Socrates thinks that poetry is like candy: delicious but bad for us. If we consume too much, it’ll rot our souls. That’s because the poets just pander to our passions with no concern with or knowledge of the truth.
But pandering poets aren’t the problem. It’s us. Socrates thinks that humans have a poetic sweet tooth that makes certain kinds of stories irresistible to us. We let ourselves get carried away by them and start to believe that they’re true. Following our natural taste for art undermines reason and makes us into worse people. So how do we live if we can’t trust our taste?
Glaucon: Zachary Amzallag
Ancient music: Michael Levy
Intro theme: Clayton Tapp
Outro theme: David Zikovitz
Socrates thinks that poetry is like candy: delicious but bad for us. If we consume too much, it’ll rot our souls. That’s because the poets just pander to our passions with no concern with or knowledge of the truth.
But pandering poets aren’t the problem. It’s us. Socrates thinks that humans have a poetic sweet tooth that makes certain kinds of stories irresistible to us. We let ourselves get carried away by them and start to believe that they’re true. Following our natural taste for art undermines reason and makes us into worse people. So how do we live if we can’t trust our taste?
Glaucon: Zachary Amzallag
Ancient music: Michael Levy
Intro theme: Clayton Tapp
Outro theme: David Zikovitz
Today, why porn, pastry and podcasts are all as bad for you as poetry. This is good in theory, unclear for last episode, Socrates explained how bad the life of the tyrant really is. And glaucon said he was convinced, he said he was ready to proclaim to all of Athens, that living the just life is the best. And living the life of the unjust man to live for the tyrant is the worst way to live. That completed the long argument that they'd all been working on since Book Two. And it seems like a natural ending spot for the republic as a whole. But Socrates keeps going. He talks for a whole other chapter. And mostly, he's complaining about art, and poetry. Specifically, he's saying that the be loved and revered cultural heroes of Athens, the tragic poets were nothing but a pack of pandering bullshitters, whose art was actually making people worse. Socrates goes pretty hard against poetry. And people who like art and poetry, tend not to think much of these arguments. And I will admit that a certain level, the arguments that Socrates is going to make in the dialogues today are easy to criticize. They're weird. They have silly analogies, they have holes in them. But I still really like this chapter. Because I think that Socrates is fundamental critique of art is really powerful. And it's changed the way that I think about art and media. And I'm hoping that if I explain it correctly, it can ruin art for you too. Before we get into the dialogues, there's a couple of things I want to mention. First, I know I've said this before, but here is your reminder that poetry and Athens played a very different role than poetry plays today. In Athens, poetry, which included theater was their pop culture, their Hollywood, their TV, their Saturday morning cartoons and their Sunday school. Homer and the tragic poets were supposed to be almost Oracle's of wisdom. In the citizens, we're supposed to learn ethical and political lessons from poetry. So when Socrates critiques poetry, it's more like he's critiquing art in general, or culture or media. It's a much broader target than what we mean by poetry today. The other thing I wanted to mention is the concept of imitation. Socrates is going to start off talking about imitation and defining it, he means something like representation, the painter represents the bowl of fruit. The poet represents the actions of Achilles, something like that. imitation translates the Greek word, mimosas. And now, back to Socrates, and glaucon
Socrates:glaucon. You remember how earlier we decided to banish poets from the city?
Glaucon:Of course, what about it? Well, the
Socrates:more I think about it, the more that was a great idea. And I feel bad saying this, because I've loved Homer since I was a little kid, and he's the father of all our tragic poets. But if I'm honest, don't you tell the poets I said this? I won't. I think that listening to all that poetry is warping people's minds,
Glaucon:warping their minds? How?
Socrates:Let me start with imitation in general. You know how most craftsmen specialize in one thing, shoe makers, make shoes, pipe makers make pipes, things like that.
Glaucon:Right?
Socrates:Well, what if I told you that there was one craftsman who could make everything make every tool every artifact couches, tables, saddles, flutes, everything that every other Craftsman can make? And also, everything in nature, plants, animals, stars, moons, all of that? What would you say about that clock?
Glaucon:I would say you're pulling my leg and that there's no such
Socrates:person? Really? Well, what if I told you that you can make all of these things?
