The Republic by Plato [Book 10]

In this last book of The Republic, Socrates launches a campaign against painting and poetry and calls them imitators of everything and nothing else. He says that a painter is a creator of appearances just like a mirror and is far away from the truth and reality. He further adds that its the idea of the objects that matters and not what is imitated on a canvas and is neither a reflection of true knowledge e.g., things done by a cobbler when imitated by painter won't show that the painter is as skilled as a cobbler. Well, we know that a painter paints the world on canvas and keep memories alive along with the things that we cannot see. Its a form of art to depict the level of imagination that a human mind can have and Socrates himself has shown that imagination has importance in the real world.Then, by citing the example of Homer, he says that tragic poets are also imitators who actually have accomplished nothing except the exploitation of the weakness of human mind where confusions are revealed inside themselves. The things that overwhelm people like magic is only a tricky play of colors. A strong man under sorrow and grief has to come up with a remedy and not behave like a child with weeping and sorrowful life who cannot handle his own life. Well, poetry is the reflection of deepest convictions and emotions in words that, when accompanied by music, creates a new virtual world where a person can get past to his sorrows and clear his mind to relax. Now, we must leave the selection of poetry to the people as to what kind of poetry they want to read or listen because continuous propagation of same thing creates dullness eventually and people start asking for something new. Also, Socrates permits the hymns of gods and the  poetry about the famous men to be included in the state but then, there will be more fake poetry because people will find a way to fame anyhow. Socrates says that the feeling of weeping and lamentation are satisfied and delighted by the poets, which is true, but I do not see anything wrong in that because no matter how hard to try to hide your emotions, there is sorrow somewhere deep in the heart and it can be touched, and sometimes healed, by poetry. Reasoning has its own importance and a fair reason to bring out these emotions and attend to them in a repressed mind can be done in a better way by poetry. I am not saying that everyone should like or do poetry but banning this thing will actually bring out more of repression and less of a healthy mind.

In the end, Socrates tells a story of transition from earth to heaven after the soul leaves the body and explains how a soul is punished for evil deeds and then how they select the now lives accordingly. The concept of the repayment of debts takes the form of recompense of life after death that nothing goes unpaid and all the rewards and punishments will get to you no matter you are walking on the earth or not. For every suffering they gave to others, there is tenfold of punishment and similar rule is for rewards. This is good thing to make people fear the highest authority and imbibe in them a quality of obedience to the just society and get past the river of forgetfulness and ignorance but I think that a just society cannot be made without giving people an opportunity to explore themselves and liberty to make their lives their own city in reality.

I want to say that I have learnt a lot from this book and will re-read it to clear my thoughts about lots of things. I have actually felt myself going through the process of making a just society and making a moral individual despite the fact that I still refute some of the ideas that they considered to be just.Overall, Socrates and Plato have the highest form of reasoning qualities and I have read nothing like this book before.

The Republic by Plato [Book 9]

Book 9 continues the discussion over tyranny and how it evolves from democracy by taking into account the nature of the individuals living in the circumstances that are not guided by the philosophers but controlled by appetites and unnecessary desires. People enjoying too much liberty become too much licentious and base their lives on amusement and ornaments and are very much influenced by the subordinates of the top people who want them to remain in this way and eventually become worse so that their work is done easily and nobody challenges their authority. I accept this. The children of these people have tendency to become shameless and behave like a drunk man who cannot control his desires and develops too much love for the demands that he has. Socrates considers love as a tyrant as it oppresses every other thing in life and makes you believe that love is everything which it isn't. The man who becomes so much indulged in fulfilling the unjust demands that are created falsely in his mind, eventually ends up in spending all his money and then start stealing from parents and others, plunders, loots, does robberies, false witnessing and become informer and then joins the mercenary armies for money. These armies infatuate people of lower conscience who actually do not understand the concept of a real army and then they select the tyrant among them who, before gaining power, makes association with flatterers, make them feel comfortable, professes every sort of affection and leave them after they have gained from them. This type of behavior is consistent in tyrants and they do not believe in the paybacks to the people who actually have done a lot for them. This kind of person is either master or slave and never enjoys any kind of friendship and hence, becomes worse which is a total opposite of what Socrates preaches to have in aristocracy. Well, I have repeatedly said that royal kings can also become tyrannical directly because people of lower conscience are in every form of society and they are  masses and even if there is a society of people with higher conscious level, they can be brought to lower level without making them go through the process of democracy.

Next point that Socrates is talking about is the condition of soul of the tyrant. A tyrant is most powerful in his government but his is enslaved and is full of trouble and remorse. A tyrant with public life is worse than a tyrant with private life only because a private has to carry only his own misery but a public is burdened with the miseries of the people under his government. His life is surrounded by slaves and his home is a prison from where he can go out only in fear of getting killed by some slave in private. His soul is paralyzed and he cannot master himself which makes him and his people worse day by day.

