MARK MOESin order to become a truly good statesman and a truly wise and coura-
geous person. Socrates implies that in order to become a true guardian
of himself and of others, Glaucon will have to pursue literature and
philosophy with the kind of aggressive eagerness with which he is now
tempted to pursue coercive political power. When Socrates articulated
for Adeimantus the program of censoring scandalous and offensive
passages from Homer and Hesiod, Glaucon raised no objection. His
apparently premature assent to this program manifested his extreme
crassness and superfi ciality as an interpreter of myths, his lack of appre-
ciation of their edifying power. For cutting out from the myths all depic-
tions of unjust deeds and characters would deprive would-be guardians
with unjust characters of manifold opportunities for self-diagnosis and
self-recognition. It would constitute a highly questionable form of both
political and psychological repression or censorship, perhaps an expres-
sion of the sort of self-censorship and self-deception that, according to
some Freudian and post-Freudian theorists, is intrinsic to or symptom-
atic of a variety of psychopathologies.^53 Glaucon’s assent to the program
was another expression of what Socrates had warned him against ear-
lier—the mixing of gumnastikhv with iatrikhÛv. Socrates has already sug-
gested that such practice makes one pursue an exhausting project of
avoiding what is required for a real approach toward health of soul,
and of hiding from the real causes of one’s behavioral-psychological
problems.
There is a natural tendency to presume that what is philosophical
or rational is either painless or at least minimizes pain. But especially
painful is the process of thinking about shameful aspects of oneself
or about painful experiences. What we fi nd “unthinkable” may often
be only what we fi nd too painful to contemplate, and the world comes
with no assurance that the truth is always pretty and pleasant. Gain-
ing the capacity to think painful thoughts may be among the prerequi-
sites for becoming a wise person. Recall Er’s vision of the souls making
bad choices because they had participated in virtue through habit but
without philosophy and had been “untrained in suffering” (619c– d).^54
Socrates is showing Glaucon that gymnastic of the body trains one to
endure and even despise physical suffering, and that this carries over
to other kinds of pain as well, such as the pain of grasping truths hid-
den in products of mousikhv. Later in the dialogue Glaucon shows his
disdain for those persons he calls the “lovers of sights and hearing,” who
although they are unwilling to attend a discussion “run around to every
chorus at the Dionysia, just as though they had hired out their ears for
hearing” (475d). Glaucon apparently dislikes tragedy and does not run
to every chorus at the Dionysia. Tragedy reveals men’s weakness, their
inability to control their situation, and their vulnerability.^55