Consider the Following text, as it not only accurately paints our present society with resounding accuracy, but accurately depicts numerous shortcomings of those with a timocratic origin, and the many ways in which tyranny could arise unchecked without due consideration for its necessity through the ignorance and shortcomings of any such a one who finds themselves described in stunning detail below:
Plato Republic IX
pg. 1157
Then mustn’t we next go through the inferior ones, namely, the victory loving and honor-loving (which corresponds to the Laconian form of constitution), followed by the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical, so that, having discovered the most unjust of all, we can oppose him to the most just? In this way, we can complete our investigation into how pure justice and pure injustice stand, with regard to the happiness or wretchedness of those who possess them, and either be persuaded by Thrasymachus to practice injustice or by the argument that is now coming to light to practice justice. b That’s absolutely what we have to do. Then, just as we began by looking for the virtues of character in a constitution, before looking for them in the individual, thinking that they’d be clearer in the former, shouldn’t we first examine the honor-loving constitution? I don’t know what other name there is for it, but it should be called either timocracy or timarchy. Then shouldn’t we examine an individual who is related to that constitution, and, after that, oligarchy and an oligarchic person, and democracy and a democratic person? And finally, having come to a city under a tyrant and having examined it, c shouldn’t we look into a tyrannical soul, trying in this way to become adequate judges of the topic we proposed to ourselves? That would be a reasonable way for us to go about observing and judging, at any rate. Well, then, let’s try to explain how timocracy emerges from aristocracy. Or is it a simple principle that the cause of change in any constitution is civil war breaking out within the ruling group itself, but that if this group— however small it is—remains of one mind, the constitution cannot be d changed? Yes, that’s right. 5. See e.g. Odyssey xix.163. 1158 Socrates/Glaucon How, then, Glaucon, will our city be changed? How will civil war arise, either between the auxiliaries and the rulers or within either group? Or do you want us to be like Homer and pray to the Muses to tell us “how civil war first broke out?” e 6 And shall we say that they speak to us in tragic tones, as if they were in earnest, playing and jesting with us as if we were children? What will they say? 546 Something like this. “It is hard for a city composed in this way to change, but everything that comes into being must decay. Not even a constitution such as this will last forever. It, too, must face dissolution. And this is how it will be dissolved. All plants that grow in the earth, and also all animals that grow upon it, have periods of fruitfulness and barrenness of both soul and body as often as the revolutions complete the circumferences of their circles. These circumferences are short for the short-lived, and the opposite for their opposites.7 Now, the people you have educated to be leaders in your city, even though they are wise, still won’t, through calculab tion together with sense perception, hit upon the fertility and barrenness of the human species, but it will escape them, and so they will at some time beget children when they ought not to do so. For the birth of a divine creature, there is a cycle comprehended by a perfect number. For a human being, it is the first number in which are found root and square increases, comprehending three lengths and four terms, of elements that make things like and unlike, that cause them to increase and decrease, and that render c all things mutually agreeable and rational in their relations to one another. Of these elements, four and three, married with five, give two harmonies when thrice increased. One of them is a square, so many times a hundred. The other is of equal length one way but oblong. One of its sides is one hundred squares of the rational diameter of five diminished by one each or one hundred squares of the irrational diameter diminished by two each. The other side is a hundred cubes of three. This whole geometrical number controls better and worse births.8 And when your rulers, through ignorance of these births, join brides and grooms at the wrong time, the children 6. An adaptation of Iliad xvi.112–13. 7. The reference is to the fertility and gestation periods of different species of plants and animals and their (supposedly related) life spans. 8. The human geometrical number is the product of 3, 4, and 5 “thrice increased,” multiplied by itself three times, i.e., (3·4·5)4 or 12,960,000. This can be represented geometrically as a square whose sides are 3600 or as an oblong or rectangle whose sides are 4800 and 2700. The first is “so many times a hundred,” viz. 36 times. The latter is obtained as follows. The “rational diameter” of 5 is the nearest rational number to the real diagonal of a square whose sides are 5, i.e., to √50. This number is 7. Since the square of 7 is 49, we get the longer side of the rectangle by diminishing 49 by 1 and multiplying the result by 100. This gives 4800. The “irrational diameter” of 5 is √50. When squared, diminished by 2, and multiplied by 100 this, too, is 4800. The short side, “a hundred cubes of three,” is 2700. Republic VIII 1159 will be neither good natured nor fortunate. The older generation will d choose the best of these children but they are unworthy nevertheless, and when they acquire their fathers’ powers, they will begin, as guardians, to neglect us Muses. First, they will have less consideration for music and poetry than they ought, then they will neglect physical training, so that your young people will become less well educated in music and poetry. Hence, rulers chosen from among them won’t be able to guard well the e testing of the golden, silver, bronze, and iron races, which are Hesiod’s and your own.9 The intermixing of iron with silver and bronze with gold that results will engender lack of likeness and unharmonious inequality, 547 and these always breed war and hostility wherever they arise. Civil war, we declare, is always and everywhere ‘of this lineage’.”10 And we’ll declare that what the Muses say is right. It must be, since they’re Muses. What do the Muses say after that? b Once civil war breaks out, both the iron and bronze types pull the constitution towards money-making and the acquisition of land, houses, gold, and silver, while both the gold and silver types—not being poor, but by nature rich or rich in their souls—lead the constitution towards virtue and the old order. And thus striving and struggling with one another, they compromise on a middle way: They distribute the land and houses as private property, enslave and hold as serfs and servants those whom they previously guarded as free friends and providers of upkeep, and occupy themselves with war and with guarding against those whom c they’ve enslaved. I think that is the way this transformation begins. Then, isn’t this constitution a sort of midpoint between aristocracy and oligarchy? Absolutely. Then, if that’s its place in the transformation, how will it be managed after the change? Isn’t it obvious that it will imitate the aristocratic constitution in some respects and oligarchy in others, since it’s between them, and that d it will also have some features of its own? That’s right. The rulers will be respected; the fighting class will be prevented from taking part in farming, manual labor, or other ways of making money; it will eat communally and devote itself to physical training and training for war; and in all such ways, won’t the constitution be like the aristocratic one? Yes. On the other hand, it will be afraid to appoint wise people as rulers, on the grounds that they are no longer simple and earnest but mixed, and e will incline towards spirited and simpler people, who are more naturally 9. See Works and Days 109–202. 10. See e.g. Iliad vi.211. 