Glaucon:Come on sock, how could I possibly make those things?
Socrates:It's easy. Just pick up a mirror, walk around and pointed around you. And then you'll be making everything around you.
Glaucon:Right? But if I do that, I don't actually make anything. All the things in the mirror are just reflection Socrates they don't actually exist.
Socrates:Exactly my point. And that is limitation for you. That's what the painter does. He creates something that looks like something else. But it's not the actual thing.
Glaucon:Of course, it's not the thing, Socrates, it's a painting. But what's your point? Think of it this way, glaucon
Socrates:there are three different kinds of couch, made by three kinds of craftsmen. There's the idea or form of the couch, made by God. And that's the really real couch. Then there's the actual couch that we sit on. And that's made by a craftsman who uses the form of the couch as a model. But then there's the painting of the couch. And that's far from the truth. Because the painter just paints how a coach appears from a certain angle. He doesn't know anything at all about the craft, he can imitate every craft without understanding any of them. Or, or you can look at it this way. Who knows best wouldn't object is supposed to be like,
Glaucon:I don't know, Socrates, you
Socrates:it's the person who uses that object. Because with goodness and beauty, it's all about function. No matter what we're talking about a tool, an animal an action, the better performs its function, the better and more beautiful it is.
Glaucon:And the user knows the function because well, the user is using it.
Socrates:That's right. And the person who makes the thing, he should ask the person who's going to use it what it should be like. So if the pipe player says he wants an eight inch pipe, that's what the maker gives to them. eight inches,
Glaucon:that's a good pipe sock.
Socrates:You're damn right cloud con. And a real player would play that pipe all night. But the imitator someone who just paints the pipe, he doesn't look to the former idea of the objects that he imitates. He never uses them. He never even talks to a user. He doesn't actually know anything about the objects he's imitating.
Glaucon:Well, then what does he do? What does he based his images on?
Socrates:he just thinks about how that object might look to his audience. And he creates an imitation based on that.
Glaucon:But what if his audience doesn't know anything, either? He's just basing his imitations on whatever the masses think.
Socrates:Yes, he is. That's that's exactly what he does. But still, if he's a good painter, he might be able to trick some people, like children in idiots, into thinking they're looking at the actual thing.
Glaucon:Okay, but that's only because they're just as ignorant as the imitator and can't tell what's true from what's not.
Socrates:Right. So if anyone comes up to us, and they say, they found a genius, who can tell us everything about everything who understands it all? We should tell them that they've been fooled by an imitator.
Glaucon:Fair enough. But what does this have to do with Homer and the poets?
Socrates:Haven't you guessed yet? Don't people say the poets are wise? Don't they say that Homer in the poets teach us all about virtue and vice and human things and divine things, too? And don't they tell us that if we want to become wiser ourselves, we should just listen to more poetry? Why yes.
Glaucon:All the time.
Socrates:Well, are they right? Are the poets really that wise? Were they just imitators who have no idea what they're talking about? Wow.
Glaucon:I have a feeling you're not going to say they're wise? That's right. glaucon?
Socrates:I'm not. Because if Homer really knew so much about virtue, and great heroic actions, he would have done some right. And then he could have had poems written about him, rather than writing the poems himself.
Glaucon:Well, yeah, I guess so.
Socrates:They say Homer knows so much about war and government. But can you name a single battle he helped to win, or a city that he helped to improve itself. Solon helped Athens lycurgus helps Sparta? Can you name a city that Homer
Glaucon:helped? No, no, I cannot. In fact,
Socrates:if Homer had anything at all that was important to teach, you think you'd have disciples, people today, like Pythagoras, and productos, and tons of others, they have disciples that follow them around and adore them and do everything but carry them around on their shoulders. So if Homer knew anything helpful, don't you think the people around him would hold on to him instead of just letting them wander all over Greece singing for his supper?
Glaucon:You know, I think you're absolutely right, Socrates. Maybe the poets aren't exactly as wise as people think.
Socrates:No, they aren't. They're just like the painters. They're like all artists, they imitate images of goodness and other things, but they don't actually know anything about them. And that means they're a terrible place to look for guidance.
Glaucon:But if the poet's don't know anything, why does everyone listen to them?
