(Translations by Benjamin Jowett, available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/laws.html)
”The adaptation of art to the characters of men. Choric movements are imitations of manners occurring in various actions, fortunes, dispositions-each particular is imitated, and those to whom the words, or songs, or dances are suited, either by nature or habit or both, cannot help feeling pleasure in them and applauding them, and calling them beautiful. But those whose natures, or ways, or habits are unsuited to them, cannot delight in them or applaud them, and they call them base.
…But what I am telling you about music is true and deserving of consideration, because showing that a lawgiver may institute melodies which have a natural truth and correctness without any fear of failure. To do this, however, must be the work of God, or of a divine person.
…imagine a festival ... there is to be no regulation about the manner how; but he who is most successful in giving pleasure is to be crowned victor...What is likely to be the result of such a proclamation?
...If very small children are to determine the question, they will decide for the puppet show....The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated women, and young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy....And I believe that we old men would have the greatest pleasure in hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey.
...The true judge must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity; nor again, knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have just appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as the disciple of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their instructor, and he ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the pleasure of the spectators.
…Sicily, did certainly leave the judgment to the body of spectators, who determined the victor by show of hands. But this custom has been the destruction of the poets; for they are now in the habit of composing with a view to please the bad taste of their judges, ...
...experience of the eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. In order, then, that the soul of the child may not be habituated to feel joy and sorrow in a manner at variance with the law, and those who obey the law, but may rather follow the law and rejoice and sorrow at the same things as the aged-in order, I say, to produce this effect, chants appear to have been invented, which really enchant, and are designed to implant that harmony of which we speak"
That last quote is somewhat misleading as it gives the impression Plato was trying to find a way to invent or restore a way for old men bent on making everyone obey their laws to do so. But if you read Plato’s arguments a few times over, more accurate perhaps is to say he was describing what happens when this natural chord of influence between the young and old is obstructed. The self-interests of a select few or worse – the majority being led by the short sighted passions of youth which go unchecked by elders who had become too alienated and ashamed to themselves partake in song – then comes to dominate, both culturally and legally. Re-read the first passage listed above in particular in which Plato notes that everyone has an inherent bias. It is human fallibility which needs to be fended against via a mechanism similar to majority faction – by restoring natural leverage among locals rather than relying on the fallible reason of a particular lawmaker or on the quickly passing trends among the youth alone.
"For the goods of which the many speak are not really good: first in the catalogue is placed health, beauty next, wealth third; and then innumerable others, as for example to have a keen eye or a quick ear, and in general to have all the senses perfect; or, again, to be a tyrant and do as you like; and the final consummation of happiness is to have acquired all these things, and when you have acquired them to become at once immortal.
...When a man has health and wealth and a tyranny which lasts, and when he is preeminent in strength and courage, and has the gift of immortality, and none of the so-called evils which counter-balance these goods, but only the injustice and insolence of his own nature-of such an one you are, I suspect, unwilling to believe that he is miserable rather than happy.
... I would inflict the heaviest penalties on any one in all the land who should dare to say that there are bad men who lead pleasant lives, or that the profitable and gainful is one thing, and the just another...if I were to ask these same Gods who were your legislators-Is not the most just life also the pleasantest?...But if he were to declare that the justest life is also the happiest, every one hearing him would enquire, if I am not mistaken, what is that good and noble principle in life which the law approves."
i.e., if you tell a kid not to drink because it is wrong though it is pleasurable, you get an alcoholic, but if you tell someone what is right is also pleasurable, you get a law abiding citizen.
"... And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous; for no one, if he can help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than pleasure. But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially in childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and exhibit the truth; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other, by customs and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only,... "
In case you too did not know what infamous meant, it means being well known for being a 'bad guy'. I don't think Plato is trying to paint a conspiracy of lawmakers here, rather I think he is pointing out the ineffectiveness of a lawmaker telling people not to do what makes them happy. He continues,
"...Then the unjust life must not only be more base and depraved, but also more unpleasant than the just and holy life?...And even supposing this were otherwise, and not as the argument has proven, still the lawgiver, who is worth anything, if he ever ventures to tell a lie to the young for their good, could not invent a more useful lie than this, or one which will have a better effect in making them do what is right, not on compulsion but voluntarily.