Then, Socrates talks about the pleasure of three classes of men, namely: lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor and lovers of gain or money. Each of these people considers pleasures of their class to be the best but the truth is known to the lovers of wisdom and not to the crowd of admirers because reasoning is done when a man has knowledge which brings in the philosophers and hence, the lovers of wisdom.

Socrates also talks about the feeling of pleasure and pain in different kind of people. Some people say that they were in pleasure when they were healthy but they didn't know it until they fell ill and vice versa which make them believe that absence of pleasure is pain and absence of pain is pleasure which is not true. For example, the pleasure of smell doesn't turn into pain after its gone. So, its the appearance and not the reality that pleasure is absence of pain and vice versa. Socrates says that the people in lower or middle region cannot understand this concept because they always roam in the same region throughout their life in ignorance with the upper region where pain and pleasure are felt together. Gluttony, sensuality and life like that of cattle who look down always and move stooping earth are the people in lower and middle region and when the lovers of honor and the lovers of gainers among them are guided by philosophers, then they attain the highest form of pleasures naturally.

At last, Socrates gives answer to a point which was raised in one of the earlier books of The Republic that injustice suits the ruler. He says that injustice is a multiform monster which destroys the human in the person holding those monsters in him. If injustice is left undetected and unpunished that it becomes worse and gives birth to tyrant in the long run but if it is detected and punished, then a gentle element is liberated and the soul is perfected in the city of his own personality and becomes humanized so that he can maintain order and regulate his remaining life properly. I think that punishment not necessarily liberates the gentle elements in many criminals for whom guillotine is prepared. Just as Socrates infers from assumptions that a particular ideology is bad because this might happen, then I can also infer that a criminal with a guilt of 300 intentional murders on his head, when given favorable conditions, will come out of jail and will start increasing the count again and so he must be killed instead of getting the perks of process of getting humanized. Maybe Socrates is talking about the liberation of soul which happens after death penalty but I want to ask that of what use a human soul is when you actually do not know whether it is there or not.

The Republic by Plato [Book 8]

In Book 8, Socrates talks about the four forms of government that are possible in any state. They are: Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny (in order of their importance). Socrates also connects the human character with the state as the states grow out of it.

Aristocracy is what Socrates is talking about in all his previous conversations with his fellows. A state where the guardians are well trained in music and gymnastics and are kept away from material pleasures and philosophers have the highest respect in a just society. Further, his main focus was to explain Timocracy which lies between Aristocracy and Oligarchy. He says Timocracy, a government of honor, arises from aristocracy which is a government of the best. The main cause of shift from best to honor is the change in the pattern of breeding and improper guidance to the deserving ones in the absence of philosophers. He says that breeding of pure with pure is must to have best and otherwise there is degradation of blood and hence the rule of state but I still refute this concept of controlled breeding among likes only. People may chose whom they want to have sex with and procreate. Regarding the passing of best genes, I think that genes are much more dependent on the random behavior of nature and not on who is the ruler. Even the rulers are found with the children of several disabilities even after the intercourse among the pure ones. One more attribute that Socrates talks about is that the ruler become covetous of money and starts loving music more than gymnastics and the insatiable desire for money become strong with the passing of age in Timocracy.

Oligarchy is described as the rule of rich and deprivation of poor along with the honor given to the wealthy and dishonor to the virtuous. It comes out of Timocracy where the person becomes covetous of money and with the passage of time, become more and more engulfed in the money matters and loses the track of state health. Fixing of sum for the citizenship and other orders and titles in the state by oligarch ruler is in the core of the heart of the state which gives rise to the conspiracies against the super rich by the utterly poor and the good guardians become extinct due to lack of money. Also, when a rich becomes poor, then he is just a drone in the honeycomb who actually does nothing due the lack of skill that makes a just state.

Next comes the Democracy which is considered to originate from oligarchy where the poor conspires against the rich and overthrows their rule and establishes a state where voluntary contract is made at their own risk for equal share of freedom and power. The good thing about democracy is that their is variety of human natures which brings out new ideas and gives people a voice and make them feel heard. But at the same time, people develop a  'don't care' attitude because everybody has right to speak whatever they want and the good and evil are treated equally which eventually leads to disorder and anarchy in the long run. Also, people start following unnecessary pleasures arising out of passion instead of desire which Socrates explains with the example of food and condiments where food is essential for survival and condiments are just good in taste which falls in the category of luxury. I don't think that luxury is a bad thing as every person aspires to have a good living and happiness with all the means that are available no matter they come in the form of condiments or other things. Further, he compares liberty as a sweet word for anarchy which I totally disagree with. Excess and uncontrolled availability is bad in every case be it the music or gymnastics or liberty. We can't say that liberty is bad just because we have to handle more thoughts and desires as compared to the clerical way of aristocracy where people are ordered to pursue a selected dream. Also, lack of law and order in liberal society is equal in measure as compared to that in spartan society that Socrates is considering as a perfect society. The reason being is that human nature can be controlled to a certain extent but it doesn't last long. Liberal people as well conservative people, both need governments because in an ideal society, you wouldn't need a govenment. If pursuit of happiness can be termed as distracted existence in the name of joy and bliss of freedom then rule of pure can be said a hypocritical existence in the name of joy and bliss of dictatorship.

