Another year of BIC means another year of Plato. From Gorgias to the Republic, Plato follows the BIC like Dr. Tatum follows ISIS. Plato makes a wide variety of thought-provoking yet equally upsetting arguments through the literary manifestation of his mentor, Socrates, but while constructing his ideal society in The Republic, in my opinion, he touches on an issue that persists in modern society today (in a really messed up way).
While explaining his vision of the perfect city to his student, Glaucon, and a variety of interested Athenians, Socrates states, “This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you sanction in your State. They will minister to better natures, giving health both of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves” (Book III: 409e-410a).
Through Socrates, Plato explains that people in this ideal society will only suffer from one curable sickness. Those who are chronically ill will not receive medical treatment and will thus be allowed to die, while those who suffer from mental illness (“corrupt and incurable souls”) will similarly be denied treatment and, in Socrates’ opinion, will kill themselves or simply die off.
[Note: Suicidal thoughts and actions are a serious issue. If you or anyone you know have suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1(800)273-8255.]
Plato believes that those who suffer from chronic diseases should be allowed to die off, as he states that those who suffer from chronic illness are not able to provide for the city as much as their healthy counterparts. Similarly, based on the ancient Hellenistic understanding of mental illness, Plato believes that those who suffer from a mental illness are being affected by some sort of supernatural spirit or a somehow corrupted soul. Therefore, these people are equally hindered in their ability to provide for the ideal city.
For Plato’s ideal society to be perfect, everyone must be running at 100% efficiency. Everyone has one job (which the state assigns them), must believe the lies that the state tells them, and they cannot be too strong nor too artsy and intellectual.
(I don’t think Plato noticed that his fascism was showing during this speech! How embarrassing!)
This society is an untenable absolutist nightmare. It is offensive, smothers individuality and free will, and calls for the death of entire groups of people. I am not a fan. I would like to note, however, that while modern understanding of mental illness is just slightly more advanced than that of Socrates, even today there are a shortage of psychiatrists and hundreds of thousands of suffering people who are going untreated. While Plato thought the best solution was to simply kill them all or encourage them to kill themselves, modern America is a bit more civil.
There are currently areas of the United States that have one psychiatrist to every 30,000 people suffering from mental illness. This issue is not limited to the civil sector, however, but also affects the military. Many military organizations are severely lacking psychiatrists to aid military personnel returning from overseas. In order to increase the number of psychiatrists present in both the civil and military sectors, congressmen such as Pennsylvania’s Tim Murphy have sponsored a bill which will pay for psychiatrists’ student loans if they agree to open practices within the military or psychiatrically-barren areas in the United States.
There are still hundreds of thousands of people, however, who will continue to suffer from mental illness untreated in the United States alone.
If you or anyone you know suffers from a mental illness, don’t listen to Plato. While there are a limited number of psychiatrists in the US, don’t hesitate to begin the search at https://www.zocdoc.com/psychiatrists.
Moreover, for more information on mental illnesses and how they can be treated, visit https://twloha.com/
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? All are welcome! Email me at Lee_Shaw@baylor.edu
Lee Shaw is a sophomore BIC student majoring in professional writing and the current editor of the QuickBIC.