Carlo Vincent G. Balicas Political Science 2-1 The Republic I.

Plot

January 16, 2006 Mr. Jose Rocina

The film The Republic was mainly about the ideas of the greatest political philosophers of before, namely Plato, and his Republic. The film analyzes Platos utopian government and dissects it to its viewers some of his governments main points. The film also tends to compare the possibility if Platos government was ever adopted today. Also, the film also showed personalities that advocated Platos work and also those who opposed it. They do have some very convincing reasons on why they chose their side. One of the personalities that advocated Platos work was a former U.S. Secretary of Education. He reasoned that Platos outlook pertaining to philosopher-kings was very adaptable to todays government. If you analyze the situation, such adaptation will truly help our current government ease from corruption. On the other hand, there are some who opposes Platos ideas, like the Russian poet that the film presented. He said that such government is incorrigible for it hampers personal opportunities for the reason that people are constrained to certain roles in the government. If you analyzed this situation, it is also very true. Therefore, I may conclude that Platos utopian ideas are not perfect at after all. II. Lesson The lesson behind the film is that, a perfect government only exists in theory. As bad as it may sound, but it is true. It is like Communism; wherein Communism depicts a perfect government but in reality, true Communism doesnt exist. But that doesnt mean that having a government built in theory also means that we cant take part of it to

Reality. In fact we can. For example, we can adapt the philosopher-kings theory to our current government the problem will only lie on the acceptance of the society. I also learned that Man is innately corrupt wherein the government was made for the sole purpose of this innate attitude to regulate corruption. III. Relevance What is the relevance of the film to our subject, Great Political Theories? Simple; the whole film itself is relevant to our subject. Though the film cant be considered as a summary of the topics that we tackled in Great Political Theories (as there are more topics to be tackled beyond those tackled by the film), the film is more of a crashcourse to the subject. The film depicted topics that are relevant in order for an ordinary person to understand what is behind the ideas of The Republic. For example, the film talked about Justice; what is meant by Justice to a state, Philosopher-kings, censorship of media, having specific roles in the state etc. IV. Reaction I must admit that Platos ideas are good, if not outstanding. His Republic jotted down what a perfect government should posses from the leader himself down to each persons rights and obligation in the state. Although Plato may be considered as a dictator (as depicted in the film), hes attitude is far from a tyrant. Plato believes that the state should be lead by a person with great wisdom in governing, and not by a war machine. Also, some of his ideas, if it is considered today, are peculiar, if not disturbing. All in all, I may have to say that Platos ideas should be given a chance. The society should learn about the things behind the The Republic, because, as in the Allegory of the Cave, this may be our true light to what is really the truth behind Reality..