1160 Socrates/Glaucon/Adeimantus suited for war than peace; it will value the tricks and stratagems of war 548 and spend all its time making war. Aren’t most of these qualities peculiar to it? Yes. Such people will desire money just as those in oligarchies do, passionately adoring gold and silver in secret. They will possess private treasuries and storehouses, where they can keep it hidden, and have houses to enclose them, like private nests, where they can spend lavishly either on women b or on anyone else they wish. That’s absolutely true. They’ll be mean with their own money, since they value it and are not allowed to acquire it openly, but they’ll love to spend other people’s because of their appetites. They’ll enjoy their pleasures in secret, running away from the law like boys from their father, for since they’ve neglected the true Muse—that of discussion and philosophy—and have valued physical training more than music and poetry, they haven’t been educated by c persuasion but by force. The constitution you’re discussing is certainly a mixture of good and bad. Yes, it is mixed, but because of the predominance of the spirited element, one thing alone is most manifest in it, namely, the love of victory and the love of honor. Very much so. This, then, is the way this constitution would come into being and what it would be like, for, after all, we’re only sketching the shape of the constitution in theory, not giving an exact account of it, since even from d a sketch we’ll be able to discern the most just and the most unjust person. And, besides, it would be an intolerably long task to describe every constitution and every character without omitting any detail. That’s right. Then who is the man that corresponds to this constitution? How does he come to be, and what sort of man is he? I think, said Adeimantus, that he’d be very like Glaucon here, as far as the love of victory is concerned. In that respect, I said, he might be, but, in the following ones, I don’t think his nature would be similar. e Which ones? He’d be more obstinate and less well trained in music and poetry, though he’s a lover of it, and he’d love to listen to speeches and arguments, though he’s by no means a rhetorician. He’d be harsh to his slaves rather than merely looking down on them as an adequately educated person does. 549 He’d be gentle to free people and very obedient to rulers, being himself a lover of ruling and a lover of honor. However, he doesn’t base his claim to rule on his ability as a speaker or anything like that, but, as he’s a lover of physical training and a lover of hunting, on his abilities and exploits in warfare and warlike activities. Yes, that’s the character that corresponds to this constitution. Republic VIII 1161 Wouldn’t such a person despise money when he’s young but love it more and more as he grows older, because he shares in the money-loving nature and isn’t pure in his attitude to virtue? And isn’t that because he b lacks the best of guardians? What guardian is that? Adeimantus said. Reason, I said, mixed with music and poetry, for it alone dwells within the person who possesses it as the lifelong preserver of his virtue. Well put. That, then, is a timocratic youth; he resembles the corresponding city. Absolutely. c And he comes into being in some such way as this. He’s the son of a good father who lives in a city that isn’t well governed, who avoids honors, office, lawsuits, and all such meddling in other people’s affairs, and who is even willing to be put at a disadvantage in order to avoid trouble. Then how does he come to be timocratic? When he listens, first, to his mother complaining that her husband isn’t one of the rulers and that she’s at a disadvantage among the other women as a result. Then she sees that he’s not very concerned about money and that he doesn’t fight back when he’s insulted, whether in private or in d public in the courts, but is indifferent to everything of that sort. She also sees him concentrating his mind on his own thoughts, neither honoring nor dishonoring her overmuch. Angered by all this, she tells her son that his father is unmanly, too easy-going, and all the other things that women repeat over and over again in such cases. e Yes, Adeimantus said, it’s like them to have many such complaints. You know, too, I said, that the servants of men like that—the ones who are thought to be well disposed to the family—also say similar things to the son in private. When they see the father failing to prosecute someone who owes him money or has wronged him in some other way, they urge the son to take revenge on all such people when he grows up and to be more of a man than his father. The boy hears and sees the same kind of 550 things when he goes out: Those in the city who do their own work are called fools and held to be of little account, while those who meddle in other people’s affairs are honored and praised. The young man hears and sees all this, but he also listens to what his father says, observes what he does from close at hand, and compares his ways of living with those of the others. So he’s pulled by both. His father nourishes the rational part b of his soul and makes it grow; the others nourish the spirited and appetitive parts. Because he isn’t a bad man by nature but keeps bad company, when he’s pulled in these two ways, he settles in the middle and surrenders the rule over himself to the middle part—the victory-loving and spirited part— and becomes a proud and honor-loving man. I certainly think that you’ve given a full account of how this sort of man comes to be. Then we now have the second constitution and the second man. c We have. 1162 Socrates/Adeimantus Then shall we next talk, as Aeschylus says, of “another man ordered like another city,”11 or shall we follow our plan and talk about the city first? We must follow our plan. And I suppose that the one that comes after the present constitution is oligarchy. And what kind of constitution would you call oligarchy? The constitution based on a property assessment, in which the rich rule, d and the poor man has no share in ruling. I understand. So mustn’t we first explain how timarchy is transformed into oligarchy? Yes. And surely the manner of this transformation is clear even to the blind. What is it like? The treasure house filled with gold, which each possesses, destroys the constitution. First, they find ways of spending money for themselves, then they stretch the laws relating to this, then they and their wives disobey the laws altogether. They would do that. And as one person sees another doing this and emulates him, they make e the majority of the others like themselves. They do. From there they proceed further into money-making, and the more they value it, the less they value virtue. Or aren’t virtue and wealth so opposed that if they were set on a scales, they’d always incline in opposite directions? That’s right. So, when wealth and the wealthy are valued or honored in a city, virtue 551 and good people are valued less. Clearly. And what is valued is always practiced, and what isn’t valued is neglected. That’s right. Then, in the end, victory-loving and honor-loving men become lovers of making money, or money-lovers. And they praise and admire wealthy people and appoint them as rulers, while they dishonor poor ones. Certainly. Then, don’t they pass a law that is characteristic of an oligarchic constitution, one that establishes a wealth qualification—higher where the constitution is more oligarchic, less where it’s less so—and proclaims that those b whose property doesn’t reach the stated amount aren’t qualified to rule? And they either put this through by force of arms, or else, before it comes to that, they terrorize the people and establish their constitution that way. Isn’t that so? Of course it is. 11. Perhaps an adaptation of Seven Against Thebes 451. Republic VIII 1163 Generally speaking, then, that’s the way this kind of constitution is established. Yes, but what is its character? And what are the faults that we said it contained? c First of all, the very thing that defines it is one, for what would happen if someone were to choose the captains of ships by their wealth, refusing to entrust the ship to a poor person even if he was a better captain? They would make a poor voyage of it. And isn’t the same true of the rule of anything else whatsoever? I suppose so. Except a city? Or does it also apply to a city? To it most of all, since it’s the most difficult and most important kind of rule. That, then, is one major fault in oligarchy. d Apparently. And what about this second fault? Is it any smaller than the other? What fault? That of necessity it isn’t one city but two—one of the poor and one of the rich—living in the same place and always