Allan Bloom's Republic
I recently read Allan Bloom’s literal translation of Plato’s Republic, alongside his 130+ page ‘interpretive essay’ on the same. It was a fascinating experience. A typical translation tends to mix the interpreting and translating together: the translator tries to give us the meaning of the text, without straying too far from its apparent sense. This may be an effective strategy; however, it fails if the meaning of the original is hidden, and can only be found through hints in the surface text. In that case, the typical approach deprives us of the real meaning as well as the hints.
In his translation, Bloom lets the text say just what it says, while in his interpretation he really reads between the lines. The latter appears to be based on his teacher Leo Strauss’ belief that Plato deliberately ‘wrote between the lines.’ This leads to a remarkably less totalitarian Plato than is apparent upon a casual reading—the Plato, perhaps, who was sharply critized as an enemy of open societies by Karl Popper. I plan to read both Popper and Strauss to consider their very different perspectives.
But back to Bloom. His Plato is so anti-totalitarian that he can call the Republic “the greatest critique of political idealism ever written.” “Socrates,” he says, “Constructs his utopia to point up the dangers of what we would call utopianism” and to moderate “the extreme passion for political justice by showing the limits of what can be demanded of the city” (p. 410). In other words, Plato (speaking as Socrates) wants you to be apalled and incredulous about his city. This is just another form of Socrates’s famous irony. All through Plato’s dialogues, Socrates says one thing but implies the opposite—typically, in claiming he himself is ignorant while his interlocutor is wise. This dissimulation has a purpose: apart from adding lighthearted delight to the dialogues, it serves to draw the interlocutor out—to have them state their case with confidence, and then be forced to really grapple with it themselves (which they may never have done if directly contradicted). If we believe Socrates is a sincere lover of wisdom, then this irony is not merely combative—it must be educative. In the dialogues, we see through the more obvious examples of Socrates’ irony: we laugh with him, perhaps, at his naive interlocutors. But perhaps he is using irony against us too? Or rather for us—educating us to be real philosophers, by finding for ourselves—without being instructed—the holes and hints in his arguments.
Bloom gives us a literal translation so that we have a chance of finding these ourselves and seeing where they lead. But in his interpretive essay, he gives his own opinion about the deeper argument. Here is how it looks, in brief (including some of the intriguing clues that led to it):
In Book I, the fractious Thrasymachus attacks Socrates for believing justice is more than merely “the advantage of the stronger.” Thrasymachus, who doesn’t really care about truth and loathes the back-and-forth of dialectic, attempts to overawe him with rhetoric. Socrates responds with a number of (according to Bloom) deliberately specious arguments, which Thasymachus proves incapable of refuting. The latter is shown to be an inferior rhetoritician, and blushes. At the end of that Book, Socrates then seems to disown all that he said (“So long as I do not know what the just is, I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue…”). If his arguments really were just an attempt to shame the otherwise shameless Thrasymachus, then Plato must have hoped that we, the reader, would see their weaknesses and recognize this. In other words, he must have hoped that we would do our own intellectual work rather than buying into them just because Socrates said them.
From that point, the conversation is primarily between Socrates and the two brothers of Plato, Glaucon and Adeimantus. Together with Socrates, they construct an ideally “just city in speech.” According to Bloom, Glaucon represents the man of forceful, excessive desires. Adeimantus, on the other hand, represents the cautious conservative. To cut a long story short, if it weren’t for Socrates’ influence in this dialogue, Glaucon would strive to become a tyrant and Adeimantus would have someone like Socrates killed. That Plato casts his two brothers and beloved teacher in this dialogue is superbly artful (especially if what Socrates says cannot simply be identified with what Plato believes). Plato is everywhere, and nowhere.
How does Socrates reroute the natural tendencies of each of these men? Glaucon, whose excessive eros would have him strive for political supremacy, must be led to something more glorious and desirable than politics. This is what Socrates does in Books VI and VII, through the famous anologies of the Sun, the Divided Line, and the Cave. He helps Glaucon to recognise the supreme importance of a life of philosophy—but more significantly, its supreme pleasure. The contemplation of the absolute Good is a bliss incomparable to anything the relative world can offer. As Socrates makes very clear, those who attain to this vision don’t want to come back. If they were ever to rule a city, they would have to be compelled.
But who would compel them? As Socrates makes equally clear, a populace would be extremely reluctant to empower philosophers as kings; they must therefore be persuaded to do so. But who would persuade them? Only the philosophers. This absurd situation suggests that the ‘just city in speech’ was never intended to be an actual city of men. Likewise, the very notion of philosopher–kings violates Socrates definition of justice earlier in the dialogue: that justice is “minding one’s own business” (pursuing one’s own specific role or task). What could be more different than contemplating the bright eternal realities and busying oneself with the management of changeable things in the shadowy depths of the Cave? The suspicion that Socrates/Plato is less than serious about his city comes to a head when he announces that in order to even establish it, all the citizens over the age of 10 must be sent out into the country (by whom? the philosophers they must be persuaded to compel to rule them?).
So why does (Plato have) Socrates construct this ‘city in speech’ in the first place? In addition to ultimately guiding Glaucon beyond politics, it serves to highlight the irreducible gap between reason and nature, soul and body, philosophy and the city. Bloom denies these dualities can be cleanly reconciled. He picks up on hints such as the comedic tone of Book V, which includes the proclamation of gender equality, the ‘community of wives and children’ (i.e. abolition of the natural family), and the declaration that philosophers must rule as kings. Although nowdays most people would simply agree with the first point, we can get a sense of the intended absurdity when Socrates insists that equality of the sexes means men and women must exercise together in the nude and that this could be totally unproblematic. Why this? Nude gymnastic was one of the finest activities for Greeks. In theory this mixed nudity should be fine; in practice, it would be a disaster, because bodily desire and bodily shame are simply not ‘rational.’ As Bloom suggests, “Socrates forgets the body in order to make clear its importance” (p. 387).
