Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [13]
In the Republic, Plato also promotes eugenics—that is, the creation of a pure race. A “first principle” for rulers is “above all else, that there is nothing which [the rulers] should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as the purity of the race” (415b). The purity of the race is maintained through state-managed sexual activity—“the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom as possible.… Now these goings on must be kept secret which the rulers only know.… We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill luck and not the rulers” (459d–460a).
Obviously, the nuclear family is abolished. Men, women, and children live communally (423a). Children are removed from their mothers soon after birth and raised and educated collectively. The City replaces parents and their contemporaries become their brothers and sisters (414d). The purpose is to create a single extended family—the City itself. In this way, the individual will presumably become loyal to and reliant on the City, thereby eliminating competitiveness between the City and family.
Plato argues that private property has the potential of corrupting the Guardians, who are to act solely in the City’s best interests. Therefore, they are to own no property. Plato writes: “Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against anyone who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in camp.…” (416d–e)
The purpose of “both the community of property and the community of families … tend[s] to make them more truly Guardians; they will not tear the City in pieces by differing about ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’; each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pains and pleasures; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same wife and children and private pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend toward a common end.… And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaint will have no existence among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion” (464d–e).
Indoctrination is also crucial to controlling the citizenry. The City consists of a comprehensive “education” system.” In addition to the “noble lie,” censorship is widely practiced. For example, myths and music are suppressed to avoid any stories where authority is challenged or the Guardians are presented as anything other than good (379c). The style of music is regulated. Only certain modes and rhythms are approved, for “rhythm and harmony most of all insinuate themselves into the inner most part of the soul and most vigorously lay hold of it” (401d). Freedom of expression is banned for the Ideal City’s health is more important than self-expression.
Having eliminated family