plotting against one another. By god, that’s just as big a fault as the first. And the following is hardly a fine quality either, namely, that oligarchs probably aren’t able to fight a war, for they’d be compelled either to arm and use the majority, and so have more to fear from them than the enemy, or not to use them and show up as true oligarchs—few in number—on e the battlefield. At the same time, they’d be unwilling to pay mercenaries, because of their love of money. That certainly isn’t a fine quality either. And what about the meddling in other people’s affairs that we condemned before? Under this constitution, won’t the same people be farmers, money-makers, and soldiers simultaneously? And do you think it’s right for things to be that way? 552 Not at all. Now, let’s see whether this constitution is the first to admit the greatest of all evils. Which one is that? Allowing someone to sell all his possessions and someone else to buy them and then allowing the one who has sold them to go on living in the city, while belonging to none of its parts, for he’s neither a money-maker, a craftsman, a member of the cavalry, or a hoplite, but a poor person without means. It is the first to allow that. b At any rate, this sort of thing is not forbidden in oligarchies. If it were, some of their citizens wouldn’t be excessively rich, while others are totally impoverished. That’s right. 1164 Socrates/Adeimantus Now, think about this. When the person who sells all his possessions was rich and spending his money, was he of any greater use to the city in the ways we’ve just mentioned than when he’d spent it all? Or did he merely seem to be one of the rulers of the city, while in truth he was neither ruler nor subject there, but only a squanderer of his property? That’s right. He seemed to be part of the city, but he was nothing but c a squanderer. Should we say, then, that, as a drone exists in a cell and is an affliction to the hive, so this person is a drone in the house and an affliction to the city? That’s certainly right, Socrates. Hasn’t the god made all the winged drones stingless, Adeimantus, as well as some wingless ones, while other wingless ones have dangerous stings? And don’t the stingless ones continue as beggars into old age, while d those with stings become what we call evildoers? That’s absolutely true. Clearly, then, in any city where you see beggars, there are thieves, pickpockets, temple-robbers, and all such evildoers hidden. That is clear. What about oligarchic cities? Don’t you see beggars in them? Almost everyone except the rulers is a beggar there. e Then mustn’t we suppose that they also include many evildoers with stings, whom the rulers carefully keep in check by force? We certainly must. And shall we say that the presence of such people is the result of lack of education, bad rearing, and a bad constitutional arrangement? We shall. This, then, or something like it, is the oligarchic city. It contains all these evils and probably others in addition. That’s pretty well what it’s like. Then, let’s take it that we’ve disposed of the constitution called oligar553 chy—I mean the one that gets its rulers on the basis of a property assessment—and let’s examine the man who is like it, both how he comes to be and what sort of man he is. All right. Doesn’t the transformation from the timocrat we described to an oligarch occur mostly in this way? Which way? The timocrat’s son at first emulates his father and follows in his footsteps. Then he suddenly sees him crashing against the city like a ship against a b reef, spilling out all his possessions, even his life. He had held a generalship or some other high office, was brought to court by false witnesses, and was either put to death or exiled or was disenfranchised and had all his property confiscated. That’s quite likely. The son sees all this, suffers from it, loses his property, and, fearing for his life, immediately drives from the throne in his own soul the honor- Republic VIII 1165 loving and spirited part that ruled there. Humbled by poverty, he turns greedily to making money, and, little by little, saving and working, he c amasses property. Don’t you think that this person would establish his appetitive and money-making part on the throne, setting it up as a great king within himself, adorning it with golden tiaras and collars and girding it with Persian swords? I do. He makes the rational and spirited parts sit on the ground beneath appetite, one on either side, reducing them to slaves. He won’t allow the d first to reason about or examine anything except how a little money can be made into great wealth. And he won’t allow the second to value or admire anything but wealth and wealthy people or to have any ambition other than the acquisition of wealth or whatever might contribute to getting it. There is no other transformation of a young man who is an honor-lover into one who is a money-lover that’s as swift and sure as this. Then isn’t this an oligarchic man? e Surely, he developed out of a man who resembled the constitution from which oligarchy came. Then let’s consider whether he resembles the oligarchic constitution? All right. 554 Doesn’t he resemble it, in the first place, by attaching the greatest importance to money? Of course. And, further, by being a thrifty worker, who satisfies only his necessary appetites, makes no other expenditures, and enslaves his other desires as vain. That’s right. A somewhat squalid fellow, who makes a profit from everything and hoards it—the sort the majority admires. Isn’t this the man who resembles such a constitution? b That’s my opinion, anyway. At any rate, money is valued above everything by both the city and the man. I don’t suppose that such a man pays any attention to education. Not in my view, for, if he did, he wouldn’t have chosen a blind leader for his chorus and honored him most.12 Good. But consider this: Won’t we say that, because of his lack of education, the dronish appetites—some beggarly and others evil—exist in him, but that they’re forcibly held in check by his carefulness? c Certainly. Do you know where you should look to see the evildoings of such people? Where? 12. Plutus, the god of wealth, is represented as being blind. 1166 Socrates/Adeimantus To the guardianship of orphans or something like that, where they have ample opportunity to do injustice with impunity. True. And doesn’t this make it clear that, in those other contractual obligations, where he has a good reputation and is thought to be just, he’s forcibly holding his other evil appetites in check by means of some decent part of d himself? He holds them in check, not by persuading them that it’s better not to act on them or taming them with arguments, but by compulsion and fear, trembling for his other possessions. That’s right. And, by god, you’ll find that most of them have appetites akin to those of the drone, once they have other people’s money to spend. You certainly will. Then someone like that wouldn’t be entirely free from internal civil war and wouldn’t be one but in some way two, though generally his better e desires are in control of his worse. That’s right. For this reason, he’d be more respectable than many, but the true virtue of a single-minded and harmonious soul far escapes him. I suppose so. Further, this thrifty man is a poor individual contestant for victory in a city or for any other fine and much-honored thing, for he’s not willing to 555 spend money for the sake of a fine reputation or on contests for such things. He’s afraid to arouse his appetites for spending or to call on them as allies to obtain victory, so he fights like an oligarch, with only a few of his resources. Hence he’s mostly defeated but remains rich. That’s right. Then have we any further doubt that a thrifty money-maker is like an b oligarchic city? None at all. It seems, then, that we must next consider democracy, how it comes into being, and what character it has when it does, so that, knowing in turn the character of a man who resembles it, we can present him for judgment. That would be quite consistent with what we’ve been doing. Well, isn’t the city changed from an oligarchy to a democracy in some such way as this, because of its insatiable desire to attain what it has set before itself as the good, namely, the need to become as rich as possible? In what way? c Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they’re unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who’ve