Socrates Constitution Analysis

In Book V, Socrates was about to explain his views of injustice. He was going argue examples of injustice, but then Polemarchus and Adeimantus asked him to continue his views about the Guardians. In Book VIII Socrates finally returns to his views and gives examples of unjust societies and unjust men. There is a total of five types of constitutions. Within these five there are four bad constitutions and one good. The four bad constitutions are listed in order; Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny. Which leaves the one good constitution, Aristocracy. Socrates identifies three parts of the ideal city. First you have the guardians, which are rulers and auxiliaries; second, general population, and third, the corresponding parts of the …show more content…
The reason behind this is the geometrical number. The geometrical number is supposed to govern the breeding schedule of the rulers of the ideal city. This idea is for the best qualified people to breed with the other best qualified at a certain time in place to maximize the quality of the offspring. The geometrical number is a noble lie, realistically this could never happen. There are multiple factors that make this nearly impossible. It would be very difficult to stick to only breeding at one certain time, with only one certain person. If anyone were to break this system, their offspring would be a little less ideal. A barley imperfect kid if one were to break the system and it would only continue to deteriorate from there. It would be more difficult to get back on the system as the years go …show more content…
In Sullivan 's view, much the same as the ancient Greeks, we have turned into a tolerant and disrupted society, unequipped for passing any judgment on ourselves and rotting from inside. It would have been a much more convincing argument if ancient Greek democracy had indeed decayed from within or if it had looked like what passes for democracy in the United States of America. To start with, let me clarify somewhat about the old Greek Democracy that the United States is allegedly duplicating. Generals and treasurers were elected, choices and laws were passed in Assembly, which was a social occasion anybody could attend, and official positions were chosen by an elaborate lottery process that every adult male citizen was entitled to participate in. These are just a few things I found on how one can’t relate an entire present day country government to ancient Greek