The image is quite close to a contemporary understanding, for it carries a Christian connotation, which is an element of importance in the present democratic values.("Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her") (Plato, 2000). Since every soul is responsible for choosing his own life, every person must take full responsibility for being just or unjust.
However, we can see that virtue alone is not enough, we need knowledge as well, we need to justify our actions with reasons ("but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy") (Plato, 2000). The winner is not the good, but the wise.
The symbols of the river of Unmindfulness and the plain of Forgetfulness through which the souls must pass in their travel towards a new life can signify that the ignorant and those don't learn from their own past, or from the past of their country (history) will be caught in the "Spindle of necessity "(the needs and difficulties of this life) and will make mistakes, not knowing who they are, or what potential lies in them to overcome their fate in order to lay above it.
We could say that Plato uses a noble lie, a moral tale to convince his fellow citizens to be honest, obey the rules, and accept their fate as a normal consequence of their actions. Or to find a good excuse for all the sufferings of this world and consolation to those who find their life unjust in comparison to other people, who are evil but have a happy and untroubled existence. However the longing of the human nature for justice, purity, harmony, along the centuries, no matter what the characteristics of the age or the culture may be, demonstrates an honest search for answers from the author's part as well.
The author assumes that philosophers, the ones who have the intelligence...
They are endowed with special qualities, they, like Er, travel through the world only to contemplate it (without participating in it), to watch it from above and draw conclusions. They are not subjects to the same rules because they managed to detach themselves from the "spindle of necessity," the needs of the ego, and now are trying to help the others by teaching them from their conclusions.
The message for us would be that those who choose the path of philosophy, education, detachment from material issues, living their lives in awareness, reasoning all their acts will make them break the painful chains of going through heaven and hell, again and again, and, like Er, will become immortal.
On the other hand, choosing this way, it doesn't represent a perfect solution, bur merely "avoiding the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness"(Plato, 2000).
Bibliography
Brown, Eric, "Plato's Ethics and Politics in the Republic," the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2003/entries/plato-ethics-politics/.
Goldstein, Yael. SparkNote on the Republic. 26 Sep. 2006 http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/republic/.
Myth of Er." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 5 Sep 2006, 21:38 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 26 Sep 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Myth_of_Er&oldid=74023139.
Plato, the Republic, (Translated by Benjamin Jowett), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Daniel C. Stevenson, 2000. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html
