A Consistent Republic?

While at times Plato does mention the need to show the possibility for what he is proposing to exist, he never truly discusses it beyond noting that not too many changes would need to be made to the Hellenic state. However, this is not the case since many of the steps would go against habits in Greek culture, including his treatment of women and the breaking up of families. Further problematic with setting up this ideal state is that the plans are not even internally consistent. Book V struck me personally as the most offensive and objectionable, and also lacked internal consistency of ideas. For instance, he wishes that women be equal in almost every way, but still refers to them as property and belonging to the community. He also speaks of women as wifes and as belonging to a collective of men, but his preconceptions must block him from seeing that in the community he set up with people being housed together and through the dissembling of the family structure, women will not be wives just as the men will not be husbands. Furthermore, while he does have an interesting idea with many valued points about raising children in a way that leaves them uncertain of their parentage, he does not seem to think of where and how they will be raised beyond the first year or so after they are done nursing. At that age it can not yet be determined what their preferences are so where they should go apprentice as he proposes. From this writing and later section it is clear he has little personal experience in what goes into raising a child.

As a second point I agree with Thomas when he notes that Plato's analyse and argument for maximizing hapiness would not stand up today. However, I do slightly disagree with your point that a government shouldn't and likely can't influence human happiness, while I do agree that Plato's way of trying to maximize possible human happiness is also not internally consistent (especially vis-a-vis the role and place of the Guardians). However, I disagree with Thomas in that since human happiness is a very desirable thing to have in a state, it is something that a government should try to provide room for and at least make sure their is opportunities for the vast majority to be happy/content/satisfied. While lying to the people and trying to exclude vast pieces of literature is very likely unsustainable, even if Plato's Republic were momentarily realised, it would soon collapse or revolt or fundementally shift once the lies are discovered, which would once again lead to a decrease in happiness.

Overall, I was not impressed with this piece, especially as it seemed despite the supposed questioning going on, the listeners where simply there to say yes and propose leading questions and serve reasons why Socrates must delve into deeper points. This lead me to compare the increasing belief in all the suppositions to a case of group think, where little questions are asked and dealt with, but the underlying (questionable) fundamentals remain untackled.