This was an essay I wrote for a philosophy class that I just took at a liberal arts college. It's a comparison/argument between Plato's Republic and Tim O'Brien's On the Rainy River.
I’m On a Boat
I see a kind-faced woman carrying a copy of Plato’s Republic. My copy is sitting next to me as I type. Your copy is in a folder somewhere. Plato is looming, in the back of my mind, telling me what I should do as I indulge in my pleasures. Plato is watching me, his gaze providing me with an awareness of my actions. Everyone is watching. Plato says, “Be wise, brave, sober, and just.” I am none of these things. My discernment of reason is weak, I lack in courage, and I do not abstain from my desires. I’m an unjust being. Plato would not be proud. His principle of the theory of the just soul cannot be maintained by man as I’ve witnessed on the rainy river. Because of the gaze of the other, Plato’s theory of justice is unattainable.
I met a man named Tim the other day, and I can relate to him. Tim makes decisions like I do. Tim attempts to reason as I do, and Tim is not brave. Tim puts his personal desires first. He is unjust as well. Tim told me a story, a story about how he tried to escape the draft in Vietnam, how he didn’t believe in the war, yet fought anyway. He spoke about the gaze of the other, the looming eye, the moral predicament that plagued him. Tim could fight for his country and oblige to his “duty” or he could run away, fulfilling his own desires, but experiencing shame from the other. “To face myself or to face the other?” I can hear Tim asking. I cannot answer that, I do not know.
I have a human duty. I am two things: a whole in myself and a part to the whole. But I am not the master of myself. There is no way I can be as I am watched by Plato, by Tim, by you. Tim feels the same way. He was robbed of his free will. How could he master his being? I hear Plato speaking, he’s watching me still. Listen: “But, said I, the intended meaning of this way of speaking appears to me to be that the soul of a man within him has a better part and a worst part, and the expression of self-mastery means the control of the worst by the naturally better part” (672). What part is better, what part is stronger? I have a sense that my soul is weak, that I can’t reason properly, and that I am unable to enact my own free will. Tim can hear Plato, too. He’s with me in the room and I can see the weary expression on his face.
Tim has experienced an inner civil war of proportions that I’ve not. Inside, at the deepest depth of his being, his reason fought desire. He was torn between his duty to his country, his duty to uphold the expectations of others, and his desires for “a life of the mainstream” (45). His spirit sat in between the two, covered in blood, rotting and stinking like a slaughtered pig. The auxiliary spirit could not act because his appetite, the desire for the fulfillment of self, stood on equal grounds with the rational, and the knowledge of the other. There was a great discourse within Tim. He was trapped within the limits of his condition. “Certain blood was being shed for certain reasons,” Tim reminds me.
Would you sacrifice yourself for the other? I say I wouldn’t, but I’m doing that now. I’m being altered, morphed, changed, judged. I’m completely naked as I am clothed. My spirit is stained with blood. I realize now that I have fought Tim’s battle. I’ve always fought Tim’s battle. Plato won’t shut up, his words make me impatient: “What we laid down - and often repeated, if you remember - was that each individual should follow, out of the occupations available in the city, the one which character naturally fitted him” (127). Is it in the nature of man to submit to the expectations of the other? Tim is sitting next to me and he whispers, “Yes.” I believe him. He starts to retell his story to me, and I’m listening attentively.
Tim was drafted. Tim disagreed with the war. Tim attempted to flee to Canada: “It was a kind of schizophrenia. A moral split. I couldn’t make up my mind. I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile” (45). He is bitter about his experiences and he is bitter about his submission to the other, his lack of self mastery. “I am no master,” I tell him, “I am no master.” It’s like Tim is speaking in tongues, like a higher being is moving through him, the sorrow in his voice seeping sourness into the air. I’m mesmerized, but Plato interrupts: “Injustice, on this definition, must be some sort of civil war between these three elements, a refusal to mind their own business, and a determination to mind each other’s, a rebellion by one part of the soul against the whole” (141). I’m the rebellion, Tim’s the rebellion. His words are evidence of this, our self possession, our desire to abstain from submission, to remain our own whole. Tim grows silent as Plato says this, sighs a great sigh, and continues his telling. Tim understands the impossibility of Plato’s justice.
I’m now listening to my favorite part of Tim’s story, his words resonant in my ears. He starts to speak of a moment of injustice, of a sacrificial bleeding to the whole. Tim was fleeing to Canada, Tim was trying to find harmony within himself, but Tim was also being watched. He was being watched by a man named Elroy Berdahl at the Tip Top Lodge. Elroy was a figure of justice. If there was an opposite of the other, that’s what Elroy was. Elroy was the thing that gave Tim a field on which to fight his internal battle, a gun to shoot, or a spirit to save. Elroy reminds me of a deity, of something beyond the gaze of the other. “Elroy was a voice of reason,” says Tim, although the two hardly ever spoke. Elroy provided a space void of judgment, in attempt to assist Tim in reaching self realization.
With brusqueness, Plato interrupts Tim again, “I think the remaining element in the city, besides the virtues we have been looking at - self discipline, courage, and wisdom - is the thing which gave all others the power to come into being, and the thing whose continued presence keeps them safe once they have come into being. We said earlier that justice would be the one left over, if we could only find the other three” (128). Tim is not silent this time. He stands up, with his eyes towards the heavens, and declares, “But it is impossible! It is impossible.” I look down, away from reason, courage, sobriety, and indulge in my passions, and in my fear of losing control. I am not the master of myself. Tim is not the master of himself. How can we be if You are watching?
Tim is silent. He is not continuing his story. I am watching him and it is making him uneasy. He will submit not even to me. I continue Tim’s story in my mind, putting my own being in the place of his. I am now the main character:
It’s the last day at the Tip Top Lodge and Elroy is sitting next to me. Tim is not there, he does not exist in this world. We are careening up a river and we are about to reach land, we are about to reach something tangible, something where the other is not present. I’m on a boat and the end is as near as it has ever been: I submit or I act with courage, spirit in concord with my own will. But I’m blinded. In an instant the other appears, and a thousand faces are looking at me. They are all I see, all I can focus on. I recognize the other, but I do not recognize myself. I’m shamed by them all, even Plato, even Tim. They are all here, and I choose to go back.
Tim looks towards me with concern. He knows the look on my face well. Plato is gone and he’s taken my wisdom, courage, and sobriety. He’ll keep them forever, of that I’m sure. For Tim and I know that with the presence of the other, justice is unattainable. I’ve witnessed the rainy river, the civil war within, and the bleeding of the spirit. But, I too am the gaze of the other, and for that I am deeply ashamed.