Clif Mark:Because glaucon the people are just charmed by the meter and the rhythm and other poetic trends. poet's can use those techniques to make any subject sound good from making war to making shoes. But if you take what the poet actually says, if you take the actual thoughts behind the poems without all the fancy language, what are you left with? Not much, not much cloud con, a poet's thoughts without a poet's technique is like a boy who wasn't even cute to start with, and who also has lost the bloom of youth? Oh. According to Socrates, the poet's the wise in August cultural superstars of Athens are not inspired fountains of wisdom at all. They're ignorant fakers in their fans are too stupid to tell the difference. Socrates says that the poet's don't know anything about the things they write about. They're just taking popular opinion and dressing it up in fancy words. I don't know how this makes you feel. But I will tell you from experience, that this part of Republic upsets people. For whatever reason, when Socrates trashes art, it seems to get under their skin more than when he abolishes private property, or when he gets rid of the family. And I will admit, there are a lot of legitimate problems with the arguments that Socrates makes in the section. The first time I read it, I thought, What is he talking about? Why does he think Homer should have won wars? That's not the poet's job? Why is he talking about mirrors and paintings of shoemakers? And what does this all have to do with art? Art isn't like holding up a mirror to the world. So if you listen to that dialogue that we just did, and thought that Socrates sounded like a Philistine with bad arguments, you're not alone. There is lots of secondary literature on Plato, that picks apart this stuff bit by bit. But that's not what I'm going to do. Because I think that if we put aside all the weird arguments, there are still some really interesting thoughts at the core of Socrates his case against poetry. And that's what I want to try to explain. And the first one is just the pretty straightforward idea that there's a difference between showing things as they really are, and showing them as people think they are. For example, how do you cast a professor in a movie? Do you call the local university and tell them to send you the Prophet was the best publishing record? Or the best teaching reviews? No, you call a casting agency. And you ask them for a Dumbledore looking beard, man, you slap a tweed jacket on them, give them some glasses, hand them a pipe, and boom, a movie professor. In doing it that way, is actually much more effective. In a certain sense, your audience will recognize right away what you're trying to show them when you show them that man. If you do the other thing, if you call up the university and ask for the top academic in the department, your audience might not even recognize who the character is supposed to be. You might wind up with a young black woman who doesn't even wear glasses, let alone tweet. And while she might do great academic work, she's not visually going to ring that Professor bell in most people's minds. And this is actually just a weird and funny fact about art and representation. Sometimes the thing that best represents a thing to audiences is not the real actual thing, how it is in truth. It's something that evokes an idea of a thing that audiences already have in their heads. And this can create a problem if your audience has wrong ideas. Because to represent the thing, the artist has to use the audience's false opinion. And then that reinforces the false opinion. And that locks future artists into representing things in the same way. So all smart people are shown wearing glasses. every movie Arab is firing a gun into the sky. Every back alley is filled with muggers, all of your political opponents are evil or stupid. You see how it works? Art imitates ignorance, which then gets reinforced by art. And this sets up a feedback loop of ignorance. Think of culture like a house of mirrors with a pile of shit in the middle. And that pile of shit represents what's already in people's brains. This is one of the big recent critiques of media, especially social media. People get caught in ideological silos where they only have their own ideas reflected back at them, and they completely lose touch with reality. This is the first point that Socrates is making against Homer and the poet's. He's singing everyone in Greece. They're always saying that Homer is so wise, that the tragic poets are the teachers of virtue and the human condition and heroism. But that's all a big mistake, actually, says Socrates. All the poets are doing are taking what you already think and rewriting it in pretty verse. And when the people here at the start applauding and saying, Wow, that is so insightful. At the end, The dialogue that we just heard glaucon asked Socrates if the poet's really are as ignorant, as you say, if they're not giving anyone any new smart ideas. Why does anyone listen to them? Socrates says, it's just a matter of poetic tricks, rhythm, rhyme meter, the poet's are just putting plain thoughts into pretty phrases. But if you're at all interested in poetry or art, you may have balked at that because everyone knows that good. Poetry isn't good because it has pretty meter and rhythm. It's good because it touches us and moves us. And Socrates, he would agree. Good poetry is the poetry that moves us. And that's what makes it so dangerous, which is what he gets into in this next section.