...The story of armed men springing up after the sowing of teeth, which the legislator may take as a proof that he can persuade the minds of the young of anything; so that he has only to reflect and find out what belief will be of the greatest public advantage, and then use all his efforts to make the whole community utter one and the same word in their songs and tales and discourses all their life long. "
Now Plato begins to speak about how to accomplish all of this via social gatherings among familiars, and yes, with wine.
”The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our three choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children, reciting in their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have already spoken, or are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be, that the life which is by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the best;-we shall affirm this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of our young disciples will be more likely to receive these words of ours than any others which we might address to them.
...First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to the whole city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age of thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of their words, and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn their hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to sixty years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old to sing, and they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as with the voice of an oracle.
Cle. Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger?
Ath. And yet almost all that I have been saying has said with a view to them.
...I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you will remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they were unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called out and jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal attained to any perception of order, but man only. Now the order of motion is called rhythm, and the order of the voice, in which high and low are duly mingled, is called harmony; and both together are termed choric song. And I said that the Gods had pity on us, and gave us Apollo and the Muses to be our playfellows and leaders in the dance; and Dionysus, as I dare say that you will remember, was the third.
Note: Dionysus = wine.
...Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses, and I have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of Dionysus.
...That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of which we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never weary of them?
...Where, then, will that best part of our city which, by reason of age and intelligence, has the greatest influence, sing these fairest of strains, which are to do so much good? Shall we be so foolish as to let them off who would give us the most beautiful and also the most useful of songs?
...Then how can we carry out our purpose with decorum? Will this be the way?
...When a man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to sing;-he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet he grows;-is not this true?
...Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand up and sing in the theatre to a mixed audience?-and if moreover when he is required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes, and have been trained under a singing master, he is pinched and hungry, he will certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort which will make him very unwilling to exhibit.
...How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall we begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be poured upon fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin to go to work-this is a precaution which has to be taken against the excitableness of youth;-afterwards they may taste wine in moderation up to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain altogether from intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length, he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he has given men to lighten the sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our youth, and forget our sorrows; and also in order that the nature of the soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and so more impressible. In the first place, will not any one who is thus mellowed be more ready and less ashamed to sing-I do not say before a large audience, but before a moderate company; nor yet among strangers, but among his familiars, and, as we have often said, to chant, and to enchant? "
In that last passage I was somewhat confused on what exactly is now Plato's position on young people drinking. Actually I felt he may be presenting a hypothetical reverse psychology trick, like "tell them they cannot drink and they will come". In either case, clearly his main focus is on how to get the older guys drunk and loosened up. Also highlighted was how Plato noted the need to establish a suitable place where they could find access to their familiars.
Here Plato clarifies further the need for experienced judges.
"imitation is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; and this is true of all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical symmetrical, because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to be judged of by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever.…Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?
...There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?...And can he who does not know what the exact object is which is imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed?
...in everything imitated, whether in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be a competent judge must possess three things;-he must know, in the first place, of what the imitation is; secondly, he must know that it is true; and thirdly, that it has been well executed in words and melodies and rhythms? ...
...poets are artists very inferior in character to the Muses themselves, who would never fall into the monstrous error of assigning to the words of men the gestures and songs of women; nor after combining the melodies with the gestures of freemen would they add on the rhythms of slaves and men of the baser sort; nor, beginning with the rhythms and gestures of freemen, would they assign to them a melody or words which are of an opposite character; nor would they mix up the voices and sounds of animals and of men and instruments, and every other sort of noise, as if they were all one. But human poets are fond of introducing this sort of inconsistent mixture...
Don't get me started.
...The many are ridiculous in imagining that they know what is in proper harmony and rhythm, and what is not, when they can only be made to sing and step in rhythm by force; it never occurs to them that they are ignorant of what they are doing. Now every melody is right when it has suitable harmony and rhythm, and wrong when unsuitable....