As for the austere and moralistic Adeimantus, Socrates’ city renders him moderate. Instead of seeing philosophy as a dangerous innovation threatening the stability of society, he recognizes the true philosopher as the legitimate leader of the most ancient of regimes. By describing all subsequent history as a necessary degeneration from this regime, Socrates undercuts any temptation Adeimantus might have to reestablish it by force. Instead of attempting the impossible, Adeimantus will focus on preserving the current regime (i.e. Athenian democracy), to prevent it decaying even further.
In discussing the philosopher, Socrates makes it clear that this life can be pursued whether or not a city exists for him to rule (indeed, such a city would be somewhat of a hindrance). In this absence of the perfect city, then, the best kind of life is a private life dedicated to philosophy. As Bloom points out, “While the best city exists only in myth, the best man exists actually” (p. 415).
Finally, Bloom has some fascinating things to say about Plato’s apparent opposition to poetry. It’s notable that the last Book of the dialogue contains two main parts: first, an attack on poetry, and then a poetic Platonic myth about the afterlife. In between, Socrates issues an invitation to poets to present a (philosophic) defense of their art, and declares how delighted he would be if they succeed. Bloom concludes that Plato isn’t really against poetry, but against the merely tragic, comic, and unconscious qualities of ancient poetry to that date. Instead, Plato inaugurates a “poetry that points beyond itself”, that Bloom sees epitomized later by people like Dante and Shakespeare.
Thus goes Bloom’s argument. Rather than a fully developed response, I can only end with a scattering of questions and insights.
First: Is this really Plato’s argument, which the whole surface of the dialogue conceals yet subtly suggests? Honestly, I don’t know. Reading Popper and Strauss might help me in this. As outlined above, there are certainly reasons to believe this is the case. But why conceal it so subtly and in such a dangerous way? The reader who finds the hidden meaning may abandon politics for a private life of philosophy; the naive reader may become a Mao or Lenin.
Second: Is this the (or a) real meaning, even if Plato didn’t consciously intend it? Maybe all the hidden hints and tensions in the text are really there, though not deliberately developed by Plato. They tell a particular story about Utopianism precisely because Utopianism has particular flaws. This may be similar to interpretation of the Bible—which seems to contain real wisdom, even where it’s implausible that these were the conscious thoughts of the writers at the time.
Third: As I read through the Republic this time, I got a sense of how magnificent it is. I got a real sense of love for it; a sense that this really does deserve its place at the bedrock of our culture.
Fourth: The Republic is a dialogue in itself, but also a dialogue seed (I struggle to find the right metaphor). Its controversial and inspiring aspects both feed into this. You put it in the midst of a group of people and it immediately extends itself, as each of you question and respond to each other and the characters. It grows across time with commentators and responses to commentators.
Fifth: What is the Good? Plato leads us to this godlike being that all existence depends on yet which is so transcendent itself that it cannot even be said to exist. I cannot read those passages without feeling Plato is talking about a profound personal experience. Whatever else he is, Plato is a mystic (perhaps a jnana yogi, in Indian terminology).
Sixth: For Bloom (and perhaps for Plato), there is no resolution to the conflict between philosophy and the city. The city cannot be rationalized, philosophy cannot be civilized, and they cannot come to a fair agreement. Trying to rationalize the city becomes a Utopian nightmare, and trying to civilize philosophy simply denatures it. There is an especially insightful passage in Bloom’s commentary:
In acting as though the eternal tension between body and soul has been overcome by history, a society is constituted which satisfies neither body nor soul. Such a society creates one universal cave illuminated by an artificial light, for men have not made the sacrifices necessary to the attainment of true cosmopolitanism but have been robbed of those attachments which can give them depth. … Only by distorting or narrowing man’s horizon can the permanent duality in his nature be overcome. (p. 411)
Bloom suggests this universal cave is the world created by the Enlightenment. We have given up what is natural, particular, humanly dear—but the average person is no wiser for it. (We are in fact worse off in that, perhaps moreso than ever before, we think we are free, wise, rational.) We absorb the doctrines of the Enlightenment like we would have absorbed the doctrines of ancient Athens or Sparta, and in doing so get nowhere near the real freedom of mind (and true cosmopolitanism) that love-of-wisdom would lead us to.
Seventh: On a personal level, reading through the Republic this time gave me a strong sense of the passion or eros in philosophy. It is such a pleasure to read and attempt to understand, and its content continually encourages one toward these very pleasures. And my soul resonates with this. Like Glaucon, full of passion, I feel like I’ve been led to something higher (something I’ve tasted almost all my life but perhaps haven’t put to myself with such clear consciousness). So one resolution I take from this is to pursue philosophy wholeheartedly, passionately, stubbornly, delightfully, in tension with the city.
The point of Bloom’s translation and long interpretive essay is to force us to become philosophers. That is, not to simply accept what Socrates or Plato or Bloom himself says; even if Bloom’s interpretation were true, it would be false to its purpose if we didn’t question, challenge, deeply ponder, or read between the lines of it. This unsure individual way is the only passage out of the universal cave.
Note: page numbers refer to the 1991 Basic Books 2nd Edition.