Sorry for the long delay. Yesterday was pretty busy for me irl, plus, I can't lie, the reaction I got from some people on this thread really put me off. Like, goddamn, if you don't like the idea that's fine, but really, if that's the case, why even post at all? If I bother you so much, just don't post! There's countless of other threads on OT; go be happy and post on the ones you actually care about. But insulting me while providing no other insight just because I want to critically look at a particular work doesn't further the conversation and, honestly, just makes you a dick. So can we just put our dicks away and have a nice, peaceful conversation?
Note that most people on the thread are cool and, I felt like I got the positive attention I needed that I will end up doing this. I'm only calling out a very small subsection of the people who contacted me (and you know who you are).
Will you be posting enough of a summary of the relevant chapters in order for people unfamiliar with the text to make sense of it, or will it be necessary to "follow along"?
The former is my intention. There is a lot to the book, and even when its taught in school, generally most of the middle (which, is honestly the most important part of the book, ironically enough) is skipped for time constraints. I don't expect everyone here to have even the basic knowledge of the Republic, so just limiting it to just people who read it before helps nobody.
That being said, there is some... filler. Stuff like what Socrates was doing before the conversation started in Book I, or extended quotations of Homer in Book III, while good for framing, aren't really necessary for understanding what is actually going on in terms of the philosophy being thrown around. Especially for the latter, I do plan on talking about it for the sake of understanding (since they're quoting Homer for a reason; namely whether or not to censor Homer's verses in their hypothetical state), but I'm not going to worry about analyzing every single bit of the filler sections. I will be talking about censorship extensively, and why they want to censor Homer, but I don't feel like I need to break down and personally analyze Homer myself; only Socrates/Plato's interpretation of Homer ultimately matters for this discussion.
Hope that makes sense? I'll be covering more than I'm skipping, at the very least.
The ideal state is one which doesn't exist
Perhaps in your opinion, but even if so, I feel like you are being a bit too pedantic at this stage. Even a Marxist non-state is still, philosophically, a form of organization of peoples. It is still most usefully classified as a form of a state in terms of case study of other forms of organizations of peoples, even if part of the definition is the lack of a state. After all, there are non-marxist but still stateless societies, like really extreme anarcho-capitalism, and I'm sure you'd hate being lumped with them.
It's like atheism; defined by the lack of religion altogether, but still lumped with other faiths as a "religion" for demographical purposes. As an atheist, I'm not offended by that, because people like to categorize: it's human nature.
Not endorsing what WIM said, far from it, but like SK said, its kind of off topic. Just wanted to throw my own two cents.
@People debating over the Peloponnesian War:
OK, I'll be honest, that was kind of a throwaway line in the OP, because really it just seems like Athens was getting into a war it can not win, with one of the stupidest offensive plans ever derived. That being said, I am not a military scientist, and trying to argue how Athens could have won (if at all) is beyond the scope of this thread. The main point out of including that comment was more "Athenian society had issues going on, one of which being a lot of hubris "
@People debating over the translation of the title of The Republic
I don't speak Greek, so I can't weigh in personally on that subject, but I do find what you guys are saying to be interesting. I can't say anything, but I am reading and taking into account what you are saying.
