That One Post Comparing Plato to Heathers You Never Asked For But Got Anyway

Breanna Poole (Group 3 -- Book 8)


While reading the eighth book of Plato's Republic, I was struck with a strange sense of remembrance -- the text was reminding me of something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. At first I naturally assumed that it was some kind of philosophical or literary text that it was calling to mind, but then I put on my playlist to begin drafting my blog post when the song "Dead Girl Walking" (Reprise) from Heathers: The Musical came up. And that's when it struck me.

This was reminding me of the character of Jason "J.D." Dean from the cult classic film Heathers. This seems like an off-the-wall comparison, I know, but please, follow me here.

In this book, the philosophers are discussing how a man will lose himself due to the sins of his father and be caught up in a quest for honor, when in actuality it is a quest for greed. To quote the text: "Owing to his want of education, the cravings of his drone assert themselves, some marking the idler and some the criminal. Nonetheless, he holds them forcibly in check by dint of his own vigilance and self-control." J.D., I believe, is the perfect modern example of this -- he is yearning for some kind of understanding in purpose, and finds it in his love interest Veronica, using the false pretense of protecting her to satiate a blood-lust and a need to be in control following a lackluster, borderline neglectful childhood after witnessing his mother’s suicide.

J.D. fits the description of the unjust man they are describing -- he is selfish and cruel, focused in on himself and in a self-imposed isolation. He views himself better than others, considering only himself and Veronica as the only people worth life, during the climax of the film almost destroying his entire school.

Now this seems completely crazy I know, since this is post about Plato, why am I talking how a modern cinematic character is similar to what they describe? Well, I believe this gives merit to the idea he (being Plato) presents. These unjust men – with many different examples given – are treated as the people who will bring down the forms of government they present – in particular tyranny and democracy over the course of the discussion in Book Eight.

If we were to follow the metaphor of J.D. being the unjust man, then it would stand to follow that his victims – Heather Chandler, Ram Sweeny, and Kurt Kelly – are the government. When looking over this metaphor, you could say that J.D. would be the unjust man that delivers tyranny from democracy – because while Westerberg High was certainly not the best place to go to school, it was still large enough to allow for some amount of expression and movement of ideas, as evidenced in the beginning of the film when the visit lunch tables to gather opinions and again when Veronica is asked her opinion of the suicides afflicting the school, but this “democracy” soon ends with the deaths of Ram Sweeny and Kurt Kelly at the close of the second act and Veronica’s subsequent break-up with J.D. J.D. begins elevating Heather Duke through the ranks of the school, manipulating her with the idea that the school needs leadership, when in actuality it is to make him more powerful and eventually win back his estranged love Veronica – Veronica is the greed, she represents money for J.D.

While the film gets a happy ending – “democracy” restored with J.D.’s death and Veronica’s ascension to head of power in the school and the implication she is rebuilding the school’s social structure, the discussion offers no such thing to the unjust man, but in the book there is a line declaring that tyranny is born from democracy – something else seen in the film, Heather Chandler’s democracy birthed J.D.’s tyranny, and J.D.’s tyranny birthed Veronica’s democracy.

To detach from Heathers and return solely to The Republic, I now can understand more of the conversation at hand. The philosophers are dismissing and validating many different types of government, but one steadfast fact is that unjust men are the ones who bring down these governments – even if these unjust men come from just men. It proposes that tyranny and democracy are a cycle, something I am inclined to almost agree with, even looking at history – British tyranny birthed the United States democracy, where unjust men were harsh on the colonial citizens, something mirrored again in the many different French Revolutions that would follow the 1700s.

Forgive me if I have misinterpreted the reading and this whole blog post seems nothing more that hogwash because of it, but to me, following this metaphor of J.D. being the unjust man and following his journey in relation to governments and characters helped me come to my understanding of the text. Democracy and tyranny are not created independently, rather it is a dependent cycle where one births the other.

While Plato and his fellows seem to have disdain for democracy – giving it flippant praise and condemning it as ineffectual – their point of tyranny birthing democracy holds some water, as does the opposite point – tyranny births democracy.

I do not know if my Heathers comparison made any sense and I probably completely missed the point of the reading, but my interpretation of what Book Eight is lead me to this conclusion on the points discussed and how it relates to history and modern society.

P.S. I commented on Will and Anna Kate's posts.