Glaucon:Okay, okay, Socrates, the poets are imitators and imitators don't know anything about what they imitate their work is just some kind of game. That's right. Anything else?
Socrates:One more thing? Which part of the human being? Does limitation work on?
Glaucon:What do you mean? What part? Do you ever disagree with yourself? Okay, what are you talking about? Like,
Socrates:if you have a stick in your hand and it looks straight, then you stick it in some water and it looks better. Or when something that's concave, looks convex, or when things look bigger or smaller, just depending on the appearance.
Glaucon:Sure, our minds are full of kinds of confusion and weaknesses. And that's how optical illusions and magic tricks work.
Socrates:Right. And that is why we measure and we count. So we can find out how things actually are instead of just going by appearance,
Glaucon:of course. And this is disagreeing with yourself.
Socrates:One part of your soul, the rational part goes by measurement and calculation. Then there's the other part of the soul that disagrees with the rational part. That's the bad part of the soul. It gets things wrong, it's far from the truth, and nothing good comes out of it. And this bad part of the soul. That's the part that imitation appeals to.
Glaucon:Okay, so imitation is inferior, and it appeals to the inferior part of the soul. But what does this have to do with poetry?
Socrates:Everything Lacan, because imitation isn't just about optical illusions. Nobody cares about those. But poetry. Poetry is about the big questions. Poetry is about people taking action, whether those actions are good or bad, or free or unfree. And whether the actors enjoy them or not. And when it comes to this kind of thing, human beings are full of different feelings that all contradict each other in that fight against reason.
Glaucon:I think I know what you mean. But can you give me an example?
Socrates:Think of a man when something terrible happens, say he loses a son? How would you tell that man to act?
Glaucon:Well, I would tell him that even disasters may have a silver lining, that taking it hard, won't help anything. And that the best thing to do is to accept what happened, and to do what you can to make the best of your circumstance. And basically, to get on with your life.
Socrates:You tell him to suck it up and not cry like a baby? Pretty much Socrates. Good. Because that's how reasoning custom say we should act. And that's how any decent man would try to act. The only thing is that when he's alone, he might do and say things that he be ashamed to do in public.
Glaucon:So true.
Socrates:Why is that? Because there is a part of the soul in all of us that just loves wallowing in pain and suffering and crying. And this irrational and cowardly part of the soul might get the better of him sometimes. Right. And that's the problem with imitation. It's easier to imitate the bad part of the soul than the good part. You've seen plays about grieving, then, how do they show them on stage? Well, they
Glaucon:usually show them crying and lamenting. They make big sad speeches yell at the gods pull out their hair, stuff like that.
Socrates:Exactly. And that's just the kind of behavior that you or I would not recommend. But if you were to stage a play about a good man who follows your advice and stays calm and rational and time of grief, what would you show him doing?
Glaucon:I just show him being calm. I've never seen that before. Come to think of it.
Socrates:Of course you haven't. Because the good rational part of the soul is hard to imitate and boring to watch. If you put someone like that on stage, the audience probably won't even recognize what was going on. Know, if you want to be popular as a poet, you have to imitate the fretful emotional part of the soul. That's where poets are all naturally drawn. And that's It makes poetry so enjoyable. It gratifies the irrational part of the soul and it feels great. And that is why we should ban the poets.
Glaucon:Okay, sorry, Socrates, we're banning the poets because they're enjoyable.
Socrates:Because when they feed and gratify the bad part of the soul, they make it stronger, and they make reason weaker. And I'm not just talking about fools and children anymore, when even the best of us hear Homer or some other tragic poet, talking about a hero in mourning, and the hero is making long speeches and beating their breast, we can't help it. We just get drawn in, and we suffer along with the characters and we love it. And this is why everyone says that the very best poets are the ones who most have this effect on us. That's true. Yeah. And it's messed up. Because why would we praise a character who does the exact opposite of what we think we should do in the same situation? Things would be ashamed to be seen doing? Why aren't we disgusted and embarrassed by it? Why do we love it instead?
Glaucon:Yeah, that is strange. Why is that?
