The Republic
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Nick Riddle
WR121
The Republic
In “The Republic” Plato writes about his views about the wrongs of politics and his views on how to improve upon them. He writes his ideas on how to stomp corruption in both the political world, and then the military world. In his ideas Plato states that to be truly perfect, politicians should be philosophers or philosophers should be politicians. That dream world Plato lived in gets even better when Plato suggests that that politicians should be trained and tested from childhood. Tests that would reveal who is more open to corruption and who is not. Then Plato goes into detail about soldiers, who should all be bunked together, given minimal amounts of money, and watched closely. The idea here is to keep an eye on corruption among the military as well.
Plato uses metals as metaphors to class people. In simple terms, he classes gold citizens as the rich and powerful, silver citizens as middle class, and finally bronze as the working class, or the poor. Plato does make a good point saying that these classes arent earned or proven, they are usually inherited. He makes the point that despite that one would have the intelligence, or the capabilities of a gold, he cant do his talents any good for his society because his is born of a bronze family. Plato proposes to keep every person in his ideas of training camps, to teach, and tell these people that they are all on a single plane. No one better, no one worse.
I will say that these ideas are nice, and Platos heart was in a good place for the well fare for his people. But Plato has never been in the military, and unless my history is a little rusty then he was not ever involved with politics except for his occasional squabbles. I was in the military, and yes I even had to deal with politicians. I care for the welfare for my fellow Americans and my actions in my past will always speak for that fact. I went to war, I made sacrifices, I have gained the wisdom that Plato holds so highly on himself about this very subject. And I say there is no way that we can ever get rid of corruption in any man, as even the bible says that every man has, does, and ALWAYS will carry sin. To suggest otherwise is unrealistic.
Corruption, first and foremost, is just a bigger word for greed. And greed comes in many different forms. Greed for money, greed for sex, greed for power, greed for factional dominance, greed for laziness. All leaders, and those considered some of the most influential men of our history has carried at least one form. For example, John F. Kennedy, considered probably one of the best leaders of the last fifty years, was known for his adultery. Who can forget the rumors and stories with Marilyn Monroe. Bill Clinton