The Greek philosopher Socrates recommended a vegetarian diet as the proper diet of humankind. Indeed, such a diet appears crucial to Socrates' concept of the just society. More than two-thousand years ago, Plato's Republic predicts the fate of a society that emphasizes animal protein and processed foods over a plant-based, whole-food diet:
SOCRATES: Let's consider the manner of life provided so far. Won't they make bread, wine, clothes, shoes, and houses, and in summer wear little and in winter enough garments? Won't they eat barley meal and wheat flour cooked in loaves and cakes served on reeds and leaves, feasting with their children and singing hymns to the gods in pleasant communion, not producing extra children, watching out for poverty or war?
GLAUCON: You make them feast without meat.
SOCRATES: Yes. However, I did forget the relishes---the salt, olives, cheese, onions, the greens, and the vegetables. And for dessert figs, beans, berries, and roasted nuts. Living in peace and health they'll likely die of old age and pass this life on to their offspring.
SOCRATES: Yes. However, I did forget the relishes---the salt, olives, cheese, onions, the greens, and the vegetables. And for dessert figs, beans, berries, and roasted nuts. Living in peace and health they'll likely die of old age and pass this life on to their offspring.
GLAUCON: But if this were a state of pigs, what else would you feed them?
SOCRATES: But what would you need, Glaucon?
GLAUCON: What's customary---couches, tables, dishes,and the sweetmeats we have now.
SOCRATES: Oh, I see. We're not to consider merely a state but a luxurious state. Well, perhaps by observing just such a state we could discover the origin of justice and injustice. I think the true state is what I've described, as it is a healthy one; but if you want us to observe a state in a right fever, we can do that too. For some are not content with this way of life, but couches, tables and other furniture must be added... and meat... and incense... and flute-girls... and sweets. The basic necessities will no longer be adequate, but we must embellish and procure gold and ivory. But then won't it be necessary to enlarge the state again?
GLAUCON: Yes.
SOCRATES: For if a healthy state is not sufficient, the state will swell with hunters, artists, manufacturers of female adornments, more servants, tutors, lawyers, nurses wet and dry, cosmeticians, barbers, and even more cooks and chefs. This state, unlike the other, will need swineherds and many more pigs and cattle if they're to be eaten. And on this kind of diet, won't more doctors be needed also?
GLAUCON: Many more.
SOCRATES: The territory before adequate for food, will now be too small, won't it?
GLAUCON: Yes, that is so.
SOCRATES: Then a portion of your neighbor's land must be cut out if we are to have enough pasture, and they'll want ours if they too have gone off after endless acquisition of property, going beyond the limit of necessities.
GLAUCON: That's most necessary, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then have we discovered the origin of war in those things from which come the greatest disasters, both private and public?
I invite my readers to consider how Glaucon's preferred state very nearly mirrors the modern western world, to wit:
- We now face epidemic health crises that stem largely, if not exclusively from a luxurious abundance of meat and toxic, food-like products;
- Doctors and lawyers (and drug and insurance companies) proliferate unnecessarily;
- Wars are fought over dwindling resources, especially the oil on which modern agriculture crucially depends... though in time we may expect wars over water;
- Each year, vast acres of pristine wilderness are converted to pasture, grain farms, or feedlots for the growing global demand for meat.
- Governments subsidies of large agribusiness is the most prevalent form of corporate welfare, other than possibly the Medicare funds that purportedly pay for the drugs used to combat the diseases unnecessarily caused.
My consideration of this Socratic dialogue as a plea for a vegetarian diet is indebted to T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell's wonderful book on nutrition research, The China Study.
