State of the Soul

When first reading Book III of the Republic, I could not believe the structured city that Socrates described with its limitations or complete lack of personal freedoms and manipulation of education. But then I realized that I was looking at this city from the wrong angle. I had forgotten that Socrates originally set out to build this city as a metaphor for the soul. Caught up in the governmental aspects, I was angered at Socrates’ lack of respect or care for peoples’ personal liberties, their right to know all about the world around them. But then I realized two very important things: first, this city is representative of the soul, not a modern interpretation of a city in America and second, Socrates is referring to children and the state of their souls when he talks about censoring them from the tales of evil. Before these restrictions, children and adults were being treated and educated the same. That is, the children had no censor to the horrors present in the city. But Socrates recognizes the soul as something delicate. Going back to Book II, Socrates discusses how children are the future and that “the beginning is the most important part of every work and that this is especially so with anything young and tender.” He goes on to say that “at this state [the soul is] most plastic, and each thing assimilates itself to the model whose stamp anyone wishes to give to it” (376b). Socrates is hinting here what he addresses fully in Book III: that a child’s soul must be protected so that when they meet the hardships of adulthood and their souls find a definite shape, they will be good. This doesn’t mean that children are sheltered for the rest of their lives but instead their souls will be rooted in what is good so that when they inevitably witness and experience the bad, their soul will recognize it for what it is. Is this such a ridiculous concept? Don’t parents today try to protect their children from the evil of the world? Do parents raise their children by reading them bedtime stories about going to hell and the devil? No, but these stories do exist and children will discover them later in life when their souls have been shaped with the good and they can clearly recognize the bad in the world. Socrates merely stresses that children must be raised with a foundation of good rather than bad because children imitate what they are taught and if these imitations “are practiced continually from youth onwards, [they will] become established as habits and nature, in body sounds and thoughts” (395d).