rich, complex portrayal of women in fiction (like Shakespeare's heroines) with the harsh realities of their lives, as noted by historian Trevelyan: "In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room."

The Fictional Case of Judith Shakespeare

To illustrate her point, Woolf imagines "Judith Shakespeare," a wonderfully gifted sister to William Shakespeare. Judith possesses the same adventurous spirit and imagination but is denied schooling. When she runs away to London to pursue her passion for theater, she is met with ridicule and rejection, as women were not allowed on the English stage. Ultimately, she becomes pregnant, and in despair, takes her own life, buried at a crossroads rather than receiving a Christian burial—a fate reflecting the societal condemnation of suicide.

This thought experiment underscores Woolf's argument: genius requires not only innate talent but also the social conditions and opportunities to express it. The absence of great women writers comparable to Shakespeare was not due to a lack of talent but a lack of access to education, independence, and societal acceptance.

Women's Literary Production and Societal Constraints

Woolf suggests that many anonymous works, particularly short lyrics, were likely written by women, who often had to conceal their authorship. She also critiques historical attitudes, citing Pericles' funeral oration, where he states, "the chief glory of a woman is not to be talked of." This reflects the low status of women in ancient Athens and, to varying degrees, in later societies, including Renaissance England and the early 20th century, when Woolf was writing.

Woolf's feminism, while advocating for women's equal participation in all aspects of society, also touches on the impact of societal constraints on women's writing. She suggests that anger, while understandable, can impede literary expression, contrasting it with Shakespeare's "incandescent, unimpeded" mind, which possessed an "androgynous" quality, allowing him to create complex male and female characters. She posits that with freedom and resources ("a room of her own and five hundred a year"), women writers could produce even greater works.

Education and Citizenship

The discussion transitions from women's education to the broader concept of citizenship, emphasizing that education is crucial for full participation in democratic life and leadership roles. While not everyone needs a college degree to be a citizen, higher education is often a prerequisite for "learned professions" and positions of leadership.

The unit on citizenship builds upon previous themes of character (Heraclitus's "a man's character is his fate") and community (Dewey's idea of school as a social institution). Citizenship, in this context, extends beyond voting or jury duty to encompass informed engagement and a recognition of fellow citizens.

Plato, the Philosopher-King, and the Ship of State

The core question for the coming weeks is how college can best prepare individuals for democratic life. Plato's "Republic" offers a foundational perspective, particularly through the concept of the philosopher-king and the allegory of the ship of state.

The Philosopher-King

Plato, through Socrates, argues that "Unless... the philosophers rule as kings, or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize, and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place... there is no rest from ills for the cities... nor for humankind." This radical idea, which Plato admits is paradoxical, suggests that only rulers with a deep understanding of truth, virtue, and theoretical and practical knowledge can lead a just and harmonious society.

Plato envisions philosopher-kings as: - Understanding truth and possessing experience. - Virtuous and having no taste for falsehood. - Moderate and unconcerned with money. - Combining theoretical and practical knowledge.

This ideal aligns with the historical emphasis on character development in elite education, such as English boarding schools and institutions like Yale and Harvard, which sought to cultivate leaders through a combination of academic rigor, religious instruction, sports, and collective living. The "Hogwarts houses" analogy is used to illustrate this: Gryffindor (character) versus Ravenclaw (intelligence), with Plato seemingly valuing a combination of both.

However, a critical observation is that intelligence and virtue are not automatically connected. As noted by former Harvard Dean Harry Lewis in "Excellence Without a Soul," there's no inherent link between academic achievement and moral goodness.

Adeimantus's Objection and the Ship of State

Plato's brother Adeimantus raises a pertinent objection: philosophers, especially those who dedicate their lives to it, often become "quite queer, not to say completely vicious," or at best, "useless to the cities." This echoes contemporary criticisms that academics are out of touch with societal values.

Socrates responds with the "ship of state" metaphor: - The Shipowner: Represents the populace or the state, strong but deaf and short-sighted, lacking knowledge of seamanship. - The Sailors: Represent politicians or those vying for power. They quarrel, each believing they should pilot the ship despite having no training, and they deny that piloting is a teachable art. They flatter and manipulate the shipowner, even resorting to violence against rivals. - The "Skilled Sailor": The one clever at gaining control, regardless of actual piloting skill. - The True Pilot: The philosopher, who understands the true art of navigation (paying attention to "year, seasons, heaven, stars, winds, and everything that's proper to the art"). This true pilot is dismissed as a "stargazer, a prater and useless" by the power-hungry sailors.

Plato's allegory criticizes democracy and other forms of government where popularity and political maneuvering, rather than genuine expertise and wisdom, determine leadership. He advocates for a technocratic approach, where those best trained to rule are in control, a concept that faces skepticism and populism in modern politics.

Plato concludes that to achieve the ideal city, society would need to be "wiped clean" like a tablet, recognizing the immense difficulty of transforming existing political systems.

Conclusion of Book VI

In summary, Book VI of Plato's "Republic": - Outlines the character of the true philosopher. - Addresses Adeimantus's objection that philosophers are useless. - Introduces the ship of state metaphor to criticize existing governments. - Attacks the sophists (teachers of rhetoric who prioritize persuasion over truth). - Discusses the difficulty of establishing the ideal city and philosopher rule. - Introduces the concepts of "ideas" or "forms" and the "divided line," which serve as preparation for the Allegory of the Cave in Book VII.