Plato's Republic Book IV Through 429b

Welcome back to the new thing. My name is David Barr with me as always. My good friend Alex, are you doing Alex? I'm doing well.

How are you? I'm well feeling frisky, feeling like I should say hi to Greg McBrayer. How are you Greg? I'm fine, but I want to hear more about this frisk.

Well, that's because I saw you in a tight shirt, Greg. And I know you're not a year older than 73, but man, you're really in good shape. Not bad for 73, huh? I'm a little out of the 64 year old.

Yeah. You're only as old as the person you feel. You're the what? What?

You're only as old as you feel. You're the person you feel. What? Who do you feel?

That's on Greg. Who's on first? I mean, the real news here is that Greg is feeling feeling a person. Yeah.

I keep my livestock or other than a boat. He's very proud. He's only as old as the cheesy. Yeah, or the cheesy.

He constantly you're lonely. But you guys are telling me, can I put you guys on the spot? Because we were talking getting ready for the show. You were talking about David, you were doing some chores for the wife.

Yep. Alex was about this too. Alex was about this too. I was installing a car seat.

So our youngest just turned one and he out grew whenever contraption he was in. Now I have three kids. We've gone through so many car seats. People give us car seats, which is fairly a no-no.

But that's just old. You're not even like once they're used, they're done. Correct. Good to know.

Yeah. Oh, by the way, this reminds me also of a funny time with Alex. I can't remember which kid was on the scene at the time, but I had to go purchase something at a store called Bye Bye Baby. Alex pointed out what a horrible name this was.

This is a store called Bye Bye Baby. Yeah, B-U-I. Oh, oh. Yeah, but Alex pointed out something that I just totally glossed over.

Like a miscarriage place or something like this. Yeah. Yeah. She's terrible.

We walked in the store a lot. You've got a car seat. Now car seats are a devil to install, depending on your automobile. So give a link in, and of course that car is designed for geriatrics.

So like, it's really hard to align the Bastog. The hooks and stuff. And so you get to this point, scenario in SUV, you get to this point where the car seats supposed to be so stable that you can't shift it left to right more than half an inch. But that's what they say.

Now, since I've three kids from one perspective, some of them are commendable, because, you know, I got another one. A lot of the eyelids shift three or four inches, which is really dangerous and not recommended by the CDC. and it turns out Alex does something similar. I'm very responsible with my children.

My car seat is firmly fastened. But I feel like the kids like it when they shift around and things bounce around. How you go with bumps and off road and the kids like. If he was also, you get into a massive car accident, the baby's gonna die.

It's gonna die. Watch theory. No, no, no, no, no, no, I don't need that in a joking way. I mean, they're little brains.

I think about this all the time, so I drive very carefully. The kids are gone. I think the idea is that the car seat is anchored well, it'll stay in place, right? And then, but if it's not anchored well, the piece is gonna fly everywhere.

Yeah, they're little necks get all broken and stuff. But I understand the science, Alex. Well, I hope the folks at home are really inside. Well, I mean, on the subject of child abuse, this is another episode in Glidders Republic.

Oh, yeah. What's the, what's the, segue way? Well, they are not very nice to the children. Babies and children.

Okay, there's a car seat back there. They follow the McBrayer method, patent pending. What's that? No children?

No, lotteries. No, oh, oh, oh, oh, God. You're stuffed with animals. Fair enough.

Yeah, so we're supposed to do the Republic kind of sequentially. And then Alex does this cowboy. He calls us on Tuesday. He's like, hey, we're doing, we're doing book for tomorrow.

Yeah. And we're like, no, and he's like, shut up. He's like, no, no, no. Yeah, he's like, oh, he's right at nine o'clock.

Be ready. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, I don't know what that means. I'm not a bull.

He senses this to run a show which is clearly like he's thought. We're bringing up a, the run a show is like Greg deal with it. Sorry, sorry. I asked, I asked these like five times a day.

What do you want to do? Let's plan this. And then after his radio silence, David, because I assume there's just so much debris from his hot dog eating on his phone that he can't see this. What's your life worth to be here?

Greg's memory is now just dog. Sorry, I don't know if that is not very nice Adam. But yeah, no, so I eventually, it's true. I did just say we're doing this.

Let's just do it. But I wanted to do either. Yes, an article, so and I thought let's do the shorter passage. Plus I think there's a lot going on at the beginning of the book for that's really fascinating and often not appreciated because, well, it comes after the line.

It's before the account of the just soul. And I think it gets a little bit lost in the next one people. So I know the greatest hits of the Republic. It is a digression, mini digression within the work.

So maybe we can just start by setting it up by talking about why the subject of, well, the question is, is are the people in the city and speech happy? Can you just say it on? Is that first? Yeah, that's what I was going to do.

Yeah. So, okay, where are we? What's happened? Two through three Socrates and Glaucon and I, Mantis have begun building a city in speech there, designing it, talking about it.