Socrates:Because glaucon there is a whiny little suck in all of our souls. And we spend our whole lives holding it down. But it's still in there. It is starving. For all the tears, we never let it cry, and all the complaining we never let it do. And that is what the poet is satisfying. Poetry is just a way of indulging the feelings and desires that we would never express in real life.
Glaucon:Okay, Socrates. But isn't it still just a poem? Can we just enjoy it?
Socrates:That's what everyone says. Everyone wants to just harmlessly enjoy poetry. But a few people understand that what they enjoy watching happen to others, carries over into their own lives, poetic imitation, feeds and waters all the irrational parts of us. It strengthens them until they take control of the entire soul, when they're the parts that really need to be controlled. And this isn't just about pity and sadness, the laughing part of our soul, the angry part, the horny part. Poetry feeds the mall, and it makes us worse people and more unhappy. It's the same as undermining a political regime by empowering the worst people to overthrow their betters.
Glaucon:I have to agree with you, Socrates.
Clif Mark:To me, this is where Socrates his argument about poetry gets personal. It goes right to the root of my relationship with culture and media, and even my emotions, and maybe a will for you, too. There are two basic parts to the argument. One, we evaluate poetry by how it makes us feel, we use non rational criteria to tell whether we like it or not, into indulging in this kind of enjoyment undermines the rule of reason in our souls. In another dialogue called the gorgous. Plato uses a metaphor that I always think of in this context, and it has to do with the difference between medicine and pastry baking. Philosophy says Socrates is like medicine. It takes a lot of knowledge. It knows what's good for people, and it has the power to make them better. But sometimes, taking your medicine is unpleasant. rhetoric, on the other hand, is like baking pastries. It's all about flattering the tastes of the audience, in the goriias. He's talking about rhetoric. But here he's saying the same kind of thing about poetry. And I like this metaphor, because food and eating is a case where I think it's obvious that what feels good on the tongue is often bad, from the point of view of our overall good. And a lot of people who make food think of almost every restaurant and junk food company in the world. They take people's taste buds as their sole guide, they don't care about nutrition. And that creates a dangerous situation. Because the natural sensorium that we have the fact that our brains respond to sweet and salty things that may lead us to make unhealthy decisions. If you rely only on your tastebuds in a world where PepsiCo and Nestle operate, you're probably going to eat yourself into a very early and wide grave. And this is analogous to our taste in Art Media. Think of it as a kind of emotional sweet tooth, a psychological palette that we all have that just naturally makes certain kinds of stories and art really satisfying to us. Not because they're true, but because they press some emotional button in our brain. You can probably think of examples of stuff that we might think of as pastry media or pastry art, things that are enjoyable, but probably not very edible. Find like soap operas, some kinds of reality television, video games, pornography. These things are entertainment as entertainment. The people who make them are just trying to give people what they like. So they come back for more. And I think porn is a good example. Because the people who make pornography are not usually trying to convey some deep truth about human experience. They're just trying to smash the horny buttons in people's brains. Does this kind of entertainment undermine the rule of reason? People say it does all the time. I've heard people say porn and video games can warp people's minds and change their outlook. But I've always been a little suspicious of these kinds of arguments. Because for Socrates, part of the reason tragic poetry is so dangerous, is because it's supposed to tell us the truth, it's supposed to be full of wisdom about how things actually are. But by and large, everyone knows that porn and violent video games in reality TV are fake. And I think that everyone knows something is not real. It's not quite as dangerous, as if they think that it is. If we take a step up from pure entertainment that is false on the face of it. We also have forms of art that are fictional, but still purport to tell us something true about the world, novels, prestige TV, when you want to film rather than a movie. All this kind of thing is closer to what tragic poetry was in ancient Athens. So how do people judge this kind of art? Socrates would say, and I would agree that people judge it by taste by their emotional response. Think how people describe their favorite films, great films are powerful stories are compelling or moving, they can really ring true. Or one of my favorites is when people say that something really resonated with them. Notice, all of these descriptors are about how movies made us feel, how we responded to them. There's no calculating or measuring or weighing. It's about our taste, not whether it truthfully represents the subject matter. Does this kind of art undermine the rule of reason in our souls, maybe when you watch a film that really affects you, or a novel that really connects with you, that can change the way you see the world change how you think and feel about other people. And