Iliad and Liberal Education

Iliad, as a literary artwork, reminds of human excellence and greatness in the field of poetry. Being one of the oldest epic poems, Iliad is a product of human excellence not only in terms of form, but also the themes Homer touches upon - anger, justice, the divine, love - have challenged many great minds, and are still disputable in modern times. In this sense, Iliad serves as an epic beauty, in which Homer aesthetically harmonizes the content and the form. Therefore, if liberal education is an experience in things beautiful, should the Iliad be regarded as a part of liberal education?

            In order to analyze Iliad as a text for liberal education, it is important to understand what is meant by liberal education and the aim of this type of education. According to Strauss, “Liberal education is education in culture or toward culture.” Since culture here refers to the cultivation of mind, the aim of liberal education is to awaken the individual from his/her torpor embedded in mass democracy. To move from the concept of modern democracy shaped by the ignorant members of mass culture to the ideal democratic state, Strauss suggests individuals to transform the monologues of the greatest minds into a dialogue. That is to say, one should develop an awareness of cultural and historical differences and avoid the deterministic approach to learning inherent in modern thought. In doing so, by employing dialectics, individuals will be able to recognize and appreciate human excellence and greatness.

            Given that framework, on what, for Homer, does human excellence or greatness lay? Is it possible for the reader to develop a dialogue with Homer to realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world? Does Iliad as an epic poem scoping on Trojan War – one of the oldest literature on human violence - somehow relate to the goodness of the world? To answer these questions one can argue how powerful is the narration of Homer on violence, as the reader identifies with that violence in the most possible peaceful way. His fulgent storytelling goes hand in hand with what is natural, and nature itself. One of the good examples of this relation to nature is his representation of the battle field before Hector kills Patroclusin in Book 16:

Winds sometimes rise in a deep mountain wood

From different directions, and the trees—

Beech, ash, and cornelian cherry—

Batter each other with their long, tapered branches,

And you can hear the sound from a long way off,

The unnerving splintering of hardwood limbs.

Homer’s use of similes of this kind takes the story of the harsh violence into slow motion, giving time to the reader to stop and think about human nature for a better understanding of being. Direct references to the god made nature, and the pure essence of human actions are represented without any signs of vulgarity. Strauss says that “Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity.” Vulgarity here, referring to its Greek use, is expressed as a lack of experience in beautiful things. Iliad, consisted of many beauties like the simile represented above, in its completeness is a form of aesthetics. Therefore, one can agree when Strauss favors the classical literature and Greek philosophy as the two fields in which one can find beauty in its highest form. Though this belief is not exclusive of the modern approach to sciences, there is a greater emphasis on the need to read classical texts for their own sakes, for the beauty they offer to the reader.

In The Republic, book 10, Socrates discusses that the art works such as paintings or poems would be dangerous for the citizens of Kallipolis. Although he claims to admire the works of Homer, those poems have the potential to be dangerous in a way that they can provoke the irrational element of the soul and be a destructive influence on the minds of those who hear it. If the effect of Homer’s poems on the ordinary citizen is set aside and the effects on philosophers is considered, Socrates’s discussion reveals how powerful Homer is as a poet even for those great minds like Plato and Socrates. Their interest in Iliad and other poems is not only because it is a pleasure to read them; but because of their power for reproduction in philosophical form. That is to say, with an erotic perspective, one may defend the beauty in Homer not as a plain pleasure of verbal excellence; but also as an object of beauty, which leads great minds to create new ideas of human greatness.

            To proceed in the line of discussion on Iliad as a part of liberal education, it is also as important for me to read and understand Iliad in its depth in order to have a full access to the works of the following great minds. Iliad’s epic beauty provided Homer an authority over the depiction of Gods and the Greek mythology in general. Since Iliad is the pioneer in bringing about the issues of the divine and justice in Western literature. In that sense, Homer can be perceived as a mediator between the history and his audience through the means of epic improvisations as it is argued in the introduction to Iliad there is no other reliable source to refer in terms of the period Homer describes. In that respect, it is that aesthetics present in Iliad which makes it as powerful as it is both for people of its age as a guide for tradition and religion, and of the contemporary as an historical source for Greek mythology and a marvelous piece of poetry.

The Lilac Government - Anecdote

          

         The liberation movement at the end of the 1960’s has nearly resulted in a civil war in Turkey between the nationalists and socialists, which ended up with the military coup in 1971. Many socialists were arrested and soldiers were searching the houses of the socialists for potentially harmful political books. It is not surprising that The Republic was the hand book of the socialists who were in search of the ideal city. The name ‘Plato’ is translated to Turkish as ‘Eflatun’, which is also the same name for the color of lilac. While soldiers were searching for the books to be burnt in one of the socialists’ house, they came across with The Republic, on which was written ‘Eflatun - Devlet’ in Turkish. The exact translation makes it ‘the lilac government’ in English. Just like the carefully educated guardians of Kallipolis, the Turkish guardians were also kept away from the dangerous books, which could harm their belief in their government, that is why they could not recognize The Republic. Instead, their reaction was that they said they have heard about the red government before, but not the lilac one. So they did not take the book to burn with the others.