That's not very stable. No, it's not being a defermer foundation in speech. I think it's probably more stable in speech that it would be indeed. Fair enough.

So, I'm not trying to derail you so much. I thought that it was a good point. It's interesting. It's late and I'm tired.

Yeah. So they're building the city in speech. And a lot of the discussion in books two and three has focused on their education. Right.

And by the end of book three, we did an episode on the Noble Library, which comes up at the end of book three. By the end of book three, Glaucon seems really enamored with the city. Right. It's initially objected saying, I want to see luxuries in the city.

Socrates replaces the sort of beauty of opulence and decadence with the beauty of military virtue. And I think that really appeals to Glaucon, who has distinguished himself in battle, and who sees in these guardian class a more perfect version of himself of what he might be if he didn't live in corrupted Athens. Right. This sort of completes that sort of building of the city and speech it seems.

And it looks like they can turn to talk about, okay, we're satisfied with the city. You seem to be pleased with Glaucon, where is happiness in the city? Right. Why are these people happy?

Right. And what is makes the just soul a happy soul? But then, I demand to subject to the beauty of book four and says, I don't know Socrates. I don't think the people in the city are happy.

As Socrates has to take a step back and argue that they will be happy and indeed will be safe, right, over and against other sort of political possibilities. I think the remarkable thing about this objection is that it does not seem like the kind of objection you would initially think I demand to see far more austere and moderate. And in many ways, the city and speech, it structures owed to I demand to society. He's willing to cut back on all the sort of pleasures in the lights that Glaucon introduced, right.

Yet at the beginning of book four, he gives a kind of Glaucon like objection and says, wait, but they don't have private money. They can't spend their money on seducing people, right. They can't enjoy any of the gold or wealth. And in fact, it's just left for the lower classes.

These people who seem to most of all be in charge of the city seem least to enjoy all the benefits of it. How can they be happy? That's where book four starts. And I think it's a really important passage for understanding Glaucon.

I'm sorry, I demand just this character. I think we learned something about it. Yeah, I just want to point out that he begins before, I just was saying, how would you defend yourself if somewhere was saying the following the following law? So this defend yourself or how would you make your apology?

I mean, this is obviously a really loaded term for Plato because as Al Bloom points out in his interpretive essay, he thinks that the Republic is basically Socrates's shoe of all of your is defensive self. So how would you defend yourself against the story? What translation are you using? I'm using the benchmark by far the most superior translation of the otherwise.

Yeah, I'm just looking at the manuscript I have. So I'm just saying that you guys are looking at translations. That's fine. Yeah, we're all using the bloom.

We're all using the bloom. Very good. There's no love for sex. I like the sex.

I still think of Bloom as it's just the best and I'm familiar with it. I mean, the notes alone are like the notes alone are fantastic. Like a great resource for me. Yeah.

Can I tell us the story right now? We can just cut it off really. No, no. Go for it about sex.

So what's the first name is for sex? Joe. Joe sex. Anyway, well, there's a funny story about Alex and sex, but that aside, it was in class with Butterworth.

He was teaching the repu- Oh no, the sex translation of the Republic had just dropped. And I noticed that Charles had blurb the back, only in an excellent translation. And I said, oh, Charles, that's really high praise. And when I saw you had blurb, did I purchase the book?

What's so excellent about this? He goes, I don't know Mr. Bar. We'll have to see during this on the Republic.

We'll check out the book. It's funny. I'm not saying no. I'm not going to name the book, but I'll show it to you guys.

Butterworth blurved another book. Oh, yeah. And I was like, oh, I didn't realize you read that language. He's like, I don't.

So that's the story with Blurb's. Isn't that great? Blurb's worth the money there. The cost.

Oh, man. I'm really impressed with like, Bengal and all those guys blurping Alex. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. That's her fault. So it's going to ask me, it didn't ask his friend. Yeah.

I didn't ask anybody. My editor did. Yeah. Can I point out, like, to get back to this extra moment if you want to?

Now I'm wondering if anybody blurved my book. Anyway, Socrates immediately amps the charges up. Greg, no, you wrote a review of it. Yeah.

And the very last, and it was great. Thank you. I appreciate it. And it was in the very vast, very last issue of the Weekly Standards.

So I'm pretty sure that that killed that magazine. I also review of Xenophon. Yeah. Yeah.

But Socrates, so after Edomantis has this charge, how would you defend yourself if someone said that our warriors aren't happy, that they don't possess lands, they don't have houses, they don't have anything else, they can't make sacrifices, they can't attain foreigners, blah, blah, blah, this laundry list of things. Sartis sort of rants that he amps it up. Excuse me. He says, yeah, not only that, they all they get his food.

So he sort of, he doesn't begin by defending himself. He begins by making the chart, heightening the charges, as it were, as if to sort of give credence to what Edomantis is saying. But in fact, yeah, our citizens won't be, are these particular citizens, the warriors, the young sailors don't be happy? Yeah.

