DXBtoDOH

It's wasted on teenagers. Which is a shame. I'd argue you need to be significantly older to properly understand Socrates.

Millhouse

Hang on a minute. Despite the usual bitter undercurrent that only comes with age in your post, this is the first that I have agreed with.

scot47

Other here are bitter because
they were educated at South London Poly and not at a decent university !

DXBtoDOH

I first read Plato's Republic at school but like most students didn't really understand the implications. It was novel and we had vigorous debates but that's from the perspective of teenagers. Then I read it again at university and only understood it a bit better.

But now in rereading it, it's more provocative than it was for a 17 year old geek. Life experience comes with greater awareness and understanding of what Socrates was getting at as well as the inherent downsides of Socrates' arguments. And, as function_analysis pointed out, there's much lost or misunderstood due to translation that's not evident to the first time reader who usually takes the book too literally, word for word, without understanding what the ancient Greeks really meant by certain meanings and implications and the context of the time.

Nonetheless, I'm enjoying the reread and I won't bore anyone anymore about it. I'll post a separate thread for Aristotle next week

function_analysis

Great stuff DXBtoDOH..."Virtue is honourable and difficult, vice is easy and profitable" as Hesiod says.

Take the next step ahead with Aristotle this time and PM me in case the pack will be still screaming

scot47

personally I am taking great delight in reading "Just William" I suddenly understand my life. I kept on meeting women who were like Violet Elizabeth Bott.

scrubbedexpat141

Undercurrent?

No chance of it happening at any secondary school within reason. At my grammar we did the usual things - Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men etc etc etc.