had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people’s property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored. That’s their favorite thing to do. Republic VIII 1167 So isn’t it clear by now that it is impossible for a city to honor wealth and at the same time for its citizens to acquire moderation, but one or the other is inevitably neglected? d That’s pretty clear. Because of this neglect and because they encourage bad discipline, oligarchies not infrequently reduce people of no common stamp to poverty. That’s right. And these people sit idle in the city, I suppose, with their stings and weapons—some in debt, some disenfranchised, some both—hating those who’ve acquired their property, plotting against them and others, and longing for a revolution. e They do. The money-makers, on the other hand, with their eyes on the ground, pretend not to see these people, and by lending money they disable any of the remainder who resist, exact as interest many times the principal sum, and so create a considerable number of drones and beggars in the city. 556 A considerable number indeed. In any case, they are unwilling to quench this kind of evil as it flares up in the city, either in the way we mentioned, by preventing people from doing whatever they like with their own property or by another law which would also solve the problem. What law? The second-best one, which compels the citizens to care about virtue by prescribing that the majority of voluntary contracts be entered into at the lender’s own risk, for lenders would be less shameless then in their pursuit b of money in the city and fewer of those evils we were mentioning just now would develop. Far fewer. But as it is, for all these reasons, the rulers in the city treat their subjects in the way we described. But as for themselves and their children, don’t they make their young fond of luxury, incapable of effort either mental or physical, too soft to stand up to pleasures or pains, and idle besides? c Of course. And don’t they themselves neglect everything except making money, caring no more for virtue than the poor do? Yes. But when rulers and subjects in this condition meet on a journey or some other common undertaking—it might be a festival, an embassy, or a campaign, or they might be shipmates or fellow soldiers—and see one another in danger, in these circumstances are the poor in any way despised by the rich? Or rather isn’t it often the case that a poor man, lean and d suntanned, stands in battle next to a rich man, reared in the shade and carrying a lot of excess flesh, and sees him panting and at a loss? And don’t you think that he’d consider that it’s through the cowardice of the poor that such people are rich and that one poor man would say to another 1168 Socrates/Adeimantus when they met in private: “These people are at our mercy; they’re good e for nothing”? I know very well that’s what they would do. Then, as a sick body needs only a slight shock from outside to become ill and is sometimes at civil war with itself even without this, so a city in the same condition needs only a small pretext—such as one side bringing in allies from an oligarchy or the other from a democracy—to fall ill and to fight with itself and is sometimes in a state of civil war even without any external influence. 557 Absolutely. And I suppose that democracy comes about when the poor are victorious, killing some of their opponents and expelling others, and giving the rest an equal share in ruling under the constitution, and for the most part assigning people to positions of rule by lot. Yes, that’s how democracy is established, whether by force of arms or because those on the opposing side are frightened into exile. Then how do these people live? What sort of constitution do they have? b It’s clear that a man who is like it will be democratic. That is clear. First of all, then, aren’t they free? And isn’t the city full of freedom and freedom of speech? And doesn’t everyone in it have the license to do what he wants? That’s what they say, at any rate. And where people have this license, it’s clear that each of them will arrange his own life in whatever manner pleases him. It is. Then I suppose that it’s most of all under this constitution that one finds c people of all varieties. Of course. Then it looks as though this is the finest or most beautiful of the constitutions, for, like a coat embroidered with every kind of ornament, this city, embroidered with every kind of character type, would seem to be the most beautiful. And many people would probably judge it to be so, as women and children do when they see something multicolored. They certainly would. d It’s also a convenient place to look for a constitution. Why’s that? Because it contains all kinds of constitutions on account of the license it gives its citizens. So it looks as though anyone who wants to put a city in order, as we were doing, should probably go to a democracy, as to a supermarket of constitutions, pick out whatever pleases him, and establish that. e He probably wouldn’t be at a loss for models, at any rate. In this city, there is no requirement to rule, even if you’re capable of it, or again to be ruled if you don’t want to be, or to be at war when the others are, or at peace unless you happen to want it. And there is no Republic VIII 1169 requirement in the least that you not serve in public office as a juror, if you happen to want to serve, even if there is a law forbidding you to do so. Isn’t that a divine and pleasant life, while it lasts? 558 It probably is—while it lasts. And what about the calm of some of their condemned criminals? Isn’t that a sign of sophistication? Or have you never seen people who’ve been condemned to death or exile under such a constitution stay on at the center of things, strolling around like the ghosts of dead heroes, without anyone staring at them or giving them a thought? Yes, I’ve seen it a lot. And what about the city’s tolerance? Isn’t it so completely lacking in b small-mindedness that it utterly despises the things we took so seriously when we were founding our city, namely, that unless someone had transcendent natural gifts, he’d never become good unless he played the right games and followed a fine way of life from early childhood? Isn’t it magnificent the way it tramples all this underfoot, by giving no thought to what someone was doing before he entered public life and by honoring him if only he tells them that he wishes the majority well? c Yes, it’s altogether splendid! Then these and others like them are the characteristics of democracy. And it would seem to be a pleasant constitution, which lacks rulers but not variety and which distributes a sort of equality to both equals and unequals alike. We certainly know what you mean. Consider, then, what private individual resembles it. Or should we first inquire, as we did with the city, how he comes to be? Yes, we should. Well, doesn’t it happen like this? Wouldn’t the son of that thrifty oligarch be brought up in his father’s ways? d Of course. Then he too rules his spendthrift pleasures by force—the ones that aren’t money-making and are called unnecessary. Clearly. But, so as not to discuss this in the dark, do you want us first to define which desires are necessary and which aren’t? I do. Aren’t those we can’t desist from and those whose satisfaction benefits us rightly called necessary, for we are by nature compelled to satisfy them both? Isn’t that so? e Of course. So we’d be right to apply the term “necessary” to them? 559 We would. What about those that someone could get rid of if he practiced from youth on, those whose presence leads to no good or even to the opposite? If we said that all of them were unnecessary, would we be right? We would. 