In Book I of The Republic, Plato establishes a habit of isolating people, virtues, activities, and things into very narrow categories. For example if a leader takes good care of his people, he falls into the narrow category of “ruler.” But if he uses his power for personal gain, he is not (in that moment) a “ruler”; instead he falls into the category of “money-maker” or “criminal.” Following this logic, a true ruler, therefore, can never abuse his office for personal advantage, because the moment he does he ceases to be a ruler; a ruler, by definition, can never act unjustly. The very definition of ruler, in Plato’s eyes, is bound up with the act of providing care and comfort to the population, so any rulers who stray from that path are not rulers at all. Likewise a doctor ceases to be a doctor the moment he makes an error, or even the moment he contemplates how much to charge for his services (in that moment he is a money-maker).
The categories represent perfect ideals, so any deviation from the ideal behavior associated with that category immediately shifts the thing described into a different category. The main character of Republic, Socrates, asks his companions whom they would rather hire to construct their homes, a just home-builder or a skilled home-builder, and of course they select skilled. The category of “just man” needs to be in a separate category from “home-builder.” In a way, this is the first introduction (within The Republic) of Plato’s famous Theory of Forms, which plays a crucial role later in the dialogue. Basically there are a series of perfect ideals (called the Forms) that include justice, love, goodness, but also home-building, doctoring, and kingship. These ideals give meaning to the words we use to describe these things in the real world, even if in the real world the things described rarely if ever live up to the ideal. Our eternal soul remembers the Forms from a previous life, which is how we understand perfect concepts like justice; we understand justice even though we live in a world where one might never glance real justice even once in a lifetime. If it wasn’t for the existence of the Forms (and the soul’s memory of the Forms), we wouldn’t even know what justice means.
The problem is that the Forms aren’t real! If I state that a home-builder suddenly transforms into a money-changer the moment he accepts payment, I’m not stating some crucial fact about the real world; I’m actually just practicing word play. Humans invented the concepts of “home-builder” and “justice.” There is no eternal, divine, or perfect category called “home-building,” just as there is no eternal Form of perfect justice. These are both constructs. When we distill these definitions down into their purest forms, we manipulate avatars that stand for concepts we invented. We can change the definitions of words however we see fit! For example, one man might say the ideal king is a ruler who always puts the good of the collective ahead of the good of individuals, while another might believe a king is a man who wields absolute power and tolerates no challenge to his authority, while a third could state that a king is only a king if he successfully builds a massive web of patronage, or some other meaning. Picking just one “perfect” definition of king doesn’t tell us anything useful about real kings in the real world. So how can we base our real understandings of kings on a made-up fantasy version of so-called “ideal” kings? Think of the various ways that could warp human behavior, if the expectation is that all of mankind must conform to a particular man’s version of a make-believe ideal.
It becomes clear right away the danger inherent in constructing a political philosophy built on the premise that our institutions must, if we wish to have a just society, force human action to mirror the made-up Forms as closely as possible. Plato’s ideal society, which he meticulously constructs in Republic, is based on the notion that a truly just society is one where the rulers do everything in their power to attain the ideal, regardless of what the citizenry might desire. The ideal kings will rule as all-powerful philosophers from on high, the ideal soldiers will sacrifice everything for the Fatherland, the ideal workers will toil their lives away in silent acquiescence. Every man, regardless of his class, minds its own business, and focuses solely on his own work, the work that was assigned to him by fate. In a way such a society might be similar to a military theocracy: start with a warped construct that does not resemble the real world (in Plato’s case, the Forms; in Christianity’s case, an omnipotent and perfectly good diety), then construct an entire system of laws that enforces the orthodoxy of the ruling elite. How quickly an ideal society transforms into a dystopia.
Plato would even arm his kings with near totalitarian power in an effort to enforce the ideal upon the masses. This is by design: they will wield their power wisely because they are true “rulers” (ideal rulers who only make decisions that benefit the state). The rulers must not only live according to the Forms, but also strive to understand the Forms. Thus Plato decrees that it will be just and good for his philosopher kings to possess absolute power over culture, procreation, government, and society, because only the kings, as philosophers, understand what is truly good for the state. Likewise the soldiers who protect the city will live the ideal lives of perfect soldiers, and will be better for it. As children the only stories they will be allowed to hear are those which teach bravery at all costs and absolute obedience to the city, the gods, and one’s elders. Any story that portrays death as scary or tragic must be eliminated, so that soldiers will be fearless in combat and ambivalent about death. These soldiers will also be told the lie that they were literally born from the soil of their country, so that they will love their country the way sons love their fathers. Through such programs of indoctrination will the members of the soldiering class attain the ideal Form of “soldier.” As for the workers, they will attain their ideal categories as well. A builder must build and focus on nothing else. He will not even deviate from his career in order to be a father to his children; all children will be communally raised. Nor will the builder stray from his ideal path in order to act as a devoted husband; all wives will be held in common, so personal relationships need not get in the way of developing one’s singular talent. Thus will members of the lowest class achieve the ideal Form of “worker.” And just to make sure the workers don’t revolt, they will be taught from birth that they have “bronze souls” while the rulers have golden ones. So it seems the pathway to the Forms is paved with lies.
