/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10876356]

Let me see if I can get this straight:
>if the difference between things has no impact on the purpose, they should both be allowed to pursue that purpose
>the only difference between a bald man and a hairy man is hair, which has no impact on how good a cobbler one makes
>the only difference between men and women is that women can give birth, which has no impact on how good a soldier one makes
>therefore women should be soldiers

Am I missing something here? No consideration of all the other physical differences between men and women?

[Anonymous No.10876398]

>>10876356
You do realize that everyone was /fit/ and borderline /fit/ back then, right?

[Anonymous No.10876410]

>>10876356
its a noble lie so that unity and talent are preserved women would serve as back line fighters, strategists and diplomats. Socrates was a soldier he should know better but he’s trying to sell the idea of forms over becomings anon, use the context of the dialectic to your advantage. i agree its fucking absurd considering greek commanders served on the front lines

[Anonymous No.10876722]

>>10876356
in those days where everyone ran into each other with spears and shields and swords why would you opposed to having 10,000 women on your side? heck even all holding up the front lines

[Anonymous No.10876737]

Essence is of importance here - your body is healthy FOR the health of the soul

[Anonymous No.10876745]

>>10876722
Because losing 10,000 women today means there is no tomorrow for your people. Men are expendable, women are not.

[Anonymous No.10876760]

>>10876745
oh thats right, I forgot there was only 10,000 women in your nation

[Anonymous No.10876762]

>>10876356
>No consideration of all the other physical differences between men and women?
Those are nonessential. Women are typically weaker than men, yes, but there is such a thing as a strong woman, so why should those women be denied opportunity?

[Anonymous No.10876769]

>>10876356

In context, women were probably better fit for conventional warfare than most men today. The role of soldier also encompassed (still does when you think about it) much more than combat, such as cooking, gathering, scouting (pretty damn important) and general back line activities.

There's also the matter in >>10876410 that this is an essentialist argument and ancient Greece is not exactly known for being pragmatic.

[Anonymous No.10876770]

>>10876745
this anon is correct, those who denounce him are wrong

[Anonymous No.10876776]

>>10876356
>only difference is giving birth
even if this would be correct, giving birth makes you a worse soldier because your group will have less human resources in the generation to come.

[Anonymous No.10876777]

>>10876762
To relate this to the cobbler example, it may be that bald people tend to be older and old people tend to be worse with their hands and therefore bald cobblers are worse on average than hairy ones, but that is not in itself a reason to exclude a bald person from cobbling.

[Anonymous No.10876780]

>Am I missing something here?
The text and the arguments.

“Do you know, then, of anything practised by mankind in which the masculine sex does not surpass the female on all these points? Must we make a long story of it by alleging weaving and the watching of pancakes and the boiling pot, whereon the sex plumes itself and wherein its defeat will expose it to most laughter?” “You are right,” he said, “that the one sex is far surpassed by the other in everything, one may say. Many women, it is true, are better than many men in many things, but broadly speaking, it is as you say.” “Then there is no pursuit of the administrators of a state that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a man because he is a man. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women naturally share in all pursuits and men in all— yet for all the woman is weaker than the man.” “Assuredly.” “Shall we, then, assign them all to men and nothing to women?” “How could we?” “We shall rather, I take it, say that one woman has the nature of a physician and another not, and one is by nature musical, and another unmusical?” “Surely.” “Can we, then, deny that one woman is naturally athletic and warlike and another unwarlike and averse to gymnastics?” “I think not.” “And again, one a lover, another a hater, of wisdom? And one high-spirited, and the other lacking spirit?” “That also is true.” “Then it is likewise true that one woman has the qualities of a guardian and another not. Were not these the natural qualities of the men also whom we selected for guardians?” “They were.” “The women and the men, then, have the same nature in respect to the guardianship of the state, save in so far as the one is weaker, the other stronger.” “Apparently.”

“Women of this kind, then, must be selected to cohabit with men of this kind and to serve with them as guardians since they are capable of it and akin by nature.” “By all means.” “And to the same natures must we not assign the same pursuits?” “The same.” “We come round, then, to our previous statement, and agree that it does not run counter to nature to assign music and gymnastics to the wives of the guardians.”

[Anonymous No.10876786]

>>10876760
1 man + 5 women = 5 children
5 men + 1 woman = 1 child

[Anonymous No.10876787]

>>10876780
“In the matter of supposing some men to be better and some worse, or do you think them all alike?” “By no means.” “In the city, then, that we are founding, which do you think will prove the better men, the guardians receiving the education which we have described or the cobblers educated by the art of cobbling?” “An absurd question,” he said. “I understand,” said I; “and are not these the best of all the citizens?” “By far.” “And will not these women be the best of all the women?” “They, too, by far.” “Is there anything better for a state than the generation in it of the best possible women and men?” “There is not.” “And this, music and gymnastics applied as we described will effect.” “Surely.” “Then the institution we proposed is not only possible but the best for the state.” “That is so.” “The women of the guardians, then, must strip, since they will be clothed with virtue as a garment, and must take their part with the men in war and the other duties of civic guardianship and have no other occupation. But in these very duties lighter tasks must be assigned to the women than to the men because of their weakness as a class.

[Anonymous No.10876789]

>>10876356
socrates does add later on that chapter that woman are less strong than men tho

[Anonymous No.10876795]

>>10876786
1. Not every woman has a child
2. Estimates of the population of Greek speakers in the coast and islands of the Aegean Sea during the 5th century BC vary from 800,000 to over 3,000,000. The city of Athens in the 4th century BC had a population of 60,000 non-foreign free males.

[Anonymous No.10876803]

>>10876356
In addition to other points brought up in this thread, women in Plato's republic were to be brought up following the same physical regimen as men.

[Anonymous No.10876807]

>>10876786
Greeks weren't polygamists, were they?

[Anonymous No.10876813]

>>10876787
I said, “that the best men must cohabit with the best women in as many cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the fewest, and that the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other not, if the flock is to be as perfect as possible. And the way in which all this is brought to pass must be unknown to any but the rulers, if, again, the herd of guardians is to be as free as possible from dissension.” “Most true,” he said. “We shall, then, have to ordain certain festivals and sacrifices, in which we shall bring together the brides and the bridegrooms, and our poets must compose hymns suitable to the marriages that then take place. But the number of the marriages we will leave to the discretion of the rulers, that they may keep the number of the citizens as nearly as may be the same, taking into account wars and diseases and all such considerations, and that, so far as possible, our city may not grow too great or too small.” “Right,” he said. “Certain ingenious lots, then, I suppose, must be devised so that the inferior man at each conjugation may blame chance and not the rulers.” “Yes, indeed,” he said.

“And on the young men, surely, who excel in war and other pursuits we must bestow honors and prizes, and, in particular, the opportunity of more frequent intercourse with the women, which will at the same time be a plausible pretext for having them beget as many of the children as possible.” “Right.” “And the children thus born will be taken over by the officials appointed for this, men or women or both, since, I take it, the official posts too are common to women and men. The offspring of the good, I suppose, they will take to the pen or créche, to certain nurses who live apart in a quarter of the city, but the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them.” “That is the condition,” he said, “of preserving the purity of the guardians' breed.”