And if I could add to that, another thing he does, and this other thing shows that maybe Edomantis's heart isn't completely in, it starts off with him saying, what would your apology be, Socrates? And then at the very, at 420b, that's the 420b, 420b, he says, you ask what our apology will be then? He says, and Edomantis says yes. So Edomantis says, or apology, I don't believe he gives someone word to say this, right?

So this is a move that Edomantis does a few times. He often distances himself from the objections using an anonymous interlocutor, which I take always to be assigned that he's somewhat inclined to this objection, but not wholly convinced. But it speaks to the sort of division, but ultimately he is on Socrates side, and probably, why can't they just be a nice rhetorical thing? What if someone were to say that that's just a good way to, you know, the person is not immediately undefensive?

It is, I think, sort of softening of that. But he does it a few times. He does it in his big speech in book two, where he sets up a sort of hypothetical dialogue that it turns out, I think, is just a conversation he's had with Glaucon before. And then he finally puts himself sort of in Glaucon's camp, sort of besieging Socrates for help.

He does it here in his objection before. He does it again in book six. He's often, I kind of view him as a little bit passive aggressive. So I think you're right, that is a kind of a torquo trick, but it's a way of not being completely overt with his criticisms, right?

I mean, the one in book six, he's like, what would you say, Socrates, if someone thought your arguments are kind of trash, like this basically what he said. But he's like, you just kind of add like little things. And I guess we agree, because we reached the conclusion, but I just am not persuaded, right? What would you think of someone were to say this?

It's like, well, there is someone saying, it's you out of it. So I think it's, it's, it's, it's to soften it, but I think it's also a touch of shame. He doesn't want to be associated with the person who just wants money to spend it on sort of sexual favors on their own back because I think he does have those desires. Yeah, I think he does really.

Are you getting the sexual favors? Am I, you got a different translation? He says a 420 a, No gifts, give gifts to a lady companions. Okay.

All right. Oh, he's talking about, right? I just thought he meant she is. Well, I mean, that works in Ohio, I think.

You want to go, right? Or if you're down with mice. Okay. I mean, no, sorry, what?

Nothing. Nothing. No, not that. Oh my God.

All right. So, all right. So I think one thing that always jumps out to me in stock, so he gives, so I think it's a long speech, which you probably can't go through in all that much detail. But it's at least hit some highlights here.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But one thing that jumps out to me is just how quickly he went inside and into his back. I'm not convinced by this.

I mean, the argument as far as I think is that, well, everybody's, the city as a whole is happy. Well, every person in the city has that degree of happiness that's fitting for that, or that they're suited to by nature. It's somewhat difficult. I mean, the argument is that, oh, we're not looking at the happiness at any individual part.

We're looking at the happiness the whole, right? But it's hard to think about what would it mean if the whole were happy if the part, if each part is unhappy in what respect can we actually speak of happiness and whole? I mean, there's some things I suppose like, I don't know, I guess chlorine is dangerous. Is sodium dangerous?

No, sodium is fine. But sodium is dangerous. Is sodium is dangerous? Is sodium is also dangerous?

Yeah. OK. So then like, you know, like what do we say that chlorine and sodium are not dangerous? I mean, maybe it does work actually.

I guess the non dangerous things come together. And the overall thing is healthy, salt and moderation is healthy. I guess it's possible. It just doesn't seem to make sense here to me.

If everyone in the city is miserable, it's what extent can we speak of the happiness and whole? He gives us an example of that. I know you don't want to dwell this much. But the statue, right?

Isn't that what he says here? How could you blame someone at the eyes where this and the other parts of the statue were that? Wouldn't he put the fairest colors on the fairs part? The animal for the eyes wouldn't seem to make a sense of apology to him by saying, you're surprising, man, don't suppose we're going to paint the eyes fair so they don't look like eyes and see if the other parts would observe whether we're trying to make the whole fair.

There seems to be something not quite right about the statue as a model for human happiness. Is it the model for the individual human being? Is the model for the city? And of course, we can't probably forget that there are other statues images.

There's the mythic, or the mythic, mythic, the other mythic, the green guysies. And then isn't there one later on? Is there another statue you think later on? Blalkus?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. This example also comes up in the hippies major about the beautiful, where the whole is beautiful while the parts might not be, right? So it might seem like the example there is is of the statue of gray eye to theta, right? The eye is going to be gray, a kind of simple stone.

And that makes it a beautiful representation of Athena. Yet the eye, right, taken on its own is very dull, right? It's very ordinary. Taking that image here, it would be in a way similar, right?

You're just ordinary, you're dull. Nothing is impressive about you, but you're only impressive or only beautiful by virtue of the whole, of which you are a part, right? And I mean, in a way, when he goes to the regime decline and he books eight and nine, when you see the city and see each falling apart, when the city decays, the guardians look like kind of outdated, funny, that he's who can't manage their own business, right? They made the city to be excellent.