1170 Socrates/Adeimantus Let’s pick an example of each, so that we can grasp the patterns they exhibit. We should do that. Aren’t the following desires necessary: the desire to eat to the point of b health and well-being and the desire for bread and delicacies? I suppose so. The desire for bread is necessary on both counts; it’s beneficial, and unless it’s satisfied, we die. Yes. The desire for delicacies is also necessary to the extent that it’s beneficial to well-being. Absolutely. What about the desire that goes beyond these and seeks other sorts of foods, that most people can get rid of, if it’s restrained and educated while they’re young, and that’s harmful both to the body and to the reason and c moderation of the soul? Would it be rightly called unnecessary? It would indeed. Then wouldn’t we also say that such desires are spendthrift, while the earlier ones are money-making, because they profit our various projects? Certainly. And won’t we say the same about the desire for sex and about other desires? Yes. And didn’t we say that the person we just now called a drone is full of such pleasures and desires, since he is ruled by the unnecessary ones, d while a thrifty oligarch is ruled by his necessary desires? We certainly did. Let’s go back, then, and explain how the democratic man develops out of the oligarchic one. It seems to me as though it mostly happens as follows. How? When a young man, who is reared in the miserly and uneducated manner we described, tastes the honey of the drones and associates with wild and dangerous creatures who can provide every variety of multicolored pleasure in every sort of way, this, as you might suppose, is the beginning e of his transformation from having an oligarchic constitution within him to having a democratic one. It’s inevitable that this is how it starts. And just as the city changed when one party received help from likeminded people outside, doesn’t the young man change when one party of his desires receives help from external desires that are akin to them and of the same form? Absolutely. And I suppose that, if any contrary help comes to the oligarchic party within him, whether from his father or from the rest of his household, who exhort and reproach him, then there’s civil war and counterrevolution 560 within him, and he battles against himself. Republic VIII 1171 That’s right. Sometimes the democratic party yields to the oligarchic, so that some of the young man’s appetites are overcome, others are expelled, a kind of shame rises in his soul, and order is restored. That does sometimes happen. But I suppose that, as desires are expelled, others akin to them are being nurtured unawares, and because of his father’s ignorance about how to bring him up, they grow numerous and strong. b That’s what tends to happen. These desires draw him back into the same bad company and in secret intercourse breed a multitude of others. Certainly. And, seeing the citadel of the young man’s soul empty of knowledge, fine ways of living, and words of truth (which are the best watchmen and guardians of the thoughts of those men whom the gods love), they finally occupy that citadel themselves. They certainly do. c And in the absence of these guardians, false and boastful words and beliefs rush up and occupy this part of him. Indeed, they do. Won’t he then return to these lotus-eaters and live with them openly? And if some help comes to the thrifty part of his soul from his household, won’t these boastful words close the gates of the royal wall within him to prevent these allies from entering and refuse even to receive the words of older private individuals as ambassadors? Doing battle and controlling things themselves, won’t they call reverence foolishness and moderation d cowardice, abusing them and casting them out beyond the frontiers like disenfranchised exiles? And won’t they persuade the young man that measured and orderly expenditure is boorish and mean, and, joining with many useless desires, won’t they expel it across the border? They certainly will. Having thus emptied and purged these from the soul of the one they’ve possessed and initiated in splendid rites, they proceed to return insolence, anarchy, extravagance, and shamelessness from exile in a blaze of torch- e light, wreathing them in garlands and accompanying them with a vast chorus of followers. They praise the returning exiles and give them fine names, calling insolence good breeding, anarchy freedom, extravagance magnificence, and shamelessness courage. Isn’t it in some such way as this that someone who is young changes, after being brought up with necessary desires, to the liberation and release of useless and unneces- 561 sary pleasures? Yes, that’s clearly the way it happens. And I suppose that after that he spends as much money, effort, and time on unnecessary pleasures as on necessary ones. If he’s lucky, and his frenzy doesn’t go too far, when he grows older, and the great tumult within him has spent itself, he welcomes back some of the exiles, ceases 1172 Socrates/Adeimantus b to surrender himself completely to the newcomers, and puts his pleasures on an equal footing. And so he lives, always surrendering rule over himself to whichever desire comes along, as if it were chosen by lot. And when that is satisfied, he surrenders the rule to another, not disdaining any but satisfying them all equally. That’s right. And he doesn’t admit any word of truth into the guardhouse, for if someone tells him that some pleasures belong to fine and good desires c and others to evil ones and that he must pursue and value the former and restrain and enslave the latter, he denies all this and declares that all pleasures are equal and must be valued equally. That’s just what someone in that condition would do. And so he lives on, yielding day by day to the desire at hand. Sometimes he drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, he drinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical training; d at other times, he’s idle and neglects everything; and sometimes he even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He often engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever comes into his mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he’s carried in that direction, if money-makers, in that one. There’s neither order nor necessity in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he follows it for as long as he lives. e You’ve perfectly described the life of a man who believes in legal equality. I also suppose that he’s a complex man, full of all sorts of characters, fine and multicolored, just like the democratic city, and that many men and women might envy his life, since it contains the most models of constitutions and ways of living. That’s right. Then shall we set this man beside democracy as one who is rightly 562 called democratic? Let’s do so. The finest constitution and the finest man remain for us to discuss, namely, tyranny and a tyrannical man. They certainly do. Come, then, how does tyranny come into being? It’s fairly clear that it evolves from democracy. It is. And doesn’t it evolve from democracy in much the same way that b democracy does from oligarchy? What way is that? The good that oligarchy puts before itself and because of which it is established is wealth, isn’t it? Yes. And its insatiable desire for wealth and its neglect of other things for the sake of money-making is what destroyed it, isn’t it? That’s true. Republic VIII 1173 And isn’t democracy’s insatiable desire for what it defines as the good also what destroys it? What do you think it defines as the good? Freedom: Surely you’d hear a democratic city say that this is the finest thing it has, so that as a result it is the only city worth living in for someone c who is by nature free. Yes, you often hear that. Then, as I was about to say, doesn’t the insatiable desire for freedom and the neglect of other things change this constitution and put it in need of a dictatorship? In what way? I suppose that, when a democratic city, athirst for freedom, happens to get bad cupbearers for its leaders, so that it gets drunk by drinking more than it should of the unmixed wine of freedom, then, unless the rulers are d very pliable and provide plenty of that freedom, they are punished by the city and accused of being accursed oligarchs. Yes, that is what it does. It insults those who obey the rulers as willing slaves and good-fornothings and praises and honors, both in public and in private, rulers who behave like subjects and subjects who behave like rulers. And isn’t it inevitable that freedom should go to all lengths in such a city? e Of course. It makes its way into private households and in the end breeds anarchy even among the animals. What do you mean? I mean that a father accustoms himself to behave like a child and fear his sons, while the son behaves like a father, feeling neither shame nor fear in front of his parents, in order to be free. A resident alien or a foreign visitor is made equal to a citizen, and he is their equal. 