Thinking too hard may be hazardous to your health

Today in HISTCIV (History of Civilizations), we had a film viewing on Plato’s Republic. So from what I understood from it, Plato wrote about Socrates’ works since Socrates didn’t write anything of his own. It raised some questions. Let’s see if I still remember all of them =D

If The Republic as described by Plato, is a utopia where everyone is NOT equal,  just made for different purposes, wouldn’t unrest still form in the so-called “perfect” society? And why were poets to be banned from the kingdom and music and arts to be censored? Sounds like Dictatorship where the dictators are philosopher-kings. Weird. And why would romantic relationships or even mother and child bonds be a bad idea in this utopia?

And then…What is good and what is bad? If good is something that benefits other people, wouldn’t euthanasia be justified in this view? Since “putting someone out of his misery” is usually justified as being good. So does that also mean that “good” would be doing bad things for the right reasons? If so, then there wouldn’t be any “bad” either, since all said bad things would be done for a good cause,  i.e to get a higher rank, status, or job by sabotaging a colleague’s project. It would be a bad thing for him but good for you, right?

What is happiness? If happiness is to feel good, how is that different from the high addicts get from drugs, or from lots of food or sex? If happiness is to have fun, how is that different from rampaging around town destroying anything and everything just because its “fun”?

If freedom is “the capacity to do whatever one wants”, and is a good thing, why is Anarchy a bad idea? If soldiers fight for their country, almost single-mindedly, are they not reduced to meat-machines? Don’t get me wrong, I’m taking Naval ROTC and it’s fun, but everytime is see the units march on the field, they look like lines of perfectly wound-up tin men walking in unison. It’s a scary thought, especially when you’re marching with them

What is anything? And why is it anything?

Yeah I think I stopped making sense a while ago, around the same time that my brain melted. But all the same, what do you think? Leave a comment pls =)