The Role Of Utopia In Plato's Republic

During the Revolutionary War, American victory would not have been successful without the civic virtues of each courageous founding father. Many of the monuments throughout America were devoted to these valiant men that each played a substantial role in bettering our economy. Throughout this paper we will establish the views of Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and George Washington are the five founding fathers that are like the building blocks of our nation.

Thucydides and Plato have a clear set boundary in their writings as to what type of assertion they are fabricating. Thucydides sets a very narrow view with his piece of The Peloponnesian War that holds more weight in solid evidence of what a “good life” is demonstrated as. Plato, on the other hand, has several writings that go into depth of weighing what someone’s soul ought to have within itself. The statement of Thucydides making empirical claims, with Plato making normative claims, is supported with evidence in their respected works.

Are you doing your part to keep the american dream alive?. In the article Keeping The Dream Alive author Jon meacham has a very clear thought on what's going on in America which in his ideas are that the upper class wealthy have more control and certain breaks. Meacham does a great job of conveying the dream throughout the history of america going in chronological order.

Many of the utopian writers have themes that we can see in their writings. In Selections Describing the Phalanstery, it can be seen that Charles Fourier’s ideal utopian land focuses on the unity of its people and the efficiency of the society. He believes to be a functioning successful society everything structured within it can be broken into three categories.

Plato's Republic is centered on one simple question: is it always better to be just than unjust? This is something that Socrates addresses both in terms of political communities and the individual person. Plato argues that being just is advantageous to the individual independent of any societal benefits that the individual may incur in virtue of being just. I feel as if Plato’s argument is problematic. There are not enough compelling reasons to make this argument. I believe that

Voltaire’s Candide, an 18th century satirical novella, details the tale of a young man, named Candide, after his expulsion from the castle he lived in. Candide suffers many misfortunes during his resulting travels and encounters several conflicting perspectives on how to interpret human nature and the world around us. Candide’s boredom with the life around him becomes a constant factor throughout the text and appears prominently when Candide resides in the castle, when he arrives at El Dorado, and when he decides to settle on the farm. Voltaire uses these situations to depict boredom’s detrimental effects and to suggest that boredom leads to all tragedy.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the colour green as a symbol to show how modern America has strayed from the moral code of the country and in doing so, has become obsessed with wealth. He does this by comparing Gatsby to Dutch colonists. This is because for both Gatsby and the Dutch colonists in the 1610’s, green was a representation for what they want most in their lives. In the fifth chapter, Fitzgerald developes this symbolism when he writes, “‘You always have a green light that burns at the end of your dock.’ Daisy put her arm through his abruptly… Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever” (92-93). This is saying that the green light represents what Gatsby desires most, Daisy, and that now Gatsby has Daisy’s love

Zinn admits to having bias in his book; he claims that regular history books lean heavily in the direction of the governments and resisting unruly rebels. He justifies his bias by saying that since so many books support actions of the government, we need some “counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.” By his thought, his bias is justified because it provides some balance to other history books that lean the opposite way.

Your utopia could be exactly the same as mine or completely different. Maybe you don’t even like to look at the food or smell the sweet potatoes. A utopia shows how every one of us is unique. It describes us. It is a place to daydream about when you need a break from something. That is what makes a utopia

In creating a utopia, leaders had to first come up with a way to ensure the trust and full cooperation

An utopia is a place that is perfect and everyone in society follows the set rules. This is the complete polar opposite of a dystopia, which is a place where people are controlled with an illusion of a “perfect society”. For an example in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, citizens of Oceania are under steady surveillance with the use of telescreens. They have become ignorant to the oppressor’s, the Party, power and comply with their reign of power. Also, in Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron” society is seen as an utopia. This is because everyone is equal in regard of wealth, strength, beauty, and intelligence, however, the people are only equal because of handicaps given to them by the handicap general. Lastly, in Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins’

Throughout its existence America has been called a country of Equality, Liberty, Rights for All, Democracy and of course Opportunity. In our infancy people of all origins flocked to America in hopes of obtaining these ideals. Even today many still hope to relocate in order to have their chance at a slice of the American dream. But is this image of America projected largely by our own citizens but also many others around the globe at all accurate or just blind patriotism and admiration? Thomas Paine believed America to be a utopia of sorts; a place of “cordial unison” where the “poor are not oppressed,” and there are no “riots and tumults”. Unfortunately, you would be pressed to find the image of perfection that he implies in his book Rights of Man anywhere in the world, and certainly not in modern America.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a great philosopher, writer, and composer during the 18th century. Rousseau’s civic philosophy influenced the Enlightenment and changed the general way of thinking. Rousseau’s first major piece of work when the academy he attended, the Academy of Dijon, conducted an essay contest and Rousseau was chosen as the winner with his essay called: A Discourse on the Sciences and Arts. Rousseau argued that Science and the Arts have corrupted the morals and virtue of people. Rousseau’s essay instantly won fame and recognition and it laid the building blocks for his next piece of work, The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. The second piece of work didn’t win a prize, but it was read by many and further reinforced Rousseau

Plato claims that human beings desire beautiful things and that they desire beautiful things so much that they want to make beautiful things their own. This is because beautiful things, such as the five steps of beautiful things on the staircase of beauty, make human beings happy. Kant claims that personal happiness is not a good incentive for human behavior because it is too uncertain. A better incentive is the highest good, which is the marriage between duty and universal happiness.

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates comes to the conclusion that we need to have a strong just society that is in the right order. In Books IV, V, and VI, Socrates explains that every society needs to be built on justice, everyone needs to have an occupation, and what a male and female household should look like. These are my prerequisites to what I consider essential to create a just society. Because without these qualities in an established society, you can hurt an entire civilization. And to Socrates argument, with an ideal king will come forms of co-operated citizens of a city.