The final one is Tyranny which is supposed to be originating from democracy where suddenly a hero people rises and then he becomes tyrannical. It starts with the extreme use of liberty and the people start going against the ruler due to the excess of power share with the wealthy and orderly class that feeds the political class. Also, people start behaving equally with everyone and consider them alike. Scholar despise tutors and young despise old and vice versa. Child becomes his own father figure and starts becoming a drone due the lack of proper guidance. Socrates compares the liberty exercised by masses to the liberty given to horses and donkeys as they will run over everyone who comes in their way when they are freemen. Socrates puts idle spendthrifts and drones of oligarchy as the main motivators of tyranny as, due to democracy, they always have share in power and are fed by the second class i.e. the wealthy class in order to work out the state policies in their favor and hence the third class i.e. masses, which also is the largest group, brings out a here to whom they are devoted by heart and never conspire which, ultimately, establishes the tyranny. This process of birth of oppressive regimes is quite understandable but I think that democracy cannot be blamed for tyranny because in aristocracy, lack of philosophers can directly lead the ruler to enjoy the absolute power and become the dictator e.g., the rule of Caligula Caeser after Tiberius in Rome is a historical example of tyrannical rule from aristocracy.

Some of Me

(2 Photos)

The One Who Learned to Stand

When he learned to stand,

on hind limbs,

he became human,

he wasn't honored for this,

he wasn't respected for this,

he wasn't cheered for this,

no claps,

no prize,

no medal,

no certificate,

but he did,

and then other followed him,

he was the leader,

but we don’t know his name,

because there were no names back then,

later he developed wheel,

and discovered fire,

and then he created weapons,

utensils, vehicles,

constructed homes,

started to live in community,

cultivating the land,

doing marriages, having kids,

started enjoying things,

created classes,

and Gods to control the lower ones,

started having rules and regulations,
too much of them,

forgot the individual in him,

started living for others,

demanded honor,

respect,

claps,

prize,

certificates,

medals,

which he got,

and then his life stagnated,

lost the mojo,

the dark ages began,

and everything was left for upper ones,

lower ones thrived to live,

centuries later,

the thirst started taking some form,

the hunger arose again,

renaissance happened,

individualism returned,

bloody wars were fought,

some got freedom,

some decided to stay in dark,

free ones brought industrial revolution,

employed the ones living in dark,

a sudden ray of bright sun blinded them,

process of thought wanted to take shape,

but faded into altruism,

he again started living for others,

his family became his life,

he forgot that He is his own life,

others are a part,

he is living in sorrow,

the pain is not relieved by gods,

neither by cold words of sympathy,

he wants his individualist human back,

the one who learned to stand.

The Story of a Dreamer

What a dreamer dreams,
is what doesn't happen,
what a dreamer thinks,
is what isn't real,
an all powerful image,
an omnipresent personality,
a powerhouse,
a magician,
a savior,
loved by all,
adored by all,
a superhuman without faults,
no shortcomings,
no weaknesses,
a man who can solve every riddle,
every problem,
a pure godly creature,
the one who can fly,
part the river,
can get the things done in seconds,
a bright face,
a muscular body,
shiny hair,
glittering eyes,
ears so alert,
posture so straight,
skin loved by sun rays,
legs and torso a perfect match,
and when he speaks,
you want to be with him,
make him your friend,
to get his attention all the time,
to get connected with his fame,
to reap benefits of such a contact,
and then the story of agony begins.

You are now attached to a dreamer,
a person so weak,
so lacking the knowledge,
so naive and irritating,
a man who is so not cool,
a frustrated idiot,
the king of fools,
a person of flippant attitude,
an inept nerd,
a useless creature,
a crude human,
brought from dark ages,
eyes looking at walls,
staring the roof and floor,
ignoring the world he lives in,
and now you know the truth,
you are disappointed,
you are hurt,
you are shattered,
you are devastated,
you are annihilated,
you are demolished,
but
the dreamer doesn't care,
you got to move on,
he will keep dreaming,
the dreams that stop him,
discourage him,
keep him occupied in delusions,
can't do neither good nor bad,
an encouragement for stagnation,
a platform for rotten life,
a story imperfectly scripted,
with no logical ending,
with no sizzling element,
an endless story of dreams,
and just a boring story of a dreamer.