Friday, September 18, 2009
Smackdown: Socrates vs. Homer
Plato (through the mouthpiece of Socrates) criticizes certain traits in Homer (and other poets) work. Is there any truth to his criticisms? Or are his proposals examples of unjustified censorship? Should poetry or literature ever be repressed under any circumstance to any audience?
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Plato's outlook on poetry is rather simple, poets like Homer do not write the truth. This is something that Plato sees as destroying the community because it leaves the mind corrupt. His argument that the portraying of God as something other them himself makes him not perfect, because if he was perfect why then would he need to change? This concept is justified but who is Plato to say what God can and cannot be? The idea that the reading of such poetry that contains this blasphemy should not be read out loud is rather ludicrous. In my opinion a person who is moral and reading something that is immoral will not be swayed if they are truly moral. This can be tied into one of his four virtues, self discipline, if one allows the mind to be corrupt by words of another then they are bound to be immoral. In the end I think that Plato is just salty because at the time no one was memorizing his writings like that of Homers.
ReplyDeletePlato is mostly justified in censoring the works of Homer because the poet does portray scenes and actions that aren't conducive to a healthy society. When training the young guardians of a community, they shouldn't be exposed to any idea that is contradictory to what is best for that community. Their young minds are like sponges sucking up all the information they can carry, and we do not want them to be influenced by unhealthy ideas.
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting question to ask whether literature or poetry should ever be censored and the answer comes in parts. If you are truly capable of Socrates' perfect community, then the censorship is needed to maintain that status throughout the generations.
But, if you're living in one of our imperfect societies today, the answer is slightly more complicated. At a younger age, people shouldn't be exposed to the material because they might not be able to discern it from standard moral values. But later on in life, when they have a firm sense of those morals, they can read poetry and literature that has been banned because they can understand that it is only entertainment and not truth. Until they can understand the difference, then the material should be censored.
All censorship is anti-intellectual, and therefore unjust. Introducing censorship to the moral lexicon is deleterious not only to the youth, but it would likely give way to a popular vocabulary tantamount to George Orwell's "Newspeak" ("the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year").
ReplyDelete(An actual response to Plato will follow afterwards....I'm tired).