Otherwise, they're just sort of misguided, right? About the way things actually work in the community. Yeah. Anyways, I mean, I think this appeals, this argument appeals to item antist, because he, I think one of his major criticisms of Athenian democracy is it's out of control desires, right?

That it doesn't know how to be moderate in its desires. He has great wealth and wealth is useful for many things, but he's kind of squandered on useless things. So when he finally concludes, with the entire city growing thus and being beautifully founded, we must let nature assign to each of the groups its share of happiness. It might not be everything you hoped for, but it's the happiness that's fitting for you in order for the city to function beautifully, right?

To be founded in a beautiful way. Yeah, I mean, Adam Antis has persuaded you seem to me to speak finally, although if he is very clever, I mean, that is maybe not necessarily persuaded. That was a nice beautiful answer you gave Socrates. Yeah, and I think he does push back.

I mean, one of the things interesting is that he makes, this is the first of three objections. The second two are made in his own name. And I think they reveal ways in which he's not entirely persuaded that this is the happiest city, right? I mean, Sir Socrates goes on and he says, yeah, I know you thought that the guardians would be poor and other people have money.

In fact, nobody's gonna be that wealthy, right? Luxury is bad as poverty, right? Both lead to race as well. Luxury produces idleness and innovation, while poverty produces illiberality and wrongdoing as well as innovation.

You're forced to go outside, ordinary order things. So it's important things be very lean, right? But not so lean that it's that it's initiated, right? That's sort of finally answer the question of wealth.

And this leads Adam Antis to make a second objection. He says most of this is that 422 a. 422 a. Yeah.

He says most certainly, however, Socrates consider this. So real quick, so if we're poor, we don't have money, then how will we do this? Okay, go ahead. If we're just like, just kind of in a lean but healthy state, he says, however, sorry, he's considered this, how will our city be able to make war when it possesses no money, especially if it's compelled to make war against a wealthy one?

Now when I see a wealthy one there, I think Athens, right? Prove to me here that this city in speech is superior to Athens in war, right? And this might be a very compelling reason to favor Athenian imperialism, right? Or Athenian democracy.

Yeah, it might have its defects and it might not be as morally excellent. But look, you gotta be afraid of who's gonna attack you, right? So it might be preferable to live in a wealthy, decaying democracy and just try to control the disease as best as possible than to live in the city. And so this is why I think this passage is still where we're going for it, as you go through it, I think you see Socrates slowly win item and just hold on.

What's his answer? Hold on, what's his answer? So we're small, we're leaning, we don't have any money, how are we actually gonna survive against all these other cities out there in the world? How is little O'Brey and Brier gonna survive against the Alex for you and the David Barrs of the world?

Well, you're like a lean boxer, we're too big fat boxers. Yeah, okay. So we have a lot of women, naturally. I'm just throwing that in there.

So how am I, but I mean, like you guys, there's, you guys have a lot more money, how are you gonna, come on. Persuade me, I'm unpersuaded by this. How is a small little city with an army and with no possessions, no wealth? How are they gonna survive against all these other cities?

He gives this example of the, well, he'd be like fighting these other cities that are rich but they're fat. And they're not good at fighting either. And they're not good at fighting. So there's two problems I have with this as far as it would tell.

Well, there's people who will save us. Yeah, that's much upon. Yeah. One is that, I, this may surprise you guys, but I know fat rich people.

And you know what they have? Money. They have money. And you know what they can do with that money?

I actually know a fat rich guy who once I saw, hey, a really fierce looking, homeless person to fight people. That's great. I hope you're joking. That was you, David.

You don't have to protest so. That's not even funny. But I mean, that was what I was trying to say about my kind of joke here. It was serious actually.

Why can't these rich people just hire mercenaries? So like, oh, we'll be able to destroy them because like fat and lazy. Yeah, but they have a lot of money. Like they can build missiles.

They can have an army. They can purchase these things. Isn't that why, why is that? I mean, it does not come up with this obvious rejoinder.

So it's a really good point. But I think one of the problems with what you're saying is you have to allow us to read the description and help those fights, which is really funny. Okay, read the fights. It's not even if it were possible for him to withdraw a bit and turning on whichever one came up first is right.

He's repeatedly in sun and cycling heat. So he's got these two. Like he's a bunch of these fat guys. He's like, he's eating towards him and he's just walking back a little bit and his one gets close to his side.

And then another one gets close to the top. And they're just getting sweaty and tired and fall. Now the way he addresses that implicitly, you're right, he says, what if they sent an embassy to the other city and told the truth? And it leads to the third objection.

So you're right. Hold on, I want to move to the third first. The other thing he says here, in my wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, is that it seems like one of the responses here is not only can we fight them better because we're lean and we can fight one at a time. But the other is, am I wrong?

