Plato, on this picture, believes that art perverts and corrupts: being simply 'imitation', it makes us attached to the wrong things - things of this world rather than eternal Forms - and depicts vile and immoral behavior on the part of the gods and humans as if it were normal or admirable. One of those reasons, which is also a main reason the Republic has disturbed so many people over the centuries, is supposed to be the fact that the ideal city will contain no art. Plato really believes his world is the best there is and that its people are as happy as human beings can be. A combination of 1984 and Brave New World, the Republic is more disturbing than both not only because of its immensely larger scope but also because it is completely free of their cynicism.

And, Plato argues, we would be happier with their choices than we ever could be if we chose our lives for ourselves under the circumstances of our everyday world.

That choice would be left to the philosophers among us - a small class, definitely not that of philosophy professors today, who know what is good, just and right for every citizen. Plato's Republic, I hope, is one of the most disturbing books you have ever read: a casual conversation about old age, through an immense series of small steps, to which, though most seem reasonable, we are never allowed to object (Glaucon and Adeimantus are always there ahead of us with their unending 'Yes, of course, Socrates'), results in an obsessively detailed description of a social organization in which most people in this room, despite our qualifications, would have ended up either as laborers or soldiers through no obvious choice of our own.

The republic book 10