563 Yes, that is what happens. It does. And so do other little things of the same sort. A teacher in such a community is afraid of his students and flatters them, while the students despise their teachers or tutors. And, in general, the young imitate their elders and compete with them in word and deed, while the old stoop to the level of the young and are full of play and pleasantry, imitating the young for fear of appearing disagreeable and authoritarian. b Absolutely. The utmost freedom for the majority is reached in such a city when bought slaves, both male and female, are no less free than those who bought them. And I almost forgot to mention the extent of the legal equality of men and women and of the freedom in the relations between them. What about the animals? Are we, with Aeschylus, going to “say whatever it was that came to our lips just now” about them? c Certainly. I put it this way: No one who hasn’t experienced it would believe how much freer domestic animals are in a democratic city than anywhere else. As the proverb says, dogs become like their mistresses; 1174 Socrates/Adeimantus horses and donkeys are accustomed to roam freely and proudly along the streets, bumping into anyone who doesn’t get out of their way; and all d the rest are equally full of freedom. You’re telling me what I already know. I’ve often experienced that sort of thing while travelling in the country. To sum up: Do you notice how all these things together make the citizens’ souls so sensitive that, if anyone even puts upon himself the least degree of slavery, they become angry and cannot endure it. And in the end, as you know, they take no notice of the laws, whether written or unwritten, e in order to avoid having any master at all. I certainly do. This, then, is the fine and impetuous origin from which tyranny seems to me to evolve. It is certainly impetuous. But what comes next? The same disease that developed in oligarchy and destroyed it also develops here, but it is more widespread and virulent because of the general permissiveness, and it eventually enslaves democracy. In fact, excessive action in one direction usually sets up a reaction in the opposite direction. This happens in seasons, in plants, in bodies, and, last but not 564 least, in constitutions. That’s to be expected. Extreme freedom can’t be expected to lead to anything but a change to extreme slavery, whether for a private individual or for a city. No, it can’t. Then I don’t suppose that tyranny evolves from any constitution other than democracy—the most severe and cruel slavery from the utmost freedom. Yes, that’s reasonable. But I don’t think that was your question. You asked what was the disease b that developed in oligarchy and also in democracy, enslaving it. That’s true. And what I had in mind as an answer was that class of idle and extravagant men, whose bravest members are leaders and the more cowardly ones followers. We compared them to stinged and stingless drones, respectively. That’s right. Now, these two groups cause problems in any constitution, just as phlegm and bile do in the body. And it’s against them that the good doctor c and lawgiver of a city must take advance precautions, first, to prevent their presence and, second, to cut them out of the hive as quickly as possible, cells and all, if they should happen to be present. Yes, by god, he must cut them out altogether. Then let’s take up the question in the following way, so that we can see what we want more clearly. In what way? Let’s divide a democratic city into three parts in theory, this being the way that it is in fact divided. One part is this class of idlers, that grows d here no less than in an oligarchy, because of the general permissiveness. Republic VIII 1175 So it does. But it is far fiercer in democracy than in the other. How so? In an oligarchy it is fierce because it’s disdained, but since it is prevented from having a share in ruling, it doesn’t get any exercise and doesn’t become vigorous. In a democracy, however, with a few exceptions, this class is the dominant one. Its fiercest members do all the talking and acting, while the rest settle near the speaker’s platform and buzz and refuse to tolerate the opposition of another speaker, so that, under a democratic constitution, with the few exceptions I referred to before, this class manages everything. e That’s right. Then there’s a second class that always distinguishes itself from the majority of people. Which is that? When everybody is trying to make money, those who are naturally most organized generally become the wealthiest. Probably so. Then they would provide the most honey for the drones and the honey that is most easily extractable by them. Yes, for how could anyone extract it from those who have very little? Then I suppose that these rich people are called drone-fodder. Something like that. The people—those who work with their own hands—are the third class. They take no part in politics and have few possessions, but, when 565 they are assembled, they are the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. They are. But they aren’t willing to assemble often unless they get a share of the honey. And they always do get a share, though the leaders, in taking the wealth of the rich and distributing it to the people, keep the greater part for themselves. Yes, that is the way the people get their share. b And I suppose that those whose wealth is taken away are compelled to defend themselves by speaking before the people and doing whatever else they can. Of course. And they’re accused by the drones of plotting against the people and of being oligarchs, even if they have no desire for revolution at all. That’s right. So in the end, when they see the people trying to harm them, they truly do become oligarchs and embrace oligarchy’s evils, whether they want to c or not. But neither group does these things willingly. Rather the people act as they do because they are ignorant and are deceived by the drones, and the rich act as they do because they are driven to it by the stinging of those same drones. Absolutely. 1176 Socrates/Adeimantus And then there are impeachments, judgments, and trials on both sides. That’s right. Now, aren’t the people always in the habit of setting up one man as their special champion, nurturing him and making him great? They are. d And it’s clear that, when a tyrant arises, this special leadership is the sole root from which he sprouts. It is. What is the beginning of the transformation from leader of the people to tyrant? Isn’t it clear that it happens when the leader begins to behave like the man in the story told about the temple of the Lycean Zeus13 in Arcadia? What story is that? That anyone who tastes the one piece of human innards that’s chopped up with those of other sacrificial victims must inevitably become a wolf. e Haven’t you heard that story? I have. Then doesn’t the same happen with a leader of the people who dominates a docile mob and doesn’t restrain himself from spilling kindred blood? He brings someone to trial on false charges and murders him (as tyrants so often do), and, by thus blotting out a human life, his impious tongue and lips taste kindred citizen blood. He banishes some, kills others, and drops hints to the people about the cancellation of debts and the redistribu566 tion of land. And because of these things, isn’t a man like that inevitably fated either to be killed by his enemies or to be transformed from a man into a wolf by becoming a tyrant? It’s completely inevitable. He’s the one who stirs up civil wars against the rich. He is. And if he’s exiled but manages, despite his enemies, to return, doesn’t he come back as a full-fledged tyrant? Clearly. And if these enemies are unable to expel him or to put him to death by b accusing him before the city, they plot secretly to kill him. That’s usually what happens at least. And all who’ve reached this stage soon discover the famous request of the tyrant, namely, that the people give him a bodyguard to keep their defender safe for them. That’s right. And the people give it to him, I suppose, because they are afraid for his safety but aren’t worried at all about their own. c That’s right. And when a wealthy man sees this and is charged with being an enemy of the people because of his wealth, then, as the oracle to Croesus put it, he 13. Zeus the wolf-god. Republic VIII 1177 Flees to the banks of the many-pebbled Hermus, Neither staying put nor being ashamed of his cowardice. He wouldn’t get a second chance of being ashamed. That’s true, for