He says we'll sort of stir up mischief. So like if I'm a lean guy, okay, and David and Alex are the fat guys that risk guys that want to fight me, I'll be like, hey, David, Alex is trying to, he's like telling me he wants to attack you. And so I'm like stirring up, you know, an enmity in between you two. So you guys will fight, right?

Okay, is everybody about say, oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, that part is like, you know, in principle, it sounds good to rob old ladies, right? But old ladies don't have that much money. A little bit on Medicare, they're often eating cat.

Why would you, don't like that? What are they eating? What are you, dog? Cat, listen, cat food's disgusting, man.

If you have to do it do dog food anyway. But yeah, he says, we make use of neither gold nor silver. No, is it law, nor is it lawful for us? Well, don't I see you.

So join us in making war and keep the others wrong. So what they'll say is, look, you can fight us, or how about this? We'll help you conquer them and you can take their wealth, right? Yeah.

And I have to say, wait, hold on a second. If the money of the others is gathered into one sitting, look out that it doesn't endanger the city that is enriched. So your solution to the prior problem is to make it one more powerful. Yeah, bigger and richer.

And that's where it's not just Athens, which is wealthy, right? But it's imperial Athens expanding. So I think here you're seeing him really defending imperial Athens as a safer solution to the problem of fear of enemies. Right.

One other thing here, by the way, is that lest we lose sight of why do we build a city in your mind, Alex? Why do we build a city and speech to begin with? What was the ostensible or purported reason or justification? The superficial reason is it would be easier to see justice in the city than to see justice in souls.

So we really want to find justice in the individual human being or the soul. And we're going to look at it in the city, and that'll teach us how to be just. So the city we've made is just, yes. So the foreign policy of our little lean, mean fighting machine is to sort of pit other countries against one another, so that we don't have to fight them.

And if we do have to fight them, then we'll pick them off one at a time. So if we transpose this back onto the just individual, how should the just individual behave with respect to other individuals? Pit them against one another. It gets even worse.

So it's so beautiful. Yeah, it is weird. He says in, all right, so taking this like bigger empire against the city and speech, he then says, well, it's not even really a city, right? It's actually many cities.

He says, for each of them is very many cities, but not a city, as those who play say, there are two, in any case, one with each other, one of the core, the other of the rich. And within each of these, there are very many. If you approach them as though they were one, you'll be a complete failure. But if you approach them as though they were many, offering to the ones, the money and the powers, were the very persons of the other.

So hey, well, let you kill them, do with them, enslave them, whatever you want. You'll always have the use of many allies and few enemies. All you have to do is exacerbate the internal tensions within these massive communities, at political communities. And I mean, this is Machi Valley 101, right?

Sort of exploit the internal tensions and cause the sort of internal strife. And then it'll be much easier to defeat them. So I think he's doing this. Do you think he does this?

In his personal, let's go to my question personally. What do you think? I guess you think this is a stand-in for the DC's using a metaphor here. Well, I mean, explicitly, the whole justification for talking about cities was to find justice for the individual.

So you would imply that if this is the justice that he became a justice, we respect other cities, this would imply that this is how the individual ought to behave, we respect other individuals. I suppose, I guess to be fair, other belligerent individuals, perhaps. Like if they're aggressive, how should you? So maybe there isn't a modicum of justice here.

I mean, are you trying to connect this to Socrates and Trusimachus? Sure. Because that was an attack and he sort of, I guess exploited his internal tensions, right? Right, right, exactly.

That is exactly what I was going with. But he's in a way, it is in a way, it is in a way, that's not really smart, so that's exactly what I meant. But it is in a way, just right, what he does. Yeah, of course.

So this is what he does. He sort of exploits the internal tensions in people when they're hostile toward him. So by the way, just to be clear, the emphasis on apology and defense and this other, it would show that part of the reason Socrates behaves this way to where other people is partially defensive. He's just defending himself by picking them apart.

In a way, I'm reminded of, in book one, when he's talking with Paul Marcus, right? He says, well, you should never harm anyone. And one of the big questions there is, what do we need here, right, by harm? Because on one analysis, right, punishment might be beneficial, with children, if not certain criminals, it might help them find God to pick them more just, right?

But it's not inconceivable that some aggressive treatment, right, on Socrates part would be beneficial, and therefore just, even though it might look harmful on the surface. All right, so maybe a transition here or two. So at this point, I think by the end of this speech that he gives, right, outlines his sort of Machiavellian tactic, he asks, I don't mean, you'll not easily find one city, so big as this, the city of speech, I am on the Greeks with the barbarians, although many seem to be many times its size, or do you suppose otherwise, no by Zeus? So he's convinced here that the city of speech is as big as it can be without being eternally full of factions.

And I think part of the reason he's criticized by Zeus there is this is just a beautiful description of what's going on in Athens right now, full of internal strife. It's all being exploited by its meaner, meaner enemies, the regime in many ways resembles smarter, right? And he can't help but say, yeah, this is a serious weakness we have. What do we do about this?

