Plato's Republic

The Republic was the most difficult book I have ever read.  It took me two months of concerted effort to complete, and I feel as if new grooves had to be dug into my brain to get the job done.  Mostly I learned that my brain wants to vociferously resist any kind of improvement of this sort.  My eyes will water and my mouth will hinge into gaping yawns after two pages.  I had to read, and re-read, then re-read again, most of the entire book.  I apparently have the attention span of a gnat.  But the more I read, the more I was drawn in.  It is not a book one just reads; it must be studied and puzzled over, discussed and studied again.  It was a transformative experience.  Mediocre reads I had previously enjoyed seem exceptionally lame now, like I have been spoiled for them.

 

The Republic surprised me on many levels.  Many concepts that I thought came straight out of Catholicism actually had their basis in the philosophy of Socrates.  The cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, and the underpinnings of Catholic social justice teaching, were directly codified by Plato.  Who knew?  And though Socrates gave lip service to “the gods,” at times, he often seemed to unify them into just one.  Also, the story of “Er” while fully supporting reincarnation, definitely gives credence to an early form of Purgatory as well.  And this is all 400 years before the birth of Christ.

I found the portion discussing the various political states very illuminating.  Socrates’ explanation of why a meritocracy will devolve into an oligarchy, which will then devolve into democracy and finally into tyranny is almost chillingly prescient.  It was very odd to see any other form of government held up as being superior to democracy, but his reasoning, of course, is very sound, since he considers democracy a sort of mob-rule.  Surprisingly, Socrates also appears to have believed somewhat in the equality of the sexes, or at least, that exceptional woman could compete on a male playing field.

The Republic is worth all the effort it took to absorb.  I understand now why it is considered a foundational work in the western literary cannon.  It is amazing that so much well-reasoned thought came from a single source.  We are lucky that it has survived, when so many other works perished.  The world would be a completely different place if everyone read Plato; it certainly deserves a place on every classicist’s short list.

Spin Review of The Known World

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

The Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 2004, set in the years prior to the Civil War in fictional Manchester County, Virginia, describes the rich tapestry of characters and events that take place after the death of black slave owner, Henry Townsend.  Purchased out of slavery during his youth by his parents, Townsend goes on to later purchase land near his former master, with whom he retains ties of esteem throughout his entire brief life.  Educated by a local freed-woman teacher so light-skinned she could go north to “pass,” Townsend does not follow the path of his free father, but rather purchases slaves to become a master himself.

Throughout the novel, Jones unflinchingly reveals the little known history of black on black slave ownership, as well as the subtle racism of lighter skinned versus darker skinned blacks.  Townsend’s widow, Caldonia, is beset by the pressures of running a plantation in the antebellum south, without the full backing of the law, which only supports freed blacks when it is convenient to do so.  Jones’ depiction of the lives of the Townsend slaves, as well as those of the local sheriff and slave catchers, creates a compelling tale that masterfully weaves in and out of time and place with touches of the surreal.  Things do not always develop as one might expect in Manchester County, some people are better than you would think, and others behave very badly indeed, and sometimes the crazy are proved to understand it best of all.

Plato's "Crito"

Plato’s “Apology” and “Crito” are nearly always assigned to be read together, which makes perfect sense because they are so closely related. In “Apology,” Socrates gets sentenced to death; and in “Crito,” Socrates’ buddy, Crito, tries to convince Socrates to fly the coop before the sentence can be carried out.  There is no time to lose, since the ship from Delos has arrived, signaling that Socrates will be put to death very soon.

Socrates is reluctant to flee his own doom, but he agrees to listen to Crito, and to put to the test his arguments in favor of escape.  Crito loves Socrates, and he fears that others will believe the disgraceful idea that he would not spare the money to save Socrates’ life.  He points out that Socrates is deserting his own children, and appears to be taking the easy way out.  Crito is also concerned that Socrates fears that anyone who helps him to escape will get into trouble with the authorities, which they both agree is a possibility.

Socrates argues that the fear of what others will think should not be a consideration because the “doctrines of the multitude” are invalid, and only the opinion of the one person with complete understanding should actually be consulted.

Crito further argues that the law that condemns Socrates is unjust and should not be upheld; however, Socrates is concerned that in leaving the prison he is doing wrong against the state.  Socrates contends that he should value and obey the state which “nurtured and educated” him above even his mother and father.  He rightly points out that he had every opportunity to leave the state during his lifetime, and was even offered exile as a possible punishment during the trial, but categorically refused.  Furthermore, why would any decent state welcome a known felon such as himself?

In the end, Socrates decides that he would prefer to “depart (the world) in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws but of men.”  He tells Crito, “Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below.”

Fifty Books in Five Years

Here is the list of fifty books I would like to read in the next five years, specifically by November 3rd, 2020:

The Iliad by Homer, 179 pp., c. 1184 BC The Odyssey by Homer, 140 pp., c. 1184 BC "The Book of Job", 28 pp., c. 550 BC "Prometheus Bound" by Aeschylus, 14 pp., c. 480 BC "Oedipus the King" & "Antigone", c. 441 BC "Medea", "Electra", "The Orestes", "Andromache" & "Iphigenia Among the Tauri", c. 431 BC "The Clouds", "The Birds", "The Frogs" & "The Lysistrata" by Aristophanes c. 411 BC The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, 244 pp., c. 400 BC "The Apology" & "Crito" by Plato, 20 pp., c. 380 BC The Republic by Plato, 147 pp., c. 360 BC Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, 329 pp., c. 340 BC The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements by Euclid, 396 pp., c. 300 BC The Aeneid by Virgil, 379 pp., c. 19 BC The Lives of the Noble Grecians & Romans by Plutarch, 876 pp., c. 96 AD The Annals by Tacitus, 188 pp., c. 109 AD The Confessions by St. Augustine, 128 pp., 398 AD The Divine Comedy by Dante, 157 pp., 1472  The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, 196 pp., 1475 The Prince by Machiavelli, 38 pp., 1532 Leviathan by Hobbes, 244 pp., 1658 The Essays by Montaigne, 543 pp., 1580 King Henry the Fourth by Shakespeare, 69 pp., 1596 King Lear by Shakespeare, 1608 Macbeth by Shakespeare, 1623 Paradise Lost by Milton, 242 pp.,  1667 Pensees by Pascal, 184 pp., 1670 Concerning Civil Government by Locke, 60 pp., 1689 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by Hume, 58 pp., 1748 The Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu, 322 pp., 1748 The Social Contract by Rousseau, 52 pp., 1762 The Science of Right and The Critique of Pure Reason by Kant, 330 pp., 1781 Faust by Goethe, 294 pp., 1808 Philosophy of Right by Hegel, 152 pp., 1820 The Essays of Emerson, 262 pp., 1841 Madame Bovary by Flaubert, 348 pp., 1856 Barchester Towers by Trollope, 476 pp., 1857 On Liberty by Mill, 60 pp., 1859 Middlemarch by Elliot, 831 pp., 1871 Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, 935 pp., 1875 Sons and Lovers by Lawrence, 366 pp., 1913 Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf, 194 pp., 1925 Civilization and Its Discontents by Freud, 40 pp., 1930 My Life and Hard Times by Thurber, 253 pp., 1933 Brave New World by Huxley, 237 pp., 1932 Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, 454 pp., 1939 The Reivers by Faulkner, 305 pp, 1962 The Sea The Sea by Murdock, 495 pp, 1978 Vernon God Little by Pierre, 277 pp., 2003 The Known World by Jones, 388 pp., 2003 The Sea by Banville, 195 pp., 2005