if he was caught, he’d be executed. He most certainly would. But, as for the leader, he doesn’t lie on the ground “mighty in his might,”14 but, having brought down many others, he stands in the city’s chariot, a complete tyrant rather than a leader. d What else? Then let’s describe the happiness of this man and of the city in which a mortal like him comes to be. Certainly, let’s do so. During the first days of his reign and for some time after, won’t he smile in welcome at anyone he meets, saying that he’s no tyrant, making all sorts of promises both in public and in private, freeing the people from debt, redistributing the land to them and to his followers, and pretending e to be gracious and gentle to all? He’d have to. But I suppose that, when he has dealt with his exiled enemies by making peace with some and destroying others, so that all is quiet on that front, the first thing he does is to stir up a war, so that the people will continue to feel the need of a leader. Probably so. But also so that they’ll become poor through having to pay war taxes, for that way they’ll have to concern themselves with their daily needs and 567 be less likely to plot against him. Clearly. Besides, if he suspects some people of having thoughts of freedom and of not favoring his rule, can’t he find a pretext for putting them at the mercy of the enemy in order to destroy them? And for all these reasons, isn’t it necessary for a tyrant to be always stirring up war? It is. And because of this, isn’t he all the more readily hated by the citizens? b Of course. Moreover, don’t the bravest of those who helped to establish his tyranny and who hold positions of power within it speak freely to each other and to him, criticizing what’s happening? They probably do. Then the tyrant will have to do away with all of them if he intends to rule, until he’s left with neither friend nor enemy of any worth. Clearly. He must, therefore, keep a sharp lookout for anyone who is brave, largeminded, knowledgeable, or rich. And so happy is he that he must be the 14. See Iliad xvi.776. 1178 Socrates/Adeimantus c enemy of them all, whether he wants to be or not, and plot against them until he has purged them from the city. That’s a fine sort of purge! Yes, for it’s the opposite of the one that doctors perform on the body. They draw off the worst and leave the best, but he does just the opposite. Yet I expect he’ll have to do this, if he’s really going to rule. d It’s a blessedly happy necessity he’s bound by, since it requires him either to live with the inferior majority, even though they hate him, or not to live at all. Yet that’s exactly his condition. And won’t he need a larger and more loyal bodyguard, the more his actions make the citizens hate him? Of course. And who will these trustworthy people be? And where will he get them from? They’ll come swarming of their own accord, if he pays them. Drones, by the dog! All manner of foreign drones! That’s what I think e you’re talking about. You’re right. But what about in the city itself? Wouldn’t he be willing . . . Willing to what? To deprive citizens of their slaves by freeing them and enlisting them in his bodyguard? He certainly would, since they’d be likely to prove most loyal to him. What a blessedly happy sort of fellow you make the tyrant out to be, if these are the sort of people he employs as friends and loyal followers 568 after he’s done away with the earlier ones. Nonetheless, they’re the sort he employs. And these companions and new citizens admire and associate with him, while the decent people hate and avoid him. Of course. It isn’t for nothing, then, that tragedy in general has the reputation of being wise and that Euripides is thought to be outstandingly so. Why’s that? Because among other shrewd things he said that “tyrants are wise who associate with the wise.” And by “the wise” he clearly means the sort of b people that we’ve seen to be the tyrant’s associates. Yes. And he and the other poets eulogize tyranny as godlike and say lots of other such things about it. Then, surely, since the tragic poets are wise, they’ll forgive us and those whose constitutions resemble ours, if we don’t admit them into our city, since they praise tyranny. c I suppose that the more sophisticated among them will. And so I suppose that they go around to other cities, draw crowds, hire people with fine, big, persuasive voices, and lead their constitutions to tyranny and democracy. Republic VIII 1179 They do indeed. And besides this, they receive wages and honors, especially—as one might expect—from the tyrants and, in second place, from the democracies, but the higher they go on the ascending scale of constitutions, the more their honor falls off, as if unable to keep up with them for lack of d breath. Absolutely. But we digress. So let’s return to that fine, numerous, diverse, and everchanging bodyguard of the tyrant and explain how he’ll pay for it. Clearly, if there are sacred treasuries in the city, he’ll use them for as long as they last, as well as the property of the people he has destroyed, thus requiring smaller taxes from the people. What about when these give out? e Clearly, both he and his fellow revellers—his companions, male or female—will have to feed off his father’s estate. I understand. You mean that the people, who fathered the tyrant, will have to feed him and his companions. They’ll be forced to do so. And what would you have to say about this? What if the people get angry and say, first, that it isn’t just for a grown-up son to be fed by his father but, on the contrary, for the father to be fed by his son; second, that they didn’t father him and establish him in power so that, when he’d become strong, they’d be enslaved to their own slave and have to feed 569 both him and his slaves, along with other assorted rabble, but because they hoped that, with him as their leader, they’d be free from the rich and the so-called fine and good people in the city; third, that they therefore order him and his companions to leave the city, just as a father might drive a son and his troublesome fellow revellers from his house? Then, by god, the people will come to know what kind of creature they have fathered, welcomed, and made strong and that they are the weaker trying to drive out the stronger. b What do you mean? Will the tyrant dare to use violence against his father or to hit him if he doesn’t obey? Yes—once he’s taken away his father’s weapons. You mean that the tyrant is a parricide and a harsh nurse of old age, that his rule has become an acknowledged tyranny at last, and that—as the saying goes—by trying to avoid the frying pan of enslavement to free men, the people have fallen into the fire of having slaves as their masters, and that in the place of the great but inappropriate freedom they enjoyed c under democracy, they have put upon themselves the harshest and most bitter slavery to slaves. That’s exactly what I mean. Well, then, aren’t we justified in saying that we have adequately described how tyranny evolves from democracy and what it’s like when it has come into being? We certainly are, he said. 1180 Socrates/Adeimantus Book IX 571 It remains, I said, to consider the tyrannical man himself, how he evolves from a democrat, what he is like when he has come into being, and whether he is wretched or blessedly happy. Yes, he said, he is the one who is still missing. And do you know what else I think is still missing? What? I don’t think we have adequately distinguished the kinds and numbers of our desires, and, if that subject isn’t adequately dealt with, our entire b investigation will be less clear. Well, isn’t now as fine a time as any to discuss the matter? It certainly is. Consider, then, what I want to know about our desires. It’s this: Some of our unnecessary pleasures and desires seem to me to be lawless. They are probably present in everyone, but they are held in check by the laws and by the better desires in alliance with reason. In a few people, they have been eliminated entirely or only a few weak ones remain, c while in others they are stronger and more numerous. What desires do you mean? Those that are awakened in sleep, when the rest of the soul—the rational, gentle, and ruling part—slumbers. Then the beastly and savage part, full of food and drink, casts off sleep and seeks to find a way to gratify itself. You know that there is nothing it won’t dare to do at such a time, free of all control by shame or