And it turns out, what Socrates says is, the most important thing is for the guardians to take care of the education, right, while also controlling the size of the population. And so we get here an early glimpse of what will come up in book five, which is a sort of eugenics program. But I think for our purpose, maybe the thing we can focus in a bit here is, and I think this is where you get the most powerful statements to the fact, the absolute centrality of good education and maintaining education to keeping a healthy political community. We've talked about the importance of education, right?

There's a whole education program laid out. And they're very attentive to how that education and specifically poetry forms the habits, right? And the models that the youth follow. But specifically what happens when you don't attend to the education and what kind of decadeness this leads to.

I think it's a really important aspect of what he describes going on here. And I think I mean, it just gets really worked up here maybe more so than he gets anywhere else in the dialogue. I don't know what you think, but we're in. Looking at 424A, after he brings up the cognitive center of women and children, he says, and hence the regime once well started will roll along with a circle in its growth, for sound rearing an education where they are preserved produced good nature.

So the importance of preserving the education. I see. And this follows on Secretary's remark, page or two before we talk about no innovations will be allowed. You suspect that means princely innovations in education.

And doesn't he mention laws here? I mean, misremembering my places, no new laws. Yeah. Which is interesting because I don't actually remember any laws.

The laws that are most commonly mentioned are the models, right? The two boy, the cast or the dies that are used. And it's interesting because they're not laws, like laws that are on the books, right? What Socrates and Glaucom and I, they said, this is the sort of thing a God or a hero ought to be.

The poets will represent their poetry and we will censor it in accordance with these. So the laws are embedded in the characters that you model, right? And so it's not like, hey, do this, don't do that, right? It's not that sort of Athenian legalist, right?

Or yeah, legal for nailing. It's far more subtle than that. It's being told George Washington is a great man because he cannot tell a lie, right? He cannot tell a lie.

So those sorts of things that you watch and you hear stories and the stories put these laws put these cross-eyed into your soul without you being aware, right? You just find these people out. And this is a, there's 424C, it's the top of page 102. This connection here between not changing anything and the laws not changing, the end of the paragraph, sorry she says, for never are the ways of music moved without the greatest global laws being moved as Daemon says and I'm persuaded.

So we can't even change the music. By the way, there's an etymological connection between music and laws in Greek. And so I mean, I point to several couple reasons, right? Like the stories have to be the same, but George Washington story has to be the same.

But the music has to be the same as well. And I think this, I'm persuaded by this that you see big changes in music. I think Bloom may make something of this in his commentary. Yeah, of course it does.

Right, the 1960s were the time where we saw the biggest changes in music in the United States. And it was concomitant changes in politics at the same time. So there really is something that we sort of probably are a little low to recognize or admit it, but the changes in music changed the regime. Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

And how that's connected to the change of education too, by the way, right? Like what did that mean for education? Sorry, I was coughing. I got choked up thinking about the 60s.

I just remember them so fondly. But we should be cautious because, so I didn't mean to just when Socrates articulates this point, I didn't mean to just kind of get squirted up. He says, so what this is, so it's surely here and this is at 424D. So it's surely here in music as it seems that the guardians must build the guard house.

Admitis says, at least this kind of lawless is easily creeps in on awareness. Socrates responds, yes, since it's considered to be a kind of play and to do no harm. Admitis responds, it doesn't do any either, except that that's a sarcastic remark. It doesn't do any harm either, except that establishing itself bit by bit, it flows gently beneath the surface into the dispositions and practices.

And from there it emerges bigger and men's contracts with one another. And it's from these contracts, Socrates, that it attacks laws and regimes with much insolence or hubris until it finally subverts everything, public, private and public, to a society response, well, well, is that so, in my opinion. So it's, he gets really work up and there's good reason. If you go back to his speech in book two, Admitis was implicitly blaming all of Athens' problems, more corruption on the perverse reasonings of people like he's seen at Homer, right?

He's in Homer, don't tell you, it's intrinsically rewarding to be moderate and just. They say if you're moderate and just, Zeus will give you honey and give you money and all these other good things, right? They create a kind of backwards incentive, right, to divine providence. Admitis sees this as a fundamental flaw in our poetic education that Socrates is now touched on and woken up this kind of spirited anger in Admitis that you wouldn't think is there because he seems so restrained and so calm.

But no, he's quite, I think, upset about these things. Socrates then tries to sort of calm him down as they continue and show him that look, what people do in Athens, the kind of changing of laws back and forth, he calls this charming and I mean, this is a charming, this is horrible, right? We're just putting band-aids on a sort of psychic problem. Socrates tries to calm him down, he says, look, they're in a way just doing their best, right?

They can't fundamentally change things, right? Glaukon wants to, but they're just trying to maintain the city, maintain the education as best they can over and against these influences, right? You have to sort of make do with what you have. You guys listen to music?

