Lessons Learned

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Lessons Learned (An analysis of the lessons from books one through five of The Republic) The Republic is Plato’s lesson to the world. In it he wraps lessons in analogies and teaches some of the most complex issues in the simplest of stories. Most of these stories teach invaluable lessons or lead up to a moral or answer that the person speaking with Socrates will have to work out for themselves, even after it is given to them. Some of these include the virtues of the just, the roles of education, the ideal way to run a society, and many, many others. Three of the multitude of important lessons that Socrates gave to the world through Plato’s detailed writings were that might does not make right, that the criteria for leadership should not be…show more content…
In the figurative pyramid that Socrates built in his analogy to Adementus and Glaucon wisdom, and leadership were at the top, with courage and discipline below them. To be a leader means you must have all of those things. “Leadership must be grounded in moral foundations. The four components of authentic transformational leadership (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration) are contrasted with their counterfeits…” (Bass). Glaucon said that being a leader seems unpleasant, or that it has no gratifying things that come along with it since there would be less money, less free time, and less pleasure than the lower classes where they had more money and more to do with it. Socrates refutes this, saying that a man at the top doesn’t require those things and that when he does have those things he usually doesn’t do his job overtly well. He says, much like Professor Denham does that, “The characteristic desired of each level would not be eliminated, but would in fact, under rational leadership, achieve their best general satisfaction.” (Denham) Thus saying that the needs and wants of the many outweigh the needs and wants of the few, keeping the leaders doing their job well leads to happy people, and happy people lead to a healthy and just
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