...But can a man who does not know a thing, as we were saying, know that the thing is right?
Here is what I feel to be an important passage near the end. I had/ have trouble deciphering it with confidence in the sense that Plato is relating this all, the old men drinking in particular, to the laws established for the banquet. This I believe is so vital because banquets are - like anything in the realm of mediating institutions - places of congregation. Even the toughest of the tough, the coolest of the cool, and the youngest of us alike suffer this near universal of human ailments; the need to belong somewhere (and to find access to friends/ mates of course, but I see these as strongly overlapping so do not attempt to distinguish until further understanding of the brain is achieved). But if you hold the laws governing the banquet in your hands then you can set the tone and culture which prevails, and those tough young rebels will find themselves suddenly pliable to it - especially after a few drinks. Think of nightclub dress codes for example.
...Were we not saying that on such occasions the souls of the drinkers become like iron heated in the fire, and grow softer and younger, and are easily moulded by him who knows how to educate and fashion them, just as when they were young, and that this fashioner of them is the same who prescribed for them in the days of their youth, viz., the good legislator; and that he ought to enact laws of the banquet, which, when a man is confident, bold, and impudent, and unwilling to wait his turn and have his share of silence and speech, and drinking and music, will change his character into the opposite-such laws as will infuse into him a just and noble fear, which will take up arms at the approach of insolence, being that divine fear which we have called reverence and shame?
And back to the choral/ movement stuff.
...The whole choral art is also in our view the whole of education; and of this art, rhythms and harmonies form the part which has to do with the voice.
...The movement of the body has rhythm in common with the movement of the voice, but gesture is peculiar to it, whereas song is simply the movement of the voice.
...And the sound of the voice which reaches and educates the soul, we have ventured to term music.
...And the movement of the body, when regarded as an amusement, we termed dancing; but when extended and pursued with a view to the excellence of the body, this scientific training may be called gymnastic.
...Music, which was one half of the choral art, may be said to have been completely discussed. Shall we proceed to the other half or not? What would you like?
”The adaptation of art to the characters of men. Choric movements are imitations of manners occurring in various actions, fortunes, dispositions-each particular is imitated, and those to whom the words, or songs, or dances are suited, either by nature or habit or both, cannot help feeling pleasure in them and applauding them, and calling them beautiful. But those whose natures, or ways, or habits are unsuited to them, cannot delight in them or applaud them, and they call them base.
…But what I am telling you about music is true and deserving of consideration, because showing that a lawgiver may institute melodies which have a natural truth and correctness without any fear of failure. To do this, however, must be the work of God, or of a divine person.
…imagine a festival ... there is to be no regulation about the manner how; but he who is most successful in giving pleasure is to be crowned victor...What is likely to be the result of such a proclamation?
...If very small children are to determine the question, they will decide for the puppet show....The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated women, and young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy....And I believe that we old men would have the greatest pleasure in hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey.
...The true judge must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity; nor again, knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have just appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as the disciple of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their instructor, and he ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the pleasure of the spectators.
…Sicily, did certainly leave the judgment to the body of spectators, who determined the victor by show of hands. But this custom has been the destruction of the poets; for they are now in the habit of composing with a view to please the bad taste of their judges, ...
...experience of the eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. In order, then, that the soul of the child may not be habituated to feel joy and sorrow in a manner at variance with the law, and those who obey the law, but may rather follow the law and rejoice and sorrow at the same things as the aged-in order, I say, to produce this effect, chants appear to have been invented, which really enchant, and are designed to implant that harmony of which we speak"
That last quote is somewhat misleading as it gives the impression Plato was trying to find a way to invent or restore a way for old men bent on making everyone obey their laws to do so. But if you read Plato’s arguments a few times over, more accurate perhaps is to say he was describing what happens when this natural chord of influence between the young and old is obstructed. The self-interests of a select few or worse – the majority being led by the short sighted passions of youth which go unchecked by elders who had become too alienated and ashamed to themselves partake in song – then comes to dominate, both culturally and legally. Re-read the first passage listed above in particular in which Plato notes that everyone has an inherent bias. It is human fallibility which needs to be fended against via a mechanism similar to majority faction – by restoring natural leverage among locals rather than relying on the fallible reason of a particular lawmaker or on the quickly passing trends among the youth alone.
