Plato the Republic
Kenshara Cravens
Professor James Couch
English 132
24 February 2012
The Republic
Art has always been controversial in a society because of the many different ways the artist tends to express themselves. Plato, who helped lay the foundation for western culture, saw the problems in art over 2,000 years ago. Plato’s The Republic is a series of books that discusses the republic that Plato is trying to create. In each book Plato touches on different topics dealing with the art, that he feels effect society then. Today, some of the points that Plato argue can still be argued. Plato looks only at the negative effects that art can have, rather than the positive effects.
In Book II, Plato focuses on fictitious stories told to children while their growing up. Plato’s first plan is to “create a censorship of the writers of fiction” (Plato 13). The job of these people will be to pick which stories are “good “and which stories are “bad”. For some people, books like Harry Potter are good and for others it is bad. The point is that one person’s definition of one thing might be the antithesis of another person’s definition. The censorship of writers can be both useful and not useful. The censorship of writers can be useful, because it might keep certain arts out of the child’s hand. It could be not useful because, the parent will make the ultimate decision if the child will hear or read the story. The next point is what makes the people chosen qualified to select what the children should hear, or not. Once again, it brings up the point of people having their own definition of good and bad. In society today, there are ratings to television shows and movies. Some are not rated for children but in the end the parent makes the decision on what the child is allowed to watch. So instead of having a censorship committee, he should educate the parents more. Plato then goes to talk about the effects of letting children hear tales by saying “and shall we just carelessly allow
Professor James Couch
English 132
24 February 2012
The Republic
Art has always been controversial in a society because of the many different ways the artist tends to express themselves. Plato, who helped lay the foundation for western culture, saw the problems in art over 2,000 years ago. Plato’s The Republic is a series of books that discusses the republic that Plato is trying to create. In each book Plato touches on different topics dealing with the art, that he feels effect society then. Today, some of the points that Plato argue can still be argued. Plato looks only at the negative effects that art can have, rather than the positive effects.
In Book II, Plato focuses on fictitious stories told to children while their growing up. Plato’s first plan is to “create a censorship of the writers of fiction” (Plato 13). The job of these people will be to pick which stories are “good “and which stories are “bad”. For some people, books like Harry Potter are good and for others it is bad. The point is that one person’s definition of one thing might be the antithesis of another person’s definition. The censorship of writers can be both useful and not useful. The censorship of writers can be useful, because it might keep certain arts out of the child’s hand. It could be not useful because, the parent will make the ultimate decision if the child will hear or read the story. The next point is what makes the people chosen qualified to select what the children should hear, or not. Once again, it brings up the point of people having their own definition of good and bad. In society today, there are ratings to television shows and movies. Some are not rated for children but in the end the parent makes the decision on what the child is allowed to watch. So instead of having a censorship committee, he should educate the parents more. Plato then goes to talk about the effects of letting children hear tales by saying “and shall we just carelessly allow