The Republic

As we all know,The Republic is a book which is written by Plato but uses Socrates as the narrator of the whole story.It tells a story which happened after Socrates went to the Piraeus with Glaucon to offer up his prayers to the goddess.On his way back,he was invited by Polemarchus to his home,where Socrates had fierce debates with everyone and convinced them of his own beliefs of the republic.And I have observed such logical and beautiful debates by Socrates.In the following part of the article,I am going to discuss about my understanding of Socrates opinions.

The very first thing that we should understand is that the translation of the book title in Chinese is inaccurate.Early in that era,there is no concept of country in Greece.And we should always realize that all the concepts in Socrates ’  debates are customized to the time when he lives in,but still,what he believes and stands for are the origin and embryo of current concepts of countries governance and personal ethics and social ethics.And there still remains lots of things we can learn from reading this book.

Apart from his subtle and persuasive argument,we can also learn his ideas of ethics and his way of leading others to be persuaded in the first part of the book.It is common sense that the two most difficult things are either getting other ’  s money into your own pocket in a decent and just way or convincing others of your own thoughts and beliefs.And apparently,the image of Socrates that created by Plato is the one gifted with rare eloquence.After reading it,I can understand why the great minds in the ancient spread their wisdom and gained numerous followers.The great thing about debating is that it shows me that how different thoughts are generated.Just like the formation of thunder and lightning,the collisions of thoughts of two great minds can trigger the spark of creation.And it gives me a whole image of how the concepts of ethics were created and how the concepts of justice and injustice were defined.Thus it made me realize that the jobs Plato did were admirable.At the time in ancient Greece,there were no systematic concepts of what is the right thing to do.Social and personal ethics are new concepts that created by Plato,and which was a marvelous job that had been done just like the code of Hammurabi and the law of twelve tables.And it arouse people ’ s curiosity about what is right or wrong and what is ethical and what is beneficial to both ourselves and the society.It sets an example of how democracy should take place in Greek cities and of course in the latter empires and kingdoms.I should say that sometimes if we observe the creation of great thoughts at close range,we may understand these subtle thoughts more deeply and we may see the difference in the way of thinking between us and the great minds like Socrates and Plato.This makes us stay humble and give up our blindness and arrogance but still have the courage to question the authority whenever we feel like it.In this way,we may also learn the way how they think and talk and eventually absorb and learn from them.Take me as an example,I used to make assumption and judgement easily when I learn new things,but now I will only question the correctness after I have done further research of it.

The other reason I am fond of this book is that there are few limits in their discussion.I should interpret this situation as the result of the openness at that times.And the lack of limitation actually provides those debates and arguments with the safest environment so it allows the writer and us readers to reach out for the further and deeper understanding of the substance of the society we live in.He who broke the old traditions of moral beliefs by his words had founded new code of ethics among the ruins of the old ones.He challenged and defeated all those people who tended to break him down by the old traditions,the unclear and unfit old traditions that can not be apply to every situations.For example,he told a story of a shepherd who had found a golden ring that can turn him invisible and he ended up killing the king.And he also said that if there were two rings of this kind that give people the ability to be invisible.One was given to the just man and another was given to the unjust man.There is no guarantee that the just man will do the just things.It is an interesting thought to question the moral beliefs and the weight it weighs in people ’ s heart.We are told to do the right thing,be a good person.We can see there are superheros movies like Iron man,Captain American all over the world.There are movies about killers who killed many people for the right reason and he or she is actually good inside.And the religions all over the world serve the same purpose.They set rules and form beliefs to lead people to do the proper things.All those things are trying to keep us away from our inner evil.If we jump out and look the whole image,we may find out the terrifying fact that there seems to be no limitation against our will of doing bad things.And now we take a look at the concepts of ethics.We may understand that ethics serve the same purpose of religious beliefs but only it appears in a milder way.The sides it brings out of people are beneficial to the harmony and stability of the society.Therefore,this is the reason why there are inseparable connections between personal and social ethics.Admittedly,it always appears to be terrifying if something threatens the values and attitudes of ones own.We should never give up the chances of changing our opinions about the outer world.And the book has done a great job helping us achieving this goal.

In a nutshell,I believe that the most important function of a book is to give the readers a chance to recreate based on their understanding of the book.And it is also important to challenge the traditional beliefs every once in a while.

2020-07-01

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