Over 2,000 years ago, a philosopher by the name of Socrates revolutionized the ancient world, suggesting many ideas that ultimately established him as one of the founders of Western Philosophy. Although Socrates did not produce any writings of his own, one of his students, Plato, chronicled many of Socrates’ dialogues that presented his teachings. In Republic, one of Plato’s books, Socrates discusses the concept of a perfectly just city-state. Socrates argues that in such a city-state, imitative poetry and literature need to be banned because they deceive people and cause them to embody negative values and habits. This, however, is an extremely broad claim. Imitations are a highly common in day to day life, whether they be in the form of fashion, …show more content…
Furthermore, artificial intelligence is transforming how we utilize technology and drastically increasing our efficiency at numerous complex tasks by mimicking how the human brain works. Accordingly, taking into account Socrates’ criticism of imitation, this begs the question: When is the act of imitating something useful and positive? While imitation can have negative consequences, as Socrates points out, it is also possible for mimicry to be productive and beneficial. Specifically, imitating ideas that one values and wishes to embody can be advantageous and fruitful, as the act of imitation engenders the essence of the concept that is being imitated. Although Socrates decides to ban imitative poetry in order to create and sustain a just city-state, his dialogues regarding the consequences of mimicry suggest that it is possible for imitations to be positive and useful in certain cases. In Book X of Plato’s Republic, Socrates frequently criticizes the concept of imitation, saying that “imitation is surely far from the truth” and that …show more content…
In Maus, Spiegelman attempts to tell his grandfather’s experience in the Holocaust in addition to displaying the current state of his relationship with his grandfather. Instead of simply portraying the characters as human, however, Spiegelman chose to represent each figure in the novel as a certain type of animal based on the character’s religion or nationality, creating an imitation of the Holocaust. While some might assume that this seemingly playful representation of an event as serious as the Holocaust is extremely disrespectful, Spiegelman explains in Metamaus, a book about Maus, that the “animal masks that allowed [him] to approach otherwise unsayable things. What makes Maus thorny is actually what allows it to be useful as a real ‘teaching tool’” (Spiegelman, Metamaus, 127). Rather than mocking the Holocaust, Spiegelman’s choice to depict the characters in his book as animals enabled him to delve deeper into the core of his grandfather’s story without offending anyone as well as making it appeal to a wider audience. Spiegelman adds to his reasoning behind the animal masks later in Metamaus: “Paradoxically, while the mice allowed for a distancing from the horrors described, they simultaneously allowed me and others to get further inside the material in a way that would have been