Here’s the situation: Plato uses concepts that do not really exist in the real world (such as perfect justice and perfect kingship) and makes them the bases upon which we are supposed to construct our systems of ethics and justice, our institutions, and our understanding of the real world. But at best the Forms are a fun-house mirror version of reality: the images are distorted and wrong, unnatural and grotesque. Real humans are multi-faceted. Human individuals tend to have multiple talents and (sometimes conflicting) ambitions. Humans want to be heard, to innovate, to challenge authority, to improve systems; Plato will have none of that. I wonder: how can Plato look at the multi-talented individuals surrounding him and preach that the ideal man is a creature who rigidly performs one single task throughout his entire life? How can Plato, who had the courage to question and challenge the political system of his own city of Athens (because he thought it was an unjust system), argue that the ideal citizen must remains unquestioningly obedient to his betters, content in his ignorance, proud of his powerlessness? How can Plato look at the beautiful diversity of the real world he lived in and argue that the government should use force, censorship, and deception to enforce closed-mindedness and rigid conformity?
Plato starts with his personal version of “ideal,” and forces the world to conform to it. He calls the ensuing dystopia an ideal polis. Along the way he argues that the definition of justice is when a man minds his own business, focuses on whatever Form corresponds to his life (whether its ruling, or soldiering, or ship-building, or doctoring, or laboring in the mines), and does not deviate from that path. So in the end, a just man (for Plato) means a man who adheres to Plato’s Forms. It goes without saying that if a person considers deceit, disenfranchisement of workers, censorship, and forced indoctrination to be unjust, Plato’s vision of a just world comes off as pretty unjust. One could even argue that the only way one could call it “just” with a straight face is to change the definition of justice to mean the dedication of one’s life to the unwavering pursuit of said Forms. In other words, only by practicing wordplay, by manipulating the definition of words, can we believe that such a society would be good for us. This isn’t so different from any religious fanatic whose definition of justice entails worshipping the deity of his choice; put that fanatic into a position of power, and he will soon call the censorship of art, the suppression of competing worldviews, the execution of political opponents, the indoctrination of the young, and the impoverishment of his people “just,” so long as the citizens worship the deity. Plato practices wordplay when he invents his categories, then he practices more wordplay to convince us these categories are just.
In the real world everything is a blend. Home-builders are just or unjust, and their skill level is not mutually exclusive or dependent on that first variable. Doctors do make errors in the real world, and they do not immediately cease to be doctors in that moment, unless one wishes to create a make-believe ideal for doctoring that no doctor on earth could ever even resemble. Rulers do use their power for personal gain, and they are still rulers when they do so because in the real world rulers do these things. To say that a thief cannot meet the definition of “ruler” is to manipulate the definition of a word, not to comment on how the real world operates. More importantly, when Plato constructs his perfect state, he believes his rulers will come so close to the ideal that he is willing to sacrifice art, poetry, freedom, democracy, individualism, and much more to attain that ideal. But this “ideal” ruler cannot co-exist with human nature, it can never be realized unless humans stop being human and start being divine. Rulers will steal and hoard power and manipulate their office for personal gain because that is something human rulers do. So why on earth would we sacrifice all of those precious things in life in order to attain the unattainable? This is the danger of creating a political program based on Forms: one who believes in such a program might be willing to sacrifice everything that makes life worth living, if it will help the society reach the ideal. Later utopian thinks like Lenin will go on to make the same mistaken argument: it is wise and just to sacrifice everything, including large swaths of the population if need be, in order to realize the ideal society where we can finally all live in peace and brotherhood.
Let’s not build political philosophy from figments of imagination, and certainly don’t be too eager to sacrifice all that is beautiful and free in order to live up to a fairy tale ideal. Instead allow the real world to shape the political program, and remember to cherish the qualities that make life worth living: art, love, freedom, questioning, innovation, diversity, upward mobility. If these factors don’t play a role in the “ideal” society, misery will ensue.