The Republic by Plato - 12 - Poetry Is Fake
Book Thirteen
Quote
"Please don't denounce me to the tragic playwrights and all the other representational poets. But it looks as though this whole genre of poetry deforms its audience's minds."
Notes
Socrates realizes at this point that banning poetry from their imagined community was indeed a really good idea. Poetry (as well as painting and other art forms) are only shallow representations of reality that do not bring us any closer to true knowledge. "It follows that representation and truth are a considerable distance apart, and a representer is capable of making every product there is only because his contact with things is slight and restricted to how they look."
Some people say that "a good poet must understand the issues he writes about," but if a poet really had knowledge of the subject why would he be limiting himself to only making a representation, rather than working with the real thing?
For example, Homer, the most famous of all the poets, writes about war and politics and society, but has he contributed to any actual political reforms? Has he participated in or led any actual military campaigns? And if not, why not? If he had real knowledge about those things, then he should have been able to.
All that a poet is really capable of is casting a spell on superficial people to make them think he has actual knowledge of the things he represents, even though "what he'll be representing, apparently, is whatever appeals to a large, if ignorant, audience ... A representer knows nothing of value about the things he represents; representation is a kind of game, and shouldn't be taken seriously."
Appearances can be deceiving. A single object can appear many different ways by looking at it from different angles. Our perceptions can be tricked in all sorts of ways. Measurements counter the illusion of appearance and are able to get to the truth of the thing objectively. A poet, though, only concerns himself with the layer of appearances and illusions.
He also cares more about emotions, since they're easier to represent and to appeal to compared with cool and objective reason. So the poet is indulging the lower, lesser parts of our minds. He "establishes a bad system of government in people's minds by gratifying their irrational side."
Key Takeaways
The way our minds are divided is a key argument for Plato's whole philosophy. In the last chapter, he used this argument as the foundation for why morality leads to a better life and more happiness. It comes down to allowing the higher, rational, intellectual part of your mind be in charge. It's after he laid this out that he realizes here, looking back, that they were right to ban poetry from their imagined community. Similar to the way that acting immorally gives control of our minds to our more base and lesser instincts, poetry gives the control to our emotions.
The counter argument, for what it's worth, is that art is able to reveal the truth of something in a way that reason and measurements cannot. And it appeals to something within us that is deeply human and deeply true. Plato obviously didn't see it that way, even though he admits he has a deep admiration for the poet, Homer.