Chapter Ten - The Wildest Chapter in The Republic

CHAPTER TEN

The Wildest Chapter in The Republic

YOU’VE FOLLOWED PLATO through the soul, the cave, the Forms, the chariot, the philosopher-king.
Now he opens the next scroll… and says: Let’s abolish the family.

Wait, what?

Yup. This is the part where Plato goes full radical.
You can feel the tension, the control-freak logic of it all tightening like a noose.
Because if you really believe the state should reflect the soul, and if justice is balance, and if rulers must be trained from birth… then you can’t leave anything to chance.
Not even love.

To his credit, and this was radical for the time, Plato argues that women should be educated the same as men.

In The Republic, he says there's no reason a woman can't be a guardian or ruler.
The soul has no gender.
If she has the same nature, she gets the same training. Period.

This was unheard of in Athens.
Women were property. Plato saw people.

But…

He also believed that children should be taken from their parents at birth, raised communally by the state.
No private families. No personal ties. No knowing who your parents are.

His logic?
Loyalty should be to the whole city, not to your bloodline.

And if rulers or guardians fall in love?
Fine. Let them reproduce, but through state-orchestrated pairings.
And lie to them about who they’re paired with.
Call it a lottery.
Use eugenics to breed the best traits.

Yes. Plato, the idealist, is now scripting state-run reproduction.

And he doesn’t stop there.

Plato’s city doesn’t allow poetry or drama.
At least, not the kind that stirs the emotions or shows gods behaving badly.

He saw art as dangerous. A shadow of a shadow that manipulates the soul.

So in his ideal city?
Censorship isn’t just allowed, it’s necessary.
Only stories that promote virtue and harmony should be told.
All others? Banned.

Even the noble lie, a state-mandated myth that keeps people in their place, is justified in his eyes.

He’s designing not just the city’s structure… but its psyche.
Its stories. Its dreams. Its self-image.

Because to Plato, truth isn’t always what keeps a city together.
Sometimes, you need a beautiful lie to hold the pieces in place.

This is where even Plato’s biggest fans get uncomfortable.
Because The Republic starts to sound less like a blueprint for justice…
And more like a philosophical thought experiment gone off the rails.

Yes, it’s logical.
Yes, it flows from his premises.
But at what cost?

Abolishing the family.
Controlling love.
Breeding citizens like horses.
Banning Homer.

Plato would say: “But it’s for the Good.”
For order.
For harmony.
For the survival of wisdom.

And yet… you can feel the edge.

This isn’t just philosophy.
It’s a preview of every authoritarian dream to come.