that might all eventually affect how you act. Movies contain all sorts of ethical messages, implicit and explicit. love conquers all, families, the most important thing, there's only a thin blue line separating us from violent energy. People like to say that art contains truth. But what kind of truth is it? If we're going to be Socratic about it, we have to ask, what's your methodology? How do you decide whether to believe what art is telling you? Do you do any measuring or calculating with a reasonable part of your soul? Because if you don't, that sounds like maybe you're just going by your emotional, sweet tooth, instead of caring about what's actually true. And if that's the case, then maybe Socrates was right to say that the artist is just an imitator whose job it is to press your buttons, and not to accurately represent the world. And maybe you're in one of those ignorance feedback loops that we were talking about earlier. But worse, because now you're emotionally invested. So be careful with the novels you read in the movies you watch. Now, I want to take this argument one step further. Because if emotionally driven ignorance, feedback loops are a real problem. And if the kind of art that purports to be true, is more dangerous than the kind of art that is just obviously silly, then there may be a kind of imitative art that's more dangerous and corrupting than Hollywood, and Homer, and that is news media. Actually, most nonfiction media, news books, podcasts, essays, documentaries, lifestyle columns, celebrity fitness regimes, social media posts, whatever. Because this stuff, outright claims to be the truth. And what's worse, it's kind of where we have to look when we form a picture of the world. personal experience is very limited. And even how we frame and interpret our own personal experience depends in large part on our general worldview, that we pick up from these other places. And how do we choose what news and information to consume? How do we pick the building blocks of our entire mental world? Well, we choose it like we choose anything else, because we enjoy it. And just like porn is designed to smash the horny buttons in our brains. News can hit the buttons for fear and outrage and pride and so on. We find some story that really hits the spot, and we gobble it up and we ask for more. And this may not seem like a problem, enjoying a lurid news story may not seem so bad. But when we start believing in these stories that I think can undermine the rule of reason. Let's take a made up example of how factual reporting might do this. Imagine the first reporter on TV to report a child abduction. The world goes crazy for it. They love the story. There's breaking reports, 24 hour coverage, everything. And then the other news outlets, they tell their reporters, Hey, could you go look around and see if there's any good child abductions going on around here. And since everyone's looking, they find a lot more of them, they find really good ones. And they learn which details provide the best seasoning for the stories. White vans, the guy you never suspected sex abuse, captivity, spooky satanic angles. And these stories get popular, because for whatever reason, abducted children are really tasty to some part of the human brain. Of course, these stories are factual. They're not made up. But they're also empirically speaking, incredibly rare. Yet, if they're on the news all the time, and they're incredibly emotionally compelling. This can make people overestimate how frequent these child abductions are. They start seeing kidnappers everywhere. And soon enough, you have a satanic panic. And children are not allowed to walk home from school anymore. The rule of reason undermined by factual news media. Obviously, this critique isn't just about parents spectacular irrationality when it comes to their children. Lots of stories are like this. Ebola, shark attacks, street gangs, stranger murder, plain wrecks, anything to do with sex, terrorism, all of these things make wonderful sensational news stories, because they all hit common emotional hotspots. And because people watch these stories so much, they get scared of these things, even though they pose empirically speaking, almost no risk at all. The stuff that is actually going to kill you. cancer, diabetes, car accidents, heart attacks, nobody really worries about this stuff until they actually encounter it. And that's because the stuff in our lives, it's actually dangerous is boring. It makes bad news stories. The truth isn't as tasty. In fact, it's almost a rule of thumb that if something is on the news, it's probably not going to hurt you. I used a bunch of examples where fear was the salient emotion. But this isn't just about fear. Socrates mentions pity he mentions the spirited part of the soul which enjoys getting angry, he mentions the sexual part of the soul and the laughing part of the soul. Our entire emotional and aesthetic sensorium is in danger of leading us astray. When Socrates talks about imitation, or imitative art, he's talking about everything that's designed for our emotional gratification, rather than based on the truth. And the problem with this kind of art is it a panders to the irrational parts of the soul, it pumps them up. And that can undermine the rule of reason. And that is Socrates his basic attack on art. And I think it's worth considering, even if the whole mirror thing that he started with is a little bit silly. There's one more short little bit of dialogue that I want to do today, where Socrates talks about the ancient beef between poetry, and philosophy.
