Why only the intellectually trained should be allowed to rule!

By NZAU MUSAU


According to Plato, only the intellectually trained should rule in his republic. He roots for not only training but also excellence in the training where the very best emerge from the training/educational system. Those are the ones who should rule in the republic, he avers. His explanation is anchored in the following arguments that I will proceed to make.

Intellectual training, according to Plato, leads to development of high and refined qualities which are essential for leadership. In the just society that Plato envisages in the republic, the right people must be doing the right thing for justice to flow. Justice is essential in Plato’s republic as it gives way to all other virtues. Only through training which separates the different classes and therefore affords justice. The training system is designed in a way that qualities of bravery, wisdom and courage are developed. The most essential quality here being wisdom which would not be attained otherwise but through continuous and persistent education and opening up of the soul.
Intellectual training is essential for leadership in the sense that the trainee is censored to particular ways and is conditioned to live a virtuous life which is necessary for a just leadership. It conditions one to a suitable moral tone which is internalized so much so that it becomes part and parcel of the person. Again, the just republic envisaged by Plato demands of a well groomed person at the top, one who aspires to, knows and delivers only the good. People who do not excel in training would not make good rulers and are therefore discouraged from leadership by Plato. They nevertheless, like water, find their own level in the republic. They guard the republic or support the republic in production terms. They find their own level in accordance to qualities they develop in the course of their training. Corruption, Plato avers, is the product of irrational appetites, egoistic passions and false believes can only be prevalent in the lower echelons of the republic. The rationality which is obtained through intellectual training has not place for such base appetites and desires as corruption is made of. True philosophers cannot therefore be corrupt and accordingly, they are the best of rules.
The fact that intellectual training takes time is of fundamental value to Plato’s assertion that only the intellectually trained should rule. The system envisaged by Plato takes so much time so that at about 50 years of age, one can qualify to become a philosopher. The many years of intellectual conditioning through study and pursuance of essences make the trainers wiser and devoted to the republic. Not only are they wiser but the wisdom attained grants them humility to serve the republic. The rulers of this kind will therefore not pursue leadership for their own sake or self service but for the sake of the republic. By this age, the trainees do not have much regard for the sensual and material things which are the bane of bad rulers. Their greatest happiness lies in the pursuit of the immaterial and this would provide a good ground for the growth of the republic under their rule.
Intellectual training develops reasoning as opposed to the spirit and desire of the soldiers and the masses respectively. Strong reasoning abilities are essential in a ruler according to Plato. With good reasoning ability, the ruler is able to make just rulings of good to the nation but which the producers (masses) and soldiers might not appreciate or comprehend but which in the very end work to the good of the republic. This is only possible if the intellect is exercised to seek out the essences and realities. Through reasoning, trainees attain true knowledge of these realities; the forms. A trainee is therefore able to know the fullness of certain things and therefore grow their shadows as closer as possible to the real things. For instance, through his meditations and knowledge of forms, an intellectually trained ruler knows what a just city looks like. He therefore pursues this just city in his rule because he knows it. According to Plato, when one knows good in the true sense of it, he can only do good. A ruler who knows a just city can only pursue a just city and nothing else. This knowledge cannot be attained otherwise other than sustained intellectual exercise and revelation.
Like Plato demonstrates in his allegory of the cave, only a philosopher (an intellectually trained) is liberated from shackles of physical senses. Only he is freed from this dark cave to the dazzling radiance of the mind. Only a freed person can therefore rescue the shackled. It is only him who can go back to the cave and liberate the prisoners. In the republic, the prisoners are the auxiliaries and the artisans. They are fettered by fear, desire and the senses. It will be tragic if any of these is allowed to rule over a republic. It would be a great contradiction to orderly and just flow of the republic. The intellectually trained rulers will rise above these fears and deliver justice and therefore liberation to the public. This is because through intellectual training, the rulers have escaped into the regions unknown, they have an experience which is not ordinary and their mind is not given unto what ties the rest down. They are free spirits.
The idea of good is very essential in a republic. It is an idea which need be pursued and understood appropriately. Like stated earlier, only a person who knows good can do good. Consequently people do not do good because they do not know what is good. Through study of subjects dealing with abstractions like arithmetic and geometry among others, one is led into appreciating and knowing good. All these have a practical application but their real and true value lies on the power to lead the soul out of darkness of the changing world of senses to unchanging world of the mind. Fortified by these exercises in abstract thought and through the study of dialectics, the soul learns to comprehend the very idea of the good. The producers and auxiliaries cannot know what is good because of their limited training which focuses on the physical and not the intellectual. They cannot therefore deliver the good; the can only be coerced to do good and even then, they do not appreciate good. The level and nature of their training delivers only qualities which suit them- production, protection and support. If they are allowed to rule, they will not therefore deliver good. They will actually destroy the republic.
In conclusion, the education system envisaged by Plato is meant to separate the people to fit in their various categories. Only through this can we develop the various categories and know who fits where. People must be in their right places for the republic to obtain justice. In this case and as Plato asserts, the rulers (kings) need necessarily be the intellectually trained (philosophers. This can be obtained by making philosophers the kings or making kings philosophers.