QU 1

Alexander Qu
Professor Broughton
HUMA 16000
21 October 2017

Suppose, then, that a man whose wisdom enabled him to become multifarious and
imitate everything were to arrive in person in our city and want to give a performance of
his poems. It seems that we would bow down before him as someone holy, amazing, and
pleasing. But we would tell him that there is no man like him in our city, and that it is not
in accord with divine law for there to be one. Then we would anoint his head with
perfumes, crown him with a wooden wreath, and send him away to another city. But, for
our own benefit, we would employ a more austere and less pleasant poet and storyteller
ourselves one who would imitate the speech of a good person and make his stories fit
the patterns we laid down at the beginning, when we undertook to educate our soldiers.
(Plato, 79).

Platos goal in The Republic is to create a maximally just society. Through Socrates,
Plato explores how the leaders of such as society the Guardians should be trained;
specifically, what sorts of stories the future guardians should and should not hear (66). Plato
begins this section with the supposition that if a man who was wise enough to become
multifarious and imitate everything through his poetry, it would not be good for our own
benefit to listen to his poetry (79). Instead, Plato advocates for a more austere and less pleasant
poet who could only imitate the speech of a good person and make his stories fit the patterns
[of just men] (79).

Initially, it seems that a listener would be more inclined to listen to the multifarious poet,
as his poems would be more holy, amazing, and pleasing than the those of austere poet (79).
However, Plato believes that even though his city would respect and honor such a poet, they
would send him away to another city because such a poet would be a corrupting influence on his
city. This seems illogical because the multifarious poets poems would be much more enjoyable
and appealing to his audience, and one would expect that the audience would prefer to hear good
poetry.
 QU 2

Platos reasoning is that although the multifarious poets poems would be more
entertaining, the multifarious poet imitates everything both the good and the bad. His listeners
would be exposed to bad conduct and wrongful actions, and when people act wrongfully,
everyone will be ready to excuse himself if he has been persuaded that similar things are
done and were done (72). Plato is afraid that such a poet who could perfectly imitate human
empathy and portray wrongful acts would have the power to normalize immoral actions. As
such, a citizen of the city who listened to the multifarious poet would more inclined to excuse
his bad actions, rather than to act justly.

An example that Plato provides is that of a soldier in battle: if someone believes that
Hades exists and is full of terrible things can anyone with that fear be unafraid of death?
(66). If a soldier believed that his afterlife would be terrible, then he would prefer defeat in
battle and slavery over death in battle (66). If this soldier heard the multifarious poet sing about
the horrors of the afterlife, he might fear Hades and surrender rather than fight on; the poet is
introducing a negative emotion with his poems which weakens the city.

On the other hand, consider the austere poet whose skill limited him to only telling stories
about the good. His listeners would not be exposed to the bad aspects of life, and would only
have good speech and patterns of just men as a standard to imitate. The austere poet could
only serve as an example of good conduct and just action, while the multifarious poet would
expose his listeners to both; hence the austere poet creates a net positive for the city, while the
multifarious poet creates a negative externality.

Using the example of a soldier again, if the soldier had only listened to poetry about
fighting courageously, he would only have the ideals of a perfect soldier to imitate. Since this
soldier had never heard poems about the horrors of the afterlife, he would have no fear of dying,
leading to a stronger army and the greater good for the city.

In this quote, Plato raises the question of, What is the ideal poet?, and comes to the
conclusion that the greater good of the city is only served by the pure imitator of the good
person (79). However, there are certain flaws in Platos argument; the first is his assumption
that humans need to be exposed to negative emotions to understand them. Just because a soldier
has never heard of the horrors of the afterlife does not necessarily mean that he is not afraid to
die; in fact, it is a natural, biological reaction to be scared of death.
 QU 3

Likewise, when the multifarious poet imitates the speech of a bad person, the key word
is imitating: there must have already existed a standard of bad speech for the poet to portray. If
the poet is skilled enough to portray bad speech as it truly is, jarring and uncivilized, then his
listeners should be able to recognize the negative effects of bad speech and make the individual
judgement reject bad speech on their own.

Lastly, if one were only to listen to the austere poet, he would not be exposed adequately
to dishonest people. When the listener is exposed to a dishonest person, he would be more prone
to being exploited, and may also only see the benefits of being exploitative without the downside
(for example, the listener would only see the thief profiting and not his consequences), which
would lead to the listener becoming more inclined to imitating dishonest actions.

Since we know that immoral acts can occur regardless of whether one listens to the
multifarious or austere poet, the question that arises is not how to prevent listeners from being
exposed to bad conduct and immoral actions, but rather, How can a poet depict actions and their
consequences accurately, so that their listeners can reject bad actions and choose to live justly?.
And this question can be applied to todays society as, How can media affect and influence the
actions of its audience in a positive manner?