"For the goods of which the many speak are not really good: first in the catalogue is placed health, beauty next, wealth third; and then innumerable others, as for example to have a keen eye or a quick ear, and in general to have all the senses perfect; or, again, to be a tyrant and do as you like; and the final consummation of happiness is to have acquired all these things, and when you have acquired them to become at once immortal.
...When a man has health and wealth and a tyranny which lasts, and when he is preeminent in strength and courage, and has the gift of immortality, and none of the so-called evils which counter-balance these goods, but only the injustice and insolence of his own nature-of such an one you are, I suspect, unwilling to believe that he is miserable rather than happy.
... I would inflict the heaviest penalties on any one in all the land who should dare to say that there are bad men who lead pleasant lives, or that the profitable and gainful is one thing, and the just another...if I were to ask these same Gods who were your legislators-Is not the most just life also the pleasantest?...But if he were to declare that the justest life is also the happiest, every one hearing him would enquire, if I am not mistaken, what is that good and noble principle in life which the law approves."
i.e., if you tell a kid not to drink because it is wrong though it is pleasurable, you get an alcoholic, but if you tell someone what is right is also pleasurable, you get a law abiding citizen.
"... And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous; for no one, if he can help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than pleasure. But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially in childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and exhibit the truth; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other, by customs and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only,... "
In case you too did not know what infamous meant, it means being well known for being a 'bad guy'. I don't think Plato is trying to paint a conspiracy of lawmakers here, rather I think he is pointing out the ineffectiveness of a lawmaker telling people not to do what makes them happy. He continues,
"...Then the unjust life must not only be more base and depraved, but also more unpleasant than the just and holy life?...And even supposing this were otherwise, and not as the argument has proven, still the lawgiver, who is worth anything, if he ever ventures to tell a lie to the young for their good, could not invent a more useful lie than this, or one which will have a better effect in making them do what is right, not on compulsion but voluntarily.
...The story of armed men springing up after the sowing of teeth, which the legislator may take as a proof that he can persuade the minds of the young of anything; so that he has only to reflect and find out what belief will be of the greatest public advantage, and then use all his efforts to make the whole community utter one and the same word in their songs and tales and discourses all their life long. "
Now Plato begins to speak about how to accomplish all of this via social gatherings among familiars, and yes, with wine.
”The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our three choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children, reciting in their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have already spoken, or are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be, that the life which is by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the best;-we shall affirm this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of our young disciples will be more likely to receive these words of ours than any others which we might address to them.
...First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to the whole city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age of thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of their words, and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn their hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to sixty years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old to sing, and they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as with the voice of an oracle.
Cle. Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger?
Ath. And yet almost all that I have been saying has said with a view to them.
...I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you will remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they were unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called out and jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal attained to any perception of order, but man only. Now the order of motion is called rhythm, and the order of the voice, in which high and low are duly mingled, is called harmony; and both together are termed choric song. And I said that the Gods had pity on us, and gave us Apollo and the Muses to be our playfellows and leaders in the dance; and Dionysus, as I dare say that you will remember, was the third.
Note: Dionysus = wine.
...Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses, and I have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of Dionysus.
...That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of which we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never weary of them?
...Where, then, will that best part of our city which, by reason of age and intelligence, has the greatest influence, sing these fairest of strains, which are to do so much good? Shall we be so foolish as to let them off who would give us the most beautiful and also the most useful of songs?
...Then how can we carry out our purpose with decorum? Will this be the way?
...When a man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to sing;-he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet he grows;-is not this true?
...Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand up and sing in the theatre to a mixed audience?-and if moreover when he is required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes, and have been trained under a singing master, he is pinched and hungry, he will certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort which will make him very unwilling to exhibit.
