Monday, September 15, 2008
Chapter 1 - Plato
I read the chapter and am lost. What I took from the reading is that poetry was harmful to civilization. Poetry corrupts man with false and unmoral ideals. The poets have made the Gods seem unjust and at times immoral. Plato thinks this will destroy the value common people will place on the leaders of the Republic. If Gods can be bribed and have lack of self-control then what keeps people from becoming corrupt. Basically Plato thinks poetry should be strictly sensored for the sake of the people.
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Jesse, I keep thinking about how Plato links to this class and how philosophy is a foundation of critique. I have trouble wrapping my head around all these ideas because the connections aren't clear to me yet. I appreciate your comments on how Plato thinks poetry can destroy values common to humans and his ideas do seem fraught with censorship. As a woman, my "reality" is different from his higher thoughts because he didn't really perceive a woman to have valuable thoughts and it clouds my judgement. Do you think Plato is a misogynist because of the time he lived in or was it a basic knowledge that he had no view into? I just wonder, if a great man with historcal thoughts that transcend time, how can he be such an idiot and why should I even regard his wisdom?
Yeah, I am a pain in the badunkadunk!
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