Yeah. During your long lives, have you changed what kind of music you listen to and can you actually trace differences in how you live your life? Has this had an effect on you? No?

Blue did, Blue Reading, closing of American music. About music did. Yeah, I mean, that's like a ply plate on me. That's right.

For me, I never thought that part of Blue held water. Really? Yeah, I thought it was overstated and I also, I had a conversation with Henry Higgare about it. Who loves Licksey's rock and roll.

He's like, yeah, good. And he brought up the point to me, you won't remember this guy just introduced myself. Spoke for the first and only time for about 15 minutes. He was discussing Cervantes' Cervantes' Cervantes' book with him, but he said, look, for hundreds of years, classical music was a constant and there were still political upheaval in major issues with regimes.

So he's saying, all of a sudden, rock and roll comes on the scene and up ends the apple card. No, they're deeper than something. Yeah, and I think there's a difficult question, which is, does any music really just maintain the regime? And I know we think of classical music as really hyphen up.

I mean, the parts of the country that are more conservative listen to country music, and that's the message is not, it's pretty conservative, right? I mean, not old country, but not old country. Like we do in drugs and tearing stuff up. Not only the country music I prefer, but we not me.

I prefer the watered down bourgeois suburban country. Sure, but then you could say that a lot of country music try and elevate mediocrity or something like that. Just love your earring. I mean, this is a bastardization, but it's the same bastardization that can apply to top 50 rock and roll.

No, but I would say in general country music has a more probably more solitary message than, although I don't listen to contemporary country more so maybe this is not true any longer, but you know, like, you know, family is good, country is good, you know, more hard. More problems, right? Yeah. And the old country, I think, did that, I mean, I think it's a band in that service that you said.

It seems to have abandoned. It's that part of it, sort of helping people cope with serious issues. I can use it back in your pick up drinking beer, it was at your point. Yeah, that's, yeah, there are dozens of songs that use precisely the lines you just talked about.

Yeah. Fear made of cans in the pale moonlight. Yep. That song's about the Chatehoochie River, which I thought was a metaphor or an anatomical part of a woman.

Alex and I walked alongside the Chatehoochie River together. This is true when we were in Georgia, it was a lot. And then we went skinny dipping in the creek. We did not go skinny dipping.

We went rope swinging. Oh, well, rope swinging is just a metaphor. Or rope swinging leads to, though, Al. Well, right, we just went rope swinging.

I was saying he likes the feel of the rope between his legs. I was pretty crazy how we happened upon that rope out in the middle of the road. We were just canoeing and we thought it was pretty insane. A little serious.

We almost laid in here some collapsed tree. But back to the Play-Doh. Right. No, I do think there's something, too.

I mean, a shift in the music. A hospital. To a shift in the mores, right? Yeah.

And I think, and one of the difficulties with the praise of classical music is that, like, there wasn't a lot of people gathering together. So like, listen to like a hide-in-sipping. Like, you just gathered in the street. There was folk music, right?

And this was often looked down upon. But if you take something like list Hungarian rapsities, right? That picks up on various, you know, folk songs and Hungarian folk songs. And then turns them into these sort of virtuosic pieces.

But it's hard to say that, I mean, you can't look at Beethoven, say, yes, that determined, you know, the European soul or something. Like, that doesn't seem right. It's already a kind of modern creature of the sort of music attached from lyric poetry. When you read like, Nietzsche's birth of tragedy, for example, and you see what he describes about the relationship between the lyric poet and the musician, the singer, right?

You would be singing these poems to accompany music. And it would speak about the life. There's a kind of inner unity with dance and everything like that, of that celebrates the way of life. That's very alien, I think, to our role of music.

But even, I mean, this is in a way a kind of creature of modern little democracy. But even the sort of separation of music from other features of life, like here's just a song about hanging out with your friends and drinking beers on the weekend. We like to think that that that's apolitical. But I think the sort of criticism we might get of that kind of music from Plato is it's not apolitical.

Those are habit forming, character forming. And that leads to consequences for the political community, about what you think of the ends of human life, right? And so you're, you know, we like to complain that culture is too political. Now it is, but it's all implicitly political, I think, so, a play that would claim, right?

Yeah, no, I think Blue Moores states that it can't be denied the effect it has. When there's no, there's no denying it. If you've listened, I mean, don't do it. But even now what passes for popular culture and music is so degraded, I mean, it's so degraded.

It went from, at least there's like the early 90s, rap was through modicum about, you know, preserving your own hood with the gangbangers. And now it's just like about taking sleeping pills. It's so stupid. What is that a real thing?

Yeah. So you don't want to go into how much I know about this. No, but you can do this. I mean, I think one of Bloom's points is the, it's not so much that the music of yesteryear was just made as virtuous and politically homogenous.

But the sort of, uh, rapid egalitarianism and nihilism that's affecting music and the vulgarization of our taste as a result. And so he mentions, this is a particularly striking point. He mentions that the only classical piece that's really popular is, uh, reveals Bolero, right? Is it Bolero?

