“the Beginning Is the Most Important Part of the Work.” — Plato, the Republic
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“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” — Plato, The Republic
For Plato the early childhood is the most important stage in shaping the life of a human being. In The Republic, Plato proposed a system where all children will be educated equally without taking into account from which social class they come from. According to Plato the environment where a child is exposed in the earlier stage, it is the start point to any knowledge to be acquired in the future. He believes every child from birth to age of 6 should be taking away from their home and the state should take care of their education. Children with potential leadership that belong to the labor class should be raised by the state with guardians. According to Plato during early age children should not be exposed to any family belief or knowledge. Those belief may not guide them to the right path of knowledge.
In book 2 of Platos Republic he clearly condemn poetry. “For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.” I think that Plato main fear about poetry is that childrens mind is very easily taught to be reading these kind of tells. The reading of these tell will take them away from the truth. Children does not have the abilities to separate what is right from wrong. For plato it was important not to misrepresent the reality and the truth to young children. Also, Plato says that any literature or music that portrays gods behaving in inappropriate or immoral should be away for the reach of children. Those kind of literature will give them the ideas of behaving the same way. “Neither must we have mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of these myths –telling how certain gods, as they say, Go about by night in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms; but let them take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy against the gods.”(Plato Book II). It feels like plato want poetry and myth on his republic to change their messages for a positive one. Plato message is to have poetry and story that reflect beauty and a good message from where children will have inspirations. Myth and poetry that give a corrupt ideas do not have place in his State. Children copy and repeat everything that they perceive. In the Republic, anything that give an immoral approach should be abolished. When children are exposed to poetry, it should be a poetry that elevate their soul.
The same rules apply to music. When he talks about music in The republic he break it into different pieces melody, harmony, verse, rhythm and so on. Every single part