Plato on the Sources of Human Behavior

Plato is quoted as saying that 'human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.' I have come across this quote quite a few times in the last few days. After much pondering, I have arrived at several conclusions outlined here.

Desire is a basic human drive. It can appropriately be said to be the primal appetite for something. This something can refer to obtaining a concrete object or taking an action with a proposed objective. There are people or things in most societies that are good influencers of its members. They create the desire in us for that something. Take for example advertisements or even something as basic as seeing a juicy apple hanging from a tree. All of our senses are involved in developing our desires. We can be enticed and a desire created. The question is: how much control do we have over these desires?

Emotions define the level of desire through our behaviors and can be overt (witnessed) or covert (hidden). We can witness the uncontrolled emotions of young children. With good parenting skills and the helpful lessons from our surrounding community, children can usually grow up with well-controlled emotions. The control of our emotions helps to reign in unruly behaviors and allows us to achieve success in satisfying some of our sensible desires.

Self-control is one of the main characteristics that defines adult behavior. The knowledge gained from societal members, past and present, provide guidelines or codes of behavior that can make an individual's life successful and satisfying. By the same reasoning, incomplete or false information can harm or destroy an individual's life. This is often to the detriment of that individual's community group and can bleed out and infect the larger society as a whole.

Desire, emotions, and knowledge influence how people see and experience things. We have in our minds the ideal versus the everyday experience. We desire to have the two merge to become a closer approximation of what we can call a good life experience. It has become increasingly difficult to influence people's behavior outside of the realm of the gadgets that they just have to have. But we cannot throw up our hands in defeat. Communities must come together to reinforce those moral, spiritual, and civil codes once ingrained in our society. We must be clear in teaching what is right and just to those around us. Not only to the children. To maintain our status as adults, we all must find the desire to be responsible for continuously training and educating ourselves and one another. Can we do this with a caring and passionate outlook, armed with an accurate and solid foundation of knowledge? Plato thought so...

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