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| POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION OF CHILDREN TODAY AND IN THE PLATONIC "REPUBLIC" |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
In the contemporary era, several social and political ideologies have indeed embraced neo-Platonic principles of children upbringing, both positively and negatively. First, some may argue that Plato's concern about teaching children to be just, virtuous, truth-tellers, and followers of good people- regardless of his methods of application- could be traced today in several respects. For example, it is observed that in many types of erotic or violent cinema movies, video cassettes, theater plays, music CDs, literature work, and artistic oeuvres, Parent Advisory Committees or organisms with similar functions ensure that slogans like "For adults only" or "Not for children under 18" are always displayable to the audience. On the other hand, others might oppose by arguing that lots of authoritarian regimes in the contemporary era, have been nurtured with the same Platonic strict codes of "dos and don'ts", that are not based on anything other than the state's own perceptions. This party might elaborate that in the Nazi and communist models for example, school children educational programs are monitored by the government in order to ensure that children will grow up to be good Nazis and communists. However, it is seen that the latter argument does not put into consideration the fact that the majority of families, societies, and states, today raise their children according to their own perceptions of right and wrong. As an example, Buddhist children are Buddhist, and because they were raised to be so, whether at home, in the surrounding community, from the local media, or at school. Therefore, it is more precise to say that every regime, every society, and every family, is seeking Plato's goals -and not necessarily his techniques- of good child raising, whether consciously or unconsciously.
What have always raised conservations about the "Republic", are Plato's means of putting his noble principles into practice. Many think that modern types of autocracies apply Plato's dictated codes of child rearing and social engineering. To begin, one can observe that the theory of metallic souls, condoning a natural superiority to social classes with golden souls and taught to the guardians, is indeed in harmony with the scientific Darwinist classification of races condoning a natural superiority of the Aryan race, and which was taught to the HJ4 . Furthermore, in his book "Brave New World", Aldous Huxley echoes some of Plato's education principles. He imagines a vigorously totalitarian community where citizens are produced inside "hatchery and conditioning centers", in prototypical uniform "batches" using "modern fertilization" techniques. Huxley applies the same rigid Platonic principle of specialization, when he shows that each batch of citizens is biologically identical, and is conditioned to be best suited to a certain unique social class, and to a highly specialized job as well. Huxley even goes with the embryos of future individuals making up his community all the way down to be equated with any common sort of production materials making up a mere input in the realm of a production line of future citizens. These ideas of materialization of citizens seem to be a modern version of Plato's assertion that social classes are in harmony with metals. The real difference between the Republic and the Brave New World is that in the latter, modern science is applied to feed political socialization plans. It is hence possible to admit that if the scientific progress of the Brave New World had been in Plato's hands, he would not have made a much different New World, Moreover, personal freedom is not even put into consideration, the state crushes individual freedoms, and social castes are rigid to the extent that a citizen’s fate—whether worker, auxiliary, guardian, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, or epsilon5 —is predetermined at early infancy, and no allowance is guaranteed for citizens to change their social classes upon maturity.
Most of the world's citizens today live under either authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes, and even democratic regimes, ironically, face serious problems in their application of concepts of justice and morality in their foreign policies. It could be further said that lots of regimes today, meet with Plato's Republic in a central point, which is the fact that the "strong" exploits and instrumentalized the "weak": If in the Republic the rulers' exploitation of the labor class under the law of specialization, -that prevents the latter party from ruling-, and the state exploitation of children by programming them on following its policies using different techniques, are all justified and given moral legitimacy, then today, wealthy people exploit poor people, great powers try to dominate weaker nations culturally, technologically, economically, and even militarily, all under proper justification and moral legitimacy. From this crucial standpoint, it is concluded that Plato has contradicted himself, and has adopted, yet advocated unconsciously the sophist doctrine stating that "justice is the advantage of the stronger" 6.
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Saladin
My name is Ayman el-Hakea, I am a Construction Engineering graduate from the American University in Cairo. My origins date to an interesting mixture of Yemeni, Moroccan, Albanian, and Egyptian ancestors. I always try to be a moderate Muslim, I like animation, geopolitics, comparative religion, and football. I like to be with "people"...and I hope my writing isn't boring for anyone.
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