with many multicolored ornaments that fascinates women and children (Republic 228). In doing so he not only takes a cynical stance toward democracy, but he also ridicules the position of women within a society. According to Plato, the average person lacks the knowledge and mastery of emotions necessary to make informed and rational decisions about various government laws and practices. He thinks that the general public is driven by its own self-interest in the world and therefore cannot act in a politically smart manner. Plato infers that letting these people, who are guided by emotion and ignorant to procedures of the government, run the State or democracy is a bad idea altogether. He decides that only the philosopher kings, whose main goal is to help maintain good for the entire community, should be allowed to rule a government. And he goes on to imply that the rulers need not be tempted by living simply to improve their own lives, rather they continue working to benefit everyone.Plato’s idea of democracy stated in the Republic sounds ideal in theory. If a society could function in this manner normally, it would be a utopian society basically. The only problem is that history has proven that societies based on this method and these procedures have generally failed. In ancient city-states, such as Athens, the democratic style of government proved to be ineffective and key people within society, like Socrates, were put to death for their patterns of thought. Humans simply cannot live in the ways required by this model. A democracy has proven to work well because it involves the general public within a society. Plato’s opinion of the intellectual abilities of people in a democracy seems to be very low. Any average person makes numerous mistakes and is overall swayed by some sort of emotion. This is the sole reason why a democracy functions on a system of checks and balances. A democracy’s main focus is to...