Socrates:In that case, when someone tells you that Homer is the poet who educated all of Greece, and that we should learn about virtue in politics, and how to run our whole lives from him, don't believe them. But don't be mad at them. They're doing their best. Let's be friendly. Let's give them a hug and agree that Homer is really the most poetic man. But the only poetry that we can allow into the city is hymns to God into virtuous men. Because if we allow the honeyed Muse in poetry, or song into the city, will be ruled by pleasure and pain instead of by custom and reason.
Glaucon:True, true.
Socrates:And I don't want anyone thinking that we're doing this because of the old beef between poetry and philosophy. I mean, you know what the poet say about philosophy? And what's that sock? They say? They say that philosophy is like a howling bitch that barks at our master. They see that philosophers think they know better than the gods, that it's all logic nonsense. I could go on.
Glaucon:And is that why we're banning them?
Socrates:No, no, no, of course not. We're banning them because the argument shows that they're bad for the city. And just to prove we're not doing it out of anger, if any supporters of poetry can explain why poetry is actually good for us, then we will welcome them all back because poetry is very enjoyable.
Glaucon:That would be great, actually.
Socrates:I know. But if they can't show that, we have to be careful, like men who fallen in love with someone who they know is bad for them, and have to force themselves to stay away even though it hurts Because as men and as Greeks, we have a natural love for this poetry. So when we hear it, you have to chant this argument to ourselves to help us resist falling back in love to protect the regime in our souls.
Glaucon:I'm with you, Socrates.
Socrates:I'm glad you agree glaucon. Because this is important, it's about becoming good or bad. We know we shouldn't be tempted by money or honor our power into ignoring virtue. And we shouldn't be tempted by poetry either.
Glaucon:Based on everything we've said, Socrates, I'm with you. And I think anyone else would be to
Clif Mark:what is the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy? Because nowadays, we usually put poetry and philosophy in the same category, kind of artsy kind of subjective University majors for people who are not serious about getting a job. So why would philosophy and poetry quarrel, they should be on the same side. And even if they did quarrel, who would care? I think philosophy and poetry could correlate each other to death these days, and nobody would really notice. So don't think about poetry and philosophy as nice academic subjects. In this context, in the Republic, think of them as entirely different ways of approaching the world. When Socrates talks about philosophy, he means something that we might today call science. It doesn't have to be modern empirical science. You don't need experiments. But you need some kind of methodology. Socrates talks about counting and calculating and measuring philosophical dialectic would count obviously, the point is that from the philosophical outlook, you need some kind of rationally justifiable grounds for believing the things that you believe you're not just feeling your way through it. Poetry is different. And it's the normal approach that most people take to life and to art. Things are about how it makes you feel. You appreciate art based on your intuition, your taste, you may not fully be able to explain why you like something, but you know that you like it. It gets under your skin, it moves you It connects with you in some way. Socrates, he says that poetry, it just panders to audience tastes like pastry chefs do. But the poets didn't see themselves this way. They thought they were doing big deal art. They believe they were inspired by the Muses who showed them important truths about men and about Gods. And their poetry was supposed to channel that and express it to the people know about the core. The poetic case against philosophy would go something like this. Poetry deals with the grand questions of humankind, what's good and bad, the nature of human happiness, the nature of the gods. These are all profound truths that only the genius can glimpse. And you can't just analyze most of the stuff. So when philosophers criticize poetry, they're like dogs barking at their masters. Because poetry is the true source of wisdom in the Socratic procedure of picking it apart logically, and asking so many questions. That's just petty. And it misses the point. It's like Spock watching Hamlet. But Captain revenge is illogical. The case of poetry against philosophy is that philosophy is too myopic to see the big picture. It's too focused on the trees to see the forest. Socrates, he presents the opposite side of the argument. He's saying, I know poetry feels good. I enjoy it as much as you do. But the problem is that people cannot get through the Iliad, without starting to think that it's real life. They read all these stories about Achilles screaming and crying and disobeying his king and desecrating bodies and fighting gods, and generally throwing the most epic tantrum in western civilization. And