Summary Of Socrates 'Perfect City'

We see Socrates putting forward his idea of “The Perfect City” in Book II. They discuss how different people have different tasks and jobs that they will perform. They say that no man should be doing anything else but his own job. They further establish that they would need the perfect soldiers, who will be called Guardians.

Book III deals with their discussion on educating these Guardians. It seems like they want the Guardians to be the perfect men. They hold an elaborate discussion about how to go about doing this. They discuss musical education, then they move on to diets and then to physical training.

There are some pretty smart ideas that are raised by the discussion. I, personally, disagree with the whole idea of such elaborate attempts of manufacturing the Guardians. As stated in my earlier papers, what makes humans humans, is their inherent virtue of non-conformity. Humans never like the idea that they have to conform to a particular set of rules. In Book III, the three men are doing nothing but making that set of rules which are bound to be violated by one or more of their perfect soldiers because they are humans after all.
We see him using Homer’s heroes as an example when he says in 404b-c, “You could learn that even from Homer. For you know that when his heroes are at war, he does not portray then banqueting on fish – even though they are by the sea in the Hellespont – or boiled meat but roasted meat only, which is the sort most easily available to soldiers. For it is pretty much always easier to use an open fire than to carry pots and pans around