...How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall we begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be poured upon fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin to go to work-this is a precaution which has to be taken against the excitableness of youth;-afterwards they may taste wine in moderation up to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain altogether from intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length, he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he has given men to lighten the sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our youth, and forget our sorrows; and also in order that the nature of the soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and so more impressible. In the first place, will not any one who is thus mellowed be more ready and less ashamed to sing-I do not say before a large audience, but before a moderate company; nor yet among strangers, but among his familiars, and, as we have often said, to chant, and to enchant? "
In that last passage I was somewhat confused on what exactly is now Plato's position on young people drinking. Actually I felt he may be presenting a hypothetical reverse psychology trick, like "tell them they cannot drink and they will come". In either case, clearly his main focus is on how to get the older guys drunk and loosened up. Also highlighted was how Plato noted the need to establish a suitable place where they could find access to their familiars.
Here Plato clarifies further the need for experienced judges.
"imitation is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; and this is true of all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical symmetrical, because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to be judged of by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever.…Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?
...There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?...And can he who does not know what the exact object is which is imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed?
...in everything imitated, whether in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be a competent judge must possess three things;-he must know, in the first place, of what the imitation is; secondly, he must know that it is true; and thirdly, that it has been well executed in words and melodies and rhythms? ...
...poets are artists very inferior in character to the Muses themselves, who would never fall into the monstrous error of assigning to the words of men the gestures and songs of women; nor after combining the melodies with the gestures of freemen would they add on the rhythms of slaves and men of the baser sort; nor, beginning with the rhythms and gestures of freemen, would they assign to them a melody or words which are of an opposite character; nor would they mix up the voices and sounds of animals and of men and instruments, and every other sort of noise, as if they were all one. But human poets are fond of introducing this sort of inconsistent mixture...
Don't get me started.
...The many are ridiculous in imagining that they know what is in proper harmony and rhythm, and what is not, when they can only be made to sing and step in rhythm by force; it never occurs to them that they are ignorant of what they are doing. Now every melody is right when it has suitable harmony and rhythm, and wrong when unsuitable....
...But can a man who does not know a thing, as we were saying, know that the thing is right?
Here is what I feel to be an important passage near the end. I had/ have trouble deciphering it with confidence in the sense that Plato is relating this all, the old men drinking in particular, to the laws established for the banquet. This I believe is so vital because banquets are - like anything in the realm of mediating institutions - places of congregation. Even the toughest of the tough, the coolest of the cool, and the youngest of us alike suffer this near universal of human ailments; the need to belong somewhere (and to find access to friends/ mates of course, but I see these as strongly overlapping so do not attempt to distinguish until further understanding of the brain is achieved). But if you hold the laws governing the banquet in your hands then you can set the tone and culture which prevails, and those tough young rebels will find themselves suddenly pliable to it - especially after a few drinks. Think of nightclub dress codes for example.
...Were we not saying that on such occasions the souls of the drinkers become like iron heated in the fire, and grow softer and younger, and are easily moulded by him who knows how to educate and fashion them, just as when they were young, and that this fashioner of them is the same who prescribed for them in the days of their youth, viz., the good legislator; and that he ought to enact laws of the banquet, which, when a man is confident, bold, and impudent, and unwilling to wait his turn and have his share of silence and speech, and drinking and music, will change his character into the opposite-such laws as will infuse into him a just and noble fear, which will take up arms at the approach of insolence, being that divine fear which we have called reverence and shame?
And back to the choral/ movement stuff.
...The whole choral art is also in our view the whole of education; and of this art, rhythms and harmonies form the part which has to do with the voice.
...The movement of the body has rhythm in common with the movement of the voice, but gesture is peculiar to it, whereas song is simply the movement of the voice.
...And the sound of the voice which reaches and educates the soul, we have ventured to term music.
...And the movement of the body, when regarded as an amusement, we termed dancing; but when extended and pursued with a view to the excellence of the body, this scientific training may be called gymnastic.
...Music, which was one half of the choral art, may be said to have been completely discussed. Shall we proceed to the other half or not? What would you like?
