Plato and Imitating Love

"'Have you ever noticed how imitation, if long continued from an early age, turns into habits and dispositions - of body, speech and mind?'
'I certainly have,' he said.
'So imitating a woman, young or old, maybe abusing her husband, or competing with the gods and boasting of her good fortune, or in grip of disaster, or grief, or mourning, will not be a legitimate activity for the people we are interested in - the ones we want to grow up into brave men. They are, after all, men. And still less do we want them imitating a woman who is ill, or in love, or in childbirth.'"(395d-e)


I chose this song because it is not only imitative in the fact that Beyoncé is pretending to speak to the one she loves, but also because it is indulgently emotional and thus in Plato's eyes utterly corruptive. The song revolves around an acute yearning and infatuation for another person, making Beyoncé seem completely handicapped by her feelings. Plato would say this song serves no purpose and furthermore, is dangerous in the potential for listeners to imitate such feelings and behaviors as expressed in the song.