Relatability of Plato

In Book 8 of "The Republic" Plato outlines imperfect societies and their citizens. He describes four such societies, including Timarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny. While not very scientific, many of the observations that Plato makes are still made today. I will cite three. Plato describes the Timarchic citizen as one with great ambition and a lack of reason. He argues that this person develops within a family where the father is lazy and content with mediocrity, and a mother who is upset by this. When the son of such a family hears his mother complain, he will try to be the person his father wasn't and neglect reason and imagination in favor of success. This person is alive and well today. When speaking of Oligarchs plato says “There’s no transition quicker or more violent than that from ambition to avarice."¹ Many people start in business with a desire to create something good, and once the profits begin to roll in, they care less about the good and more about wealth. "The teacher fears and panders to his pupils, who in turn despise their teachers and attendants; and the young as a whole imitate their elders, argue with them and set themselves up against them while their elders try to avoid the reputation of being disagreeable or strict by aping the young and mixing with them on terms of easy good fellowship."² While not a one to one reality of the relationship between the young and the old today, you can see many places where Plato is spot on. Two and a half centuries later Plato's observations are still relevant. This speaks to two things. One, that humans are not blank slates, that human nature is at least partly innate. Two, that Plato was a brilliant person who could describe the world with great accuracy. 1. Plato, The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (Penguin Classics), 288. 2. Plato, The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (Penguin Classics), 300.