I don’t know if you’re missing an important detail — I think I merely wanted to make a different emphasis. I agree (with Chris) that we need Plato’s heroes, but I think that some degree of complexity/nastiness is necessary in at least some of the stories we tell our children. Just like Mr S wouldn’t ever answer our questions fully in history, so it seems that our kids ought to be left wondering or confused about some things—they need to build up those “maturity” muscles somehow.

Or maybe I’m way off course. I’m still knocking this around, trying to get a reasonable explanation.

Perhaps I’m missing an important detail, but aren’t you and Chris in complete agreement?

Point well made. It wasn’t my intention to suggest that heroes are bad (far from it!), only to point out that Plato/Socrates advocate something that the contemporary Christian world has managed to implement quite widely. And I don’t think it’s been particularly helpful, for two reasons.

First, what is “milk?” Many of the pastors I’ve sat under have made a strong case for not skipping over anything in Scripture when you’re reading to your children. Yet, do any of us really want to explain Onan’s sin to our five-year-old sons? Or what about the case of Jacob deceiving Isaac—how are we supposed to explain that to our third- and fourth-graders? The fact is, the Bible is chock full of “inappropriate” material, and if we’re going to faithfully read Scripture to our children, we’re going to have to deal with things that aren’t cut and dry. Which is why I wonder if biblical “milk” isn’t the same thing we usually think of.

Second, while I agree that we shouldn’t be showing our children American Beauty, I don’t think it’s possible for someone to become mature without first dealing with these kinds of nasty stories. For example, I have several childhood friends whose parents were quite restrictive (even by my parents’ standards, and they were pretty strict). I can see now that those parents acted out of love—they remembered the follies of their youth and didn’t want to see their kids repeat—but I don’t think “waiting for maturity” really worked for them. Most of those kids aren’t going to church any more, and what’s more, they don’t have a shred of discernment. What are we to make of that?

In the end, though, I have to admit that my main beef with Plato/Socrates is that they read the poets so poorly. They pay no attention to the story, only to isolated events that happen to send off warning bells. Kind of like a doctor that merely treats the symptoms while the cancer rages underneath the surface. I’m all for calling some stories bad or unhelpful for those you’re training, but don’t do it for mere cosmetic reasons. That never works out.

I once had a teacher who was fond of telling her students that bankers are never taught to detect a counterfeit bill. Instead, they are made to touch countless legitimate bills, stack after stack after stack of them. The thought is that after so many good bills, they have developed a wisdom in their hands; the very first time they touch a counterfeit bill, boy howdy, they feel it.

I’m not sure if this is actually true. The illustration is used to support Paul’s instruction to Christians to seek after good things. I’ve always remembered it.

Plato regarded the greater mass of humanity as brutes, squintily discerning chair-like shadows on walls and never awakening to the larger reality of the cave, the sun, and the Good. They were, in a way, children.

I see some wisdom in what Plato says here, though his view of people and emotions are both scrambled. The New Testament teaches us that the Law is something of a schoolmaster, bringing us up until we are wise enough to move from milk to meat. Likewise, it’s possible that we should write some stories to serve as schoolmasters – the milk – to train up our children until their eyes are wise. We should have them count only good bills for a time. If this is true, and Plato regarded the great mass of humanity as children, it’s entirely consistent for him to insist on simple heroes. To describe the contours of the cave could be dangerous.

There is of course a place for more complex stories, but in Plato’s world they are meant only for the philosopher, and in our world they should perhaps be meant for the mature, those who have teeth to cut through the meat. The specifics of this issue are far beyond my experience or the confines of a comment box, but I’d like to affirm that Plato’s heroes are good for something, if only for our children.