Yeah. Yeah. And he, and he says, well, this is just more rhythmic. It's just appeals to our sort of desire for rhythm.

Any kind of less, obviously rhythmically structured piece is going to be less appealing. The shows and the privacy of rhythm, he argues in the case of primary of just, you know, copulation. That's all that we want. But you've seen it's not only about that piece of music, uh, Robert Sacks, my getting his name right, Saint John Studer.

Uh, we once had lunch many years ago in Santa Fe. And he said, oh, Mr. Barr, if you want to understand the book of judges, all you have to do is listen to it. Or else, Belera, which is really funny.

How it starts off kind of orderly. And by the end, it's rare. I love how it's great. Um, sorry.

I just wanted to know that's great. I mean, so I think the, yeah, I think to back off of blue and go back to some good item, the dentist undergoes here as he's brought around, ultimately to, he's brought in touch with his, you know, his severe anger against Athens, right? I think up till now, this is what you get from beginning of before he's been willing to side with Athens because it just seems safer than the alternatives, right? But then soccer shows him it might not actually be safer.

And the problem is you don't have this preserved education, right? Having shown him that he might not be safer. I mean, this is now free to rail against Athens, right? And rail against education.

And he's then induces a bit of moderation that says, no, no, relax. They're just coping, right? In a way, they're just trying to cope with the already, the decay that they already have the long givers and the politicians in your community. And it's ultimately, this is a larger claim that we can revisit when we get to later passages.

I think it's ultimately preparing item, just to see that for the very reason he objected about the happiness of the beginning of before, he's not so free of this moral corruption as he makes himself safe, right? He is attracted himself. He's just another step away from clock on decadence, but he lies on the horizon, not for him. He's just a free sucks, right?

This is this little, I'm glad that you had us read this, Alex. This is a little masterclass and Socrates' psychology understanding his inner walkers. I'm kind of trying to bring them around. Yeah, I think it's an important part of the Republic, a necessary step to understanding is drama, to understand how he reconciles these two divergent brothers.

I think we brought this up when we were discussing the speeches at the beginning of the tune. But on the one hand, Glaukhan wants justice to be good, even if you're getting your eyes burned out, right? Whereas, Idemantis thinks it's just as pleasant as honey, you don't need actual honey to incentivize. It should be.

That's a really, now the way he reconciles them is to show that neither of them is really what they think they are. Like Glaukhan is not capable of the immoralism that people like their civic as praise. Well, Idemantis is not capable of the moralism that he seems to believe himself to have. That Glaukhan's a little bit more moral.

Idemantis is a little more immoral and attracted to Athenian decadence than he makes himself see. My only hesitation there is that this is Socrates' presentation of, of course, this is Plato's representation of Socrates' representation of Glaukhan and Amanda. I mean, just but internally within the story, Socrates is recounting what they say. And I think as you go further along in the book, it seems more and more clear to me that there are occasions where Socrates is inventing fairly obviously what Glaukhan or Ademantis would have said.

So, but that's just a minor point. No, I think it would be interesting maybe at the end of all this to do an episode on what Socrates is trying to accomplish in narrating. Right. I couldn't find it off the top of my head to the last time I thought, I think I said this before, last time I thought the Republic, we've got to one of the leader books and one of the leaders times when Glaukhan speaks in one of my students was like, I'm sorry, there's no way Glaukhan said this.

And I was like, yeah, that's exactly it was like a very sophisticated account of something and I just thought it's probably four in the morning at this point. There's no way that Glaukhan is coherent. Yeah, I, my theory about the Republic, at least with Ademantis, we bust in with that joke in book eight, making for a glaukhan. The subtle hint is glaukhan, you go out too far, it's late.

We haven't eaten. Like, can you just drop it already and glaukhan's somewhat chasing by the fact that he's just been called a lover of victory. Like all he wants to do is push things and beat everybody and that's what he's been doing. And so Glaukhan has to kind of look at him word a little bit, but I think they do get frustrated.

So it ends with this long myth. You get a feeling that by the end of it, maybe some of them have dozed off, but at the very show, they're sort of ready to be done. Yeah. I think Glaukhan certainly inspired by that point.

Yeah. Do you do places stop? I think that's a good place to stop. What do you think?

Where do you think? Where do you think? Where do you think? I mean, I could go on all night because I'm like, I'm still, my mind is indefatigable.

I'm actually ready for bed. Yeah. You rejuvenate your body with the blood of aborted children. Well, your Glaukhan does say for intelligent.

Not anymore. No, no, no, it's okay. No, no, no. What are you saying?

Glaukhan says for intelligent men, the proper measure of listening to such arguments is a whole life. It's okay. He bows out by the end. He's like, I don't care about these 10 year olds kicking out everybody.

I'm like, I've done with that. Let's move on. So I have a question. We can cut this from the show also.