It’s been a couple weeks since I read the first section of Plato’s Republic and I’m bored right now so I figured I’d read book 2. Just as a reminder I’m gonna put the designation of whatever section I’m on every time I feel like I want to write something down. I don’t expect anyone to follow along or anything but it’s always a good idea to keep track of stuff like that.
358b: Glaucon, my favorite character so far, knows that Thrasymachus isn’t actually convinced of anything other than the fact that Socrates is a better speaker and arguer. He wants to slow it down so that Thrasymachus actually gets it. If Socrates is the benevolent smooth talker I think Glaucon is the quiet educator. While Socrates feels like his job is done and that he has finished explaining everything Glaucon is the one that best understands Thrasy. Being an educator is all about understanding that other people aren’t thinking the same things as you are. You need to be direct and thorough in education as much as you need to be knowledgeable. More than any of that you need to be empathetic. Empathy is the primary component of education, in my opinion.
359a: Glaucon says that the common interpretation of “justice” in society is that the best thing is to do injustice and get away with it while the worst thing is to suffer injustice without being able to get revenge. So, laws and nations are created with the goal of making sure that no one suffers injustice.
360a: This is a crazy hypothetical. He wants to give one just man and one unjust man each a ring that can make them invisible. I wonder if Tolkein was inspired by this. This book was written over 2,300 years ago. The dialogue is more advanced than any stories being made now. It’s like the idea of telling stories being profitable has made stories mindless. That’s a kind of jaded opinion of a lowly nerd like me but it is a fact that the book was written before even the birth of Christ. In 2,000 years story telling has developed much slower than technology. It would be interesting to think about story telling as an evolving art form. I think story telling is harder to make advancements in than science. That’s not a brag.
If society is right about justice being bad than Glaucon says that the just man will do the same thing as the unjust man. People only praise justice because they are afraid of having injustice happen to them.
361a: “the extreme of injustice is to seem to be just when one is not.” “the just man does not wish to seem, but rather to be, good.”
This is not an easy read. I feel like a pure understanding of grammar makes a big difference. Did I say the same thing during book 1? Did Plato mean for the book to be difficult? A professor I had in college once said that writings like these were intentionally hard to understand and interpret so that the writers wouldn’t get in trouble with the rulers of the nations. He seemed to believe that esoteric writing was meant to exclude the lower class and the was made for the educated man who was the only type of man that could understand it. Writers would do this to avoid persecution. I think that some one other than Socrates might make that choice but clearly Socrates doesn’t give a shit and isn’t afraid of anything or anyone else’s judgments.
368a: Adeimantus just had about 5 pages all to himself. It was real hard to follow but I think I got it. I mean, I think I got it. Let’s just say that I got enough of it to continue reading and that if I wanted to get all of it I would have to reread the thing about 4 times and take notes and try to map out everything he said and what references to what. Damnit Plato. Socrates would have given the truth to me straight and clear, I bet.
Also, some one really needs to find a way to read books that isn’t so physically inconvenient. Movies can be consumed just as easily and just as veraciously no matter what sort of physical position you’re in. Movies and television are so much easier than books. This needs to be solved mostly because while books are harder they are substantially better. Books are like a metaphor that runs parallel to what Socrates seems to be saying sometimes. Justice is harder than injustice but justice is far better and more rewarding. How can the thing that is harder be better? IS the truth of the thing the idea that what we think of as “hard” is wrong. Maybe the truth is that justice isn’t harder at all, it’s just not what we think of as easy. Maybe we just need to redefine “hard” and “easy” because our current definitions are completely ridiculous. I might copy and paste this paragraph into my next daily journal and see if I go any further on the idea. Honestly, I probably won’t. Thank god I actually started writing this stuff down cause as fast as I think I also forget it. It’s like the thoughts are eaten by my brain and I get the nutrients of them but the food itself is gone. I’m sustained and fulfilled as I break down these thoughts into their emotional core just the way food is broken down. I have been perfectly content my whole life to just let that sustenance do it’s thing and let the memory of the food itself fade away. I feel like I’m a teenager with instagram or twitter that takes pictures of every meal and talks about how great they are. My version of that is to capture a snapshot of some of my own meals and to try and share them with you.
Dang, this paragraph has been solid gold, man. Should I leave it down here below a bunch of stuff I wrote before that isn’t gold or should I move it to the top? Should I leave a little note for potential readers to tell them to wade through the boring stuff at the beginning to get to this good stuff? Would that be a lie about the truth of the world? The truth of the world is that variety is a fact and you never know when or where you might find something to think about. You never know where your next mental meal will come from and on top of all that you also can’t pretend that the time between meals doesn’t exist. There is a big difference between watching a sports game and watching a highlights of the same game. Highlights are a misrepresentation of the truth. Not saying they’re unethical or anything but don’t let the existence of highlights cloud your judgment of the truth.
Am I on a roll right now or what? This is either a perfect time to quit or the exact wrong time to quit. If I stop writing now than this feeling will carry over into whatever I do next but if I just keep writing maybe I’ll lose steam. Honestly, if I had anything else that I wanted to do right now I would probably stop writing and let this feeling of accomplishment ride into the rest of my night and into my sleep and the next morning. I’m doing a good job with this blog, or at least I think so and that’s the opinion that matters most since I’m the one doing it. It’s a good feeling to know that you are doing a good job at something and that feeling is even better when the thing you’re good at is something you were used to be worried about. I am good at this shit. I knew I would be but, of course, the fear that I might not be was always there. That fear is ALWAYS THERE and every time I successfully prove that fear wrong I feel amazing.
Damn! What happens if I just keep writing for like an hour and a half? I mean, this post isn’t even about Plato anymore really. I changed the title from “Book Two Thoughts” to “Book Two into Random Thoughts”. I wont change the content of what I’ve written but a title serves a different purpose and therefore has completely different rules about what it represents. If the writing itself is meant to reflect the way my brain works the title is there to be a teeny tiny vague preview for you. I don’t want you to come into this and get to this point and think something like, “this isn’t what I signed up. I mean, it’s not bad but the title is misleading.” I hate when that happens. Like, I click a youtube video thinking it’s gonna be educational and just information but than there are animations and shit and they try to turn info about a volcano into a whole story about how the world might end to Yellow Stone national park and doesn’t that scare you? Aren’t you getting to feel some emotion right now? I say to that, “If I wanted to feel shit I would have watched a movie. I’m trying to learn pal. I just want the knowledge! I don’t need you to interpret that knowledge into a story so that I can process it. I’m clearly already interested in the topic since I clicked the video. Who are you trying to please with this? If people don’t care about it then just let them not like it. Don’t try to make things that please as many people as possible.
Ok, I’m starting to cool off I think, I hate complaining about shit in writing. Complaining is the worst thing to try and read. It looks like shit and feels childish to write.
I gotta relax, this has nothing to do with Plato anymore. I’m done with that for now.
The Mind of Joshypoo 