Socrates and Censorship
Socrates is hardly the person one would conjure up when it comes to censorship. Yet in Book Two of Plato’s Republic, Socrates proposes a strikingly authoritarian education system, expurgating the works of Hesiod and Homer and allowing the youth to hear only tales that glorify the gods. He advocates for strict censorship in the education of the “guardians,” who are entrusted with the vital responsibility of safeguarding and governing the city. This approach, aimed at curbing independent thinking in favor of unquestioning acceptance, appears contradictory to Socrates' reputation as a champion of truth, raising the question of whether his education plan should be interpreted as a sincere proposal or a form of ironic critique.
Socrates believes that young guardians should only be exposed to content that instills virtue and a specific theology. For instance, he seeks to remove Hesiod and Homer from their education because these poets “make a bad representation of what gods and heroes are like” (Plato, Emlyn-Jones & Preddy, 2013). But by “bad,” Socrates does not mean “false” as much as he means “corrupting.” He confesses that even if Hesiod and Homer's accounts were true, he would be hesitant to share them with impressionable young minds, suggesting the “best would be to keep quiet” (Plato et al., 2013).
According to Socrates, tales in particular require careful censorship as they are told in the early stages of life when guardians are most impressionable and readily assimilate the models presented to them. He even suggests two laws to govern the telling of tales. First, the gods must be represented as wholly good and as responsible for only what is good in the world. Second, the gods must not be presented as “wizards who transform themselves” or miscreants who “mislead us by lies in speech or in deed” (Plato et al., 2013).
Without censorship, Socrates argues, young guardians would be exposed to detrimental models of behavior—such as the vindictive gods and flawed heroes depicted in Homer’s works—and grow up to be irresponsible. This is because young guardians “can’t judge what is hidden sense and what is not” and what young guardians take into their opinions at an early age “has a tendency to become hard to eradicate and unchangeable” (Plato et al., 2013). Since guardians are the ones who rule and protect the city, their moral decay would jeopardize the good of the city. Only through a meticulously designed system of censorship and indoctrination can we create “philosophic, spirited, swift, and strong” guardians and form a just city (Plato et al., 2013).
Socrates' authoritarian vision for education has not escaped scrutiny. Eminent scholars such as Karl Popper, Allan Bloom, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Kateb, and Martha Nussbaum have critically examined Socrates’ stance on censorship and raised objections to its implications. They argue that Socrates’ proposed system of censorship could lead to intellectual conformity, hinder the pursuit of truth, and stifle the free exchange of ideas necessary for a vibrant and open society. Through their criticisms, the critics invite a reassessment of Socrates' vision for education and its potential repercussions on individual freedom and societal progress.
For example, in his highly influential book The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper vehemently denounces Socrates’ education plan for suppressing independent thinking and inhibiting rationalism (Popper, 2008). A staunch opponent of centralized control, Popper views Socrates’ implicit belief in the ability to plan and organize education, to mold the souls of the guardians as though they were wax, as fundamentally authoritarian and prone to totalitarianism. In the words of Tae-Yeoun Keum, Popper believes that Socrates’ overall city-planning “amounted to nothing less than a dictatorship of philosopher-kings who peddled myths to their subjects in order to suppress free thinking and to lock them into a rigid caste system” (Keum, 2022).
Other scholars, however, have argued that Socrates’ proposals should be taken solely as a blueprint for an ideal society. As such, his sweeping curriculum for the guardians serves as a provoking thought experiment rather than a literal recommendation on how to educate citizens. Moreover, notable scholars such as Leo Strauss and Gregory Vlastos have argued that Socrates may have employed irony as a rhetorical device to stimulate intellectual inquiry. This is corroborated by Socrates' frequent use of irony in his other dialogues, known as Socratic irony. From this perspective, Socrates may have intentionally presented an exaggerated and extreme vision of education to accentuate the potential dangers or shortcomings of such a system.
The question of whether Socrates intended his education plan for the guardians as a sincere policy recommendation or an ironic maneuver to expose the absurdity of such a draconian system is a subject that continues to fuel intense scholarly debate. When taken at face value, his vision for education reveals a curriculum characterized by censorship and indoctrination, a curriculum that, at its core, prioritizes the collective welfare of the city over the personal development and intellectual freedom of its citizens. This tension between the individual and the collective underscores the complex nature of Socrates' educational philosophy and adds depth to the ongoing discourse surrounding his ideas.
Works Cited
Plato, Emlyn-Jones, C., & Preddy, W. (2013). Republic. Harvard University Press.
Popper, K. R. (2008). The Open Society and Its Enemies. Routledge.
Bloom, A. D. (1987). The closing of the American mind. Simon and Schuster.
Nietzsche, F. W. (2012). Thus spoke zarathustra. Simon & Brown.
Kateb, G. (1976). Utopia and its enemies. Schocken Books.
Nussbaum, M. (2001). The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge University Press.
Keum, T.-Y. (2022). The first authoritarian. The Hedgehog Review. https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/political-mythologies/articles/the-first-authoritaria
Strauss, L. (1978). The City and Man. University of Chicago Press.
Vlastos, G. (1991). Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Cornell University Press.