slowly, but surely, they start to think that this is a normal, incorrect way to act. It happens to everyone, we all get carried away by poetry, and it changes us. So unless you can prove that poetry isn't doing this, that it isn't warping our minds in this way. We don't want it. And that's the ancient quarrel. It's about whether we can trust our intuition and our gut and our heart. Or if we should rely on science and reason and calculation. And Socrates, he says, your gut is a liar. You need a methodology. The last point that I want to raise from this section is the idea of a bad romance with poetry. When Socrates says that we should be like men who've fell in love with someone who's bad for them. I think this is super interesting. Because when most people read book 10, they just think that Plato and Socrates hate art and want to ban it. But this metaphor suggests that Socrates is doing something different. Because glaucon and Socrates and all their friends, they're gonna go back to living in Athens after this conversation. And you and I, were going to go back into the endless online content generator, where there's infinite shit fighting for attention, and expensive robots designed by the best programmers with the support of black hat psychologists designed to capture our attention. Like the Athenians, we live in a world of pastry art. How are we supposed to live with that? The metaphor says, we should live like we have a toxic ex lurking around the neighborhood, we should be unconstant guard, because we know that our heart will lie to us, and send us back down the road that we know is bad for us. And this is a very alienating position. Because that means that if we want to be good people and follow reason, we have to start questioning all of our instincts. Every time we find something compelling or moving, or that we just love and feel is true and good. Socrates is saying we should stop and ask ourselves, why we believe in it, do some calculation and measurement, we have to ask whether our instincts are justifiable. In the light of reason, we need to replace taste and intuition with methodology, research the fact Behind The Meme, then share it, decide if a joke is morally wrong, then life, figure out rationally, if a potential partner is the best person for you, then allow yourself to love them. And that, if you have any experience being a human being is a miserable way to live. There is a solution to the problem with poetry that you may have already thought of. And that's just to make better poetry. Instead of making crappy, imitative poetry that just panders to our irrational desires. Maybe we can make good philosophical poetry that's really guided by the truth. What would that look like? The very last bit of the Republic, is Socrates telling glaucon, a mythical story of reincarnation, that's supposed to help them be just, and that's what we're talking about next time. In this book, Socrates makes the argument that beauty or virtue is related to the use or function of the thing. So the better something performs its function, the more beautiful it is. Now, you could definitely argue with this, but glaucon doesn't. And it seems to have been a fairly common idea in Athens at the time. And it comes up in a funny way, in a different dialogue. Xenophon, he was another author in Athens, who also wrote fanfic about Socrates. And in his symposium, Socrates is at a drinking party. He's talking to one of the hottest guys in all of Athens, a young man called christopoulos. And mutabilis. He's a bit of a hot right sky. He's talking about why he's proud of being good looking, and how it makes them a better person. And they've been all talking about how cute the higher dancers are. And katapola says, Socrates, you're ugly, any of these dancing boys or girls would rather kiss me than you? And Socrates says, I'm not ugly. I'm hot. And katapola says, Well, then let's have a beauty contest. You can give an argument to prove that you're hotter than me. And all the performance here can be the judges. And Socrates begins the question he says, christopoulos do you think that beauty is only in people? Or can other things be beautiful as well? Angkor tapa says, horses, oxen, inanimate objects, shields, spears, they can all be beautiful. And Socrates says, What do you mean? These are all totally different things. What makes them all beautiful? This is recruitable. This messes up. He says. Anything that is well made for its purpose is beautiful. He fell right into Socrates his trap? Because then Socrates says, Well, obviously my eyes are more beautiful than yours, because yours look straight ahead. But mine stick out so I can see sideways as well. Angkor topless is fine. What about your big snub nose? And Socrates says better to smell everything with your nostrils just point straight at the ground. And christopoulos says, I guess this means that your big mouth is better than mine too, because it's good for biting. And Socrates says, And don't you think my big lips could give a softer kiss? Metropolis says, alright, I give up. Let's put it to a vote. And every single one of the judges votes for Kitab lists because of how he looks. And then Socrates says that he must have bribed the judges.