            It would be unreasonable to compare here the political system of Turkey with the system in The Republic. However, for the sake of the argument, it is possible only to say that at that time the Turkish political system was an unqualified copy of the totalitarian regime that Socrates describes. Socrates’ theory on the ideal city mainly relies on the education of the guardians and the philosopher kings. Assuming that philosophers are the ones who have the knowledge of the good, they should be the rulers and provide the proper education to the guardians for the common good of the city. The system he represents can be seen as a totalitarian regime in the sense that philosopher kings, who have the knowledge on ‘the good’ that the citizens are not able to access because of their inabilities, will decide for the common good of the passive demos. Although the city is ruled by autocracy, it is not tyrannical regarding that all the guardians are good to the people and the city is imagined according to the harmony and the happiness of the people. This harmony was the reason for the Turkish socialists’ interest in the book. In their egalitarian beliefs, they wanted to approach to a better state similar to the idealized system in Plato’s book. One can argue that the missing point in their actions relating to the book is Socrates’ argument on the will of philosopher kings to rule. Socrates claims that the philosopher does not have any interest in ruling the city, but because he is the only one who have the wisdom to rule the city, it is in a way demanded from him and he should not resist to that demand. This argument shows that the change should start within in the individual so that they will be able to demand the service of the best ruler. Nevertheless, socialists of the time wanted to bring the change to the public by political means, but the individuals were not introduced with the idea of the good. At this point, what I would like to claim with the above anecdote is that the political reading of the book, as the socialists did, can be misleading. To put it differently, Socrates tries to avoid the political understanding of his  arguments in the book, when Adeimentus and Glaucon demands him to explain how it can be possible to create such an ideal city, and pull their attention to the philosophical argument first to give them a perspective on the philosophical inquiry.

            In order to differentiate the philosophical implications of the text from what has actually been said in the line of argument on justice in Kallipolis, it is important to look at the path that Socrates’ argument follows. In the search for the true nature of justice, first Socrates introduces the idea of ‘the goodness’, which exists on a transcendental level. Since this abstraction is beyond human understanding, he assumes a city which consists of a ruling class, guardians and the public. He claims that the only possible connection of the city with the idea of the goodness can be through the philosophers because only philosophers recognize and take pleasure in the single form behind the multiplicity of appearances. Guardians are educated through this understanding of the good to be courageous enough to protect it. Then he uses this analogy to reflect the virtues of the soul, in which there exist both rational and irrational elements. At that point, the analogy of the city and the soul collide in each other and the state of the city does not fit in the state of the soul. Adeimentus and Glaucon, with Eros in themselves, demand Socrates to explain how such a system can be applicable insistently with the desire to believe in the idea of the good. Socrates, satisfied to see that the discussion triggered the desire for the search of the true nature of the individual, then passes on the topic of the philosopher’s education.

            The introduction of the discussion on the philosopher’s education takes the argument to another level. This part of the book can be seen as the exercises part at the end of a chapter. While discussing the virtues of the philosopher like wisdom, good memory, and justice, Socrates further provokes Adeimentus and Glaucon, already planted with the idea of the good, to practice philosophical inquiry. According to the path that Socrates follows, one can argue that the sections in his divided line analogy at the end of book 6; conjecture, belief, thinking, and understanding, refer to the phases they have been through from the beginning of the discussion. Adeimentus and Glaucon in book 6 are in the thinking section regarding their enthusiasm to have the knowledge of the good that Socrates is talking about. Socrates claims that it is not possible for humans to fully understand that transcendental energy, but tries to improve their vision with the allegory of the cave that one should go out in the sun to have a better understanding of the ideal forms. Here, he uses the philosophical nature as an image to describe the divine motive in the individual soul. In a way, his discussion leads Adeimentus and Glaucon to the highest degree in the divided line, which is understanding, through being aware of that philosophical nature of the soul to get out of the cave.

            To conclude, when Socrates asks in book 5 that "do you think our inability to show that it is possible to found a city in the way we have described makes what we have to say any less valid?", this question alters our understanding of the function or significance of Kallipolis by freeing the reader from the political constraints of the city and emphasizing the importance of the education of the individual soul. Just as Glaucon, the reader is also encouraged to search for the divine in the soul. If it can be recognized through the help of the proper education,  then the discussion on justice will come to an end because it is impossible for the individual to act unjustly after reunifying with the knowledge of the good. In other words, with this question the reader realizes that Socrates wants to stimulate the change that is required for a just society starting from the individual and his main aim is to practice this educational matter with the people he is in dialogue with, in that case they are Adeimentus and Glaucon. What Plato does with The Republic is to invite a large number of the readers in the discussion, again for the educational purposes that he believes in just like Socrates.