History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [68]
The legislator, having selected the guardians, some men and some women, will ordain that they shall all share common houses and common meals. Marriage, as we know it, will be radically transformed.1 At certain festivals, brides and bridegrooms, in such numbers as are required to keep the population constant, will be brought together, by lot, as they will be taught to believe; but in fact the rulers of the city will manipulate the lots on eugenic principles. They will arrange that the best sires shall have the most children. All children will be taken away from their parents at birth, and great care will be taken that no parents shall know who are their children, and no children shall know who are their parents. Deformed children, and children of inferior parents, 'will be put away in some mysterious unknown place, as they ought to be'. Children arising from unions not sanctioned by the State are to be considered illegitimate. Mothers are to be between twenty and forty, fathers between twenty-five and fifty-five. Outside these ages, intercourse is to be free, but abortion or infanticide is to be compulsory. In the 'marriages' arranged by the State, the people concerned have no voice; they are to be actuated by the thought of their duty to the State, not by any of those common emotions that the banished poets used to celebrate.
Since no one knows who his parents are, he is to call every one 'father' whose age is such that he might be his father, and similarly as regards 'mother' and 'brother' and 'sister'. (This sort of thing happens among some savages, and used to puzzle missionaries.) There is to be no marriage between a 'father' and 'daughter' or 'mother' and 'son'; in general, but not absolutely, marriages of 'brother' and 'sister' are to be prevented. (I think if Plato had thought this out more carefully he would have found that he had prohibited
all marriages, except the 'brother-sister' marriages which he regards as rare exceptions.)
It is supposed that the sentiments at present attached to the words 'father', 'mother', 'son', and 'daughter' will still attach to them under Plato's new arrangements; a young man, for instance, will not strike an old man, because he might be striking his father.
The advantage sought is, of course, to minimize private possessive emotions, and so remove obstacles to the domination of public spirit, as well as to acquiescence in the absence of private property. It was largely motives of a similar kind that led to the celibacy of the clergy.2
I come last to the theological aspect of the system. I am not thinking of the accepted Greek gods, but of certain myths which the government is to inculcate. Lying, Plato says explicitly, is to be a prerogative of the government, just as giving medicine is of physicians. The government, as we have already seen, is to deceive people in pretending to arrange marriages by lot, but this is not a religious matter.
There is to be 'one royal lie,' which, Plato hopes, may deceive the rulers, but will at any rate deceive the rest of the city. This 'lie' is set forth in considerable detail. The most important part of it is the dogma that God has created men of three kinds, the best made of gold, the second best of silver, and the common herd of brass and iron. Those made of gold are fit to be guardians; those made of silver should be soldiers; the others should do the manual work. Usually, but by no means always, children will belong to the same grade as their parents; when they do not, they must be promoted or degraded accordingly. It is thought hardly possible to make the present generation believe this myth, but the next, and all subsequent generations, can be so educated as not to doubt it.
Plato is right in thinking that belief in this myth could