Book Five of Plato’s Republic addresses the role of women in the republic. Socrates narrates this dialogue, while Glaucon plays the role of interlocutor. Since their talk concerns women, the issues of love, procreation, and ability seem to be their primary focus. Yet, before the topic of women can begin, Socrates must address, even if briefly, the idea of rhetoric. Socrates sums up his idea of good rhetoric: “I believe that involuntary homicide is a lesser fault than to mislead opinion about the honorable, the good, and the just” (690). Socrates suggests the reason why he never wants to lecture or orate: that he is not sure, without a proper dialectic, if he is speaking the truth. So to not make the error of the false rhetorician, Socrates practices the art of dialectic: “seeking while he talks” (690).

Well, the problem in Book V is the women: if they have all things in common with men, then why are they treated differently, as inferior? Indeed, they agree, women should be treated the same. If this is to be the case in their republic, what must change? Also, despite a different “nature” and the fact that women are the physically weaker, Socrates and Glaucon agree that women should share the same pursuits as their husbands (693-4).

Next comes discussion about kind. That is, women should be mated with men who share the same predilections toward a service: guardians should be mated to guardians (695). However, in the case of guardians, there should be a common pool of offspring where all will care for all. This idea seems to have been borrowed from Zamyatin and Huxley in the twentieth century; guardians are more easily controlled if they do not share lovers exclusively. So this unity of all is for the greater good of the republic (701).

Religion seems pragmatic only — based entirely on lip service (698, 700, and 708). This seemingly Machiavellian idea, coupled with Socrates’ statement that “our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of their subjects” (698) supports the idea that will be developed later: that only the philosopher king has grasped the Truth and is capable of ruling. This notion seems to reflect the zeitgeist of Athens at the time: in a transitional phase that seemed to privilege human intellect and reason above a traditional faith in the gods. Religious ceremonies, such as marriage, will be solely for the benefit of the state; only under state sanction will the priests offer their blessings and prayers. Ironically, these ceremonies are performed to keep the people happy, and not for anything spiritual — for only the philosopher king, the head of the state, comprehends Truth anyway.

The best state is one that mirrors the individual man (701). This metaphor for the republic is developed to support the above ideas. When one part of the body is injured, even a small part, the whole of the body reacts to heal the wound. Each part of the body will share pleasure or pain as a whole. This idea, taken literally, sounds like the Borg from Star Trek. The Borg are cybernetically enhanced humanoids whose minds are linked to form a collective, or hive. The Borg react instantaneously as one entity. Socrates’ republic sounds similar to Borg in this respect (what was that about Huxley and Zamyatin?). But, unlike Socrates’ utopian republic, the Borg are vicious assimilators who scoop up whole civilizations to make them part of their collective. This idea seems to be where Socrates and the Borg differ: assimilation. Socrates and Glaucon agree that no slaves should be taken of conquered enemies, especially Greeks, and that the practice of stripping armor from defeated enemies should be abolished (708-9).

Yet the idea of assimilation is not totally foreign to the republic. Citizens must be assimilated if they are to be citizens. Like Christian missionaries and colonial empires, the rough-hewn subaltern must be shown the truth and the light. But thinking that this missionary work is a one-way affair would be naive. The Borg assimilate other cultures because It sees a characteristic of that culture that they want to possess. This radical form of multiculturalism destroys what it desires in the first place; by making diversity part of the collective, they get more of the same. This assimilation must begin, as Socrates states, at an early age: “we must mount them when very young” (707). What I interpreted as a double entendre (probably not far off considering the sexual banter that goes on in other Platonic dialogues), Socrates means literally the equestrian arts. The process of integration must begin when the children are young; this insures a loyal citizen and no contamination from the outside world, except when, like whit blood cells, that army proceeds to attack an invading contagion (707).

Unlike the Borg, the Socrates’ Republicans do not have the technology to assimilate as efficiently; therefore, they must rely on the greater understanding of the philosopher to govern. The philosopher is one who loves (in the Platonic sense of the word) wisdom. This idea is based on the idea that Love exists as an absolute that only the philosopher can know — not the multifarious entity we take it to be. There is no such thing as different kinds of love according to Socrates: “When we say that a man [loves] something, shall we say that he has an appetite for the whole class or that he only desires a part and a part not?” (714). The philosopher, then, is one who attacks knowledge with dialectic and cannot get enough of it (714). Socrates equates “true knowledge” with science and contrasts it with opinion. One who opines does not know — his belief is somewhere between nescience and science. He perceives many things, and not a whole; whereas, one who knows perceives the whole (720).

This epistemology of the whole seems to be the central idea behind the Republic. Knowledge of the whole, rather than the particular elements that constitute the whole, equals true knowledge, science, or wisdom for Plato. While there is something appealing in a knowledge of the whole, it also represents something potentially terrifying. Individuality is only important in its support of the whole. Knowledge of the particular, it seems, is fallacious and does not promote knowledge. One must wonder whether or not Plato’s intention was to begin his republic with the readers of his Republic.

OK, now what about those women?