Plato Response

As I read Plato's Turning the Psyche I was overwhelmed by the clarity and relevance of his piece. Written thousands of years ago, Plato's work is incredibly meaningful to our modern society. As I watched President Obama speak today about our Nation's financial crisis, I could not help but reflect on Plato's work. Plato says "This is how it is. If you can find a way of life that's better than ruling for the prospective rulers, your well-governed city will be a possibility, for only in it will the truly rich rule-not those who are rich in gold but those who are rich in the wealth that the happy must have, namely, a good and rational life. But if beggars hungry for private goods go into public life, thinking that the good is there for the seizing, then the well-governed city is impossible, for the ruling is something fought over, and this civil and domestic war destroys these people and the rest of the city as well." How unbelievably poignant given the situation that our Nation faces today. More than 3000 years ago Plato insightfully outlined the danger of rulers and governments who value greed and excess. The true irony here is how many times we have seen this scenario of greed and corruption be the ultimate demise of empires throughout history. If only we had given more credence to Plato's warnings..... But history will continue to repeat itself.
In class last week when we discussed what the meaning of education is, I could not help but recall a Maya Angelou quote that has always meant a lot to me. Angelou says, "Being educated means seeing the world for how it really is." I think this is what Plato meant when he talked about education being the craft of turning the soul to the light and the truth. He believed that educating people meant enlightening them to the truth, pointing them in the "right and good" direction.
Having never read Plato's work before, this piece had great meaning for me and I will continue to reflect on it.