Freedom in the Soul

In America, we live in a society that prides itself on freedom. We value our ability to essentially do whatever we want within the law. We see this freedom as the best possible condition for the soul—letting it roam free to pursue any or all of its desires. However, when Socrates puts this scenario in the perspective of the city and its rulers, freedom appears in a different light. When ranking the superior kinds of rulers for the city, Socrates places the democracy near the bottom, claiming that freedom makes a man thirst for unnecessary desires that go beyond moderation. He says that men are “too soft to resist pleasures and pains, and too idle” (556b). Socrates claims that, “each man would organize his life in it privately just as it pleases him” (557b). On the outside, this city may look fair but Socrates reveals that this dissension within the soul—its pursuit of unnecessary desires in addition to the actual needs of the soul—is an unhealthy state. This illusion of freedom actually chains a soul to the need to fulfill these desires. Does this mean that we as a society are prisoners to our desires? Are our souls inharmonious because we bypass moderation and choose to live in excess? I’m not sure if we will see a degeneration of our society like Socrates suggests but I’m starting to see that our private “unleashing of unnecessary and useless pleasures” (561a) is harmful to our souls and we might have to start questioning whether we are abusing the power of freedom.