it is necessary to tell the rulers falsehoods in their childhood to have them be gentile to their own people and harmful to their enemies. In order to give them a good moral upbringing Plato states that you need to read them stories about the Gods. But because the ruler can only be subjected to good moral ideas, the evil stories will be overlooked. " Aren't there two kinds of story, one true and the other false?" Socrates states," Yes. And mustn't our men be educated in both, but first in false ones?" Plato thinks that children not be confronted with anything evil until its character is already formed, making the children respect honesty and virtue." The young cant distinguish what is allegorical from what isn't, and the opinions they absorb at that age are hard to erase and apt to become unalternatable. For these reasons, then, we should take the utmost care to insure that the first stories they hear about virtue are the best ones for them to hear."Plato believes that it is proper to tell falsehoods to children because it is preventing them from becoming disrespectful. Because good is coming out, it would be a moral thing to lie in this situation. Plato also thinks this type of verbal falsehood is just because we really dont know what happened in the past with the Gods, therefore by making the lie as mush like the truth, leaving out the bad, we are making it useful to the children. If the ruler children didnt hear these falsehoods they would grow up to be cowardly, and afraid of death, making them insufficient leaders for the ideal state.Also in book II Plato explains the conditions in which he does not approve of falsehoods. These lies are called true falsehoods. True falsehoods are when you are," false to ones soul about the things that are, to be ignorant and to have and hold falsehood there, is what everyone would least of all accept, for everyone hates a falsehood in that place most of all." When a lie is always wrong and no kin...