reason. It doesn’t shrink from trying to have sex d with a mother, as it supposes, or with anyone else at all, whether man, god, or beast. It will commit any foul murder, and there is no food it refuses to eat. In a word, it omits no act of folly or shamelessness. That’s completely true. On the other hand, I suppose that someone who is healthy and moderate with himself goes to sleep only after having done the following: First, he rouses his rational part and feasts it on fine arguments and speculations; e second, he neither starves nor feasts his appetites, so that they will slumber and not disturb his best part with either their pleasure or their pain, but 572 they’ll leave it alone, pure and by itself, to get on with its investigations, to yearn after and perceive something, it knows not what,1 whether it is past, present, or future; third, he soothes his spirited part in the same way, for example, by not falling asleep with his spirit still aroused after an outburst of anger. And when he has quieted these two parts and aroused the third, in which reason resides, and so takes his rest, you know that it is then that he best grasps the truth and that the visions that appear in b his dreams are least lawless. Entirely so. 1. Reading kai before aisthanesthai in a2. Republic IX 1181 However, we’ve been carried away from what we wanted to establish, which is this: Our dreams make it clear that there is a dangerous, wild, and lawless form of desire in everyone, even in those of us who seem to be entirely moderate or measured. See whether you think I’m talking sense and whether or not you agree with me. I do agree. Recall, then, what we said a democratic man is like. He was produced by being brought up from youth by a thrifty father who valued only those desires that make money and who despised the unnecessary ones that aim c at frivolity and display. Isn’t that right? Yes. And by associating with more sophisticated men, who are full of the latter desires, he starts to indulge in every kind of insolence and to adopt their form of behavior, because of his hatred of his father’s thrift. But, because he has a better nature than his corrupters, he is pulled in both directions and settles down in the middle between his father’s way of life and theirs. And enjoying each in moderation, as he supposes, he leads a life that is neither slavish nor lawless and from having been oligarchic he d becomes democratic. That was and is our opinion about this type of man. Suppose now that this man has in turn become older and that he has a son who is brought up in his father’s ethos. All right. And further suppose that the same things that happened to his father now happen to him. First, he is led to all the kinds of lawlessness that those who are leading him call freedom. Then his father and the rest of e the household come to the aid of the middle desires, while the others help the other ones. Then, when those clever enchanters and tyrant-makers have no hope of keeping hold of the young man in any other way, they contrive to plant in him a powerful erotic love, like a great winged drone, to be the leader of those idle desires that spend whatever is at hand. Or do you think that erotic love is anything other than an enormous drone 573 in such people? I don’t think that it could be anything else. And when the other desires—filled with incense, myrrh, wreaths, wine, and the other pleasures found in their company—buzz around the drone, nurturing it and making it grow as large as possible, they plant the sting of longing in it. Then this leader of the soul adopts madness as its bodyguard and becomes frenzied. If it finds any beliefs or desires in the man b that are thought to be good or that still have some shame, it destroys them and throws them out, until it’s purged him of moderation and filled him with imported madness. You’ve perfectly described the evolution of a tyrannical man. Is this the reason that erotic love has long been called a tyrant? It looks that way. Then doesn’t a drunken man have something of a tyrannical mind? c 1182 Adeimantus/Socrates Yes, he has. And a man who is mad and deranged attempts to rule not just human beings, but gods as well, and expects that he will be able to succeed. He certainly does. Then a man becomes tyrannical in the precise sense of the term when either his nature or his way of life or both of them together make him drunk, filled with erotic desire, and mad. Absolutely. This, then, it seems, is how a tyrannical man comes to be. But what way does he live? d No doubt you’re going to tell me, just as posers of riddles usually do. I am. I think that someone in whom the tyrant of erotic love dwells and in whom it directs everything next goes in for feasts, revelries, luxuries, girlfriends, and all that sort of thing. Necessarily. And don’t many terrible desires grow up day and night beside the tyrannical one, needing many things to satisfy them? Indeed they do. Hence any income someone like that has is soon spent. Of course. e Then borrowing follows, and expenditure of capital. What else? And when everything is gone, won’t the violent crowd of desires that has nested within him inevitably shout in protest? And driven by the stings of the other desires and especially by erotic love itself (which leads all of them as its bodyguard), won’t he become frenzied and look to see 574 who possesses anything that he could take, by either deceit or force? He certainly will. Consequently, he must acquire wealth from every source or live in great pain and suffering. He must. And just as the pleasures that are latecomers outdo the older ones and steal away their satisfactions, won’t the man himself think that he deserves to outdo his father and mother, even though he is younger than they are— to take and spend his father’s wealth when he’s spent his own share? Of course. And if they won’t give it to him, won’t he first try to steal it from them b by deceitful means? Certainly. And if that doesn’t work, wouldn’t he seize it by force? I suppose so. And if the old man and woman put up a fight, would he be careful to refrain from acting like a tyrant? I’m not very optimistic about their fate, if they do. But, good god, Adeimantus, do you think he’d sacrifice his long-loved and irreplaceable mother for a recently acquired girlfriend whom he can Republic IX 1183 do without? Or that for the sake of a newfound and replaceable boyfriend in the bloom of youth, he’d strike his aged and irreplaceable father, his c oldest friend? Or that he’d make his parents the slaves of these others, if he brought them under the same roof? Yes, indeed he would. It seems to be a very great blessing to produce a tyrannical son! It certainly does! What about when the possessions of his father and mother give out? With that great swarm of pleasures inside him, won’t he first try to break d into someone’s house or snatch someone’s coat late at night? Then won’t he try to loot a temple? And in all this, the old traditional opinions that he had held from childhood about what is fine or shameful—opinions that are accounted just—are overcome by the opinions, newly released from slavery, that are now the bodyguard of erotic love and hold sway along with it. When he himself was subject to the laws and his father and had e a democratic constitution within him, these opinions used only to be freed in sleep. Now, however, under the tyranny of erotic love, he has permanently become while awake what he used to become occasionally while asleep, and he won’t hold back from any terrible murder or from any kind of food or act. But, rather, erotic love lives like a tyrant within him, in complete anarchy and lawlessness as his sole ruler, and drives him, as if 575 he were a city, to dare anything that will provide sustenance for itself and the unruly mob around it (some of whose members have come in from the outside as a result of his keeping bad company, while others have come from within, freed and let loose by his own bad habits). Isn’t this the life that a tyrannical man leads? It is indeed. Now, if there are only a few such men in a city, and the rest of the people are moderate, this mob will leave the city in order to act as a bodyguard to some other tyrant or to serve as mercenaries if there happens b to be a war going on somewhere. But if they chance to live in a time of peace and quiet, they’ll remain in the city and bring about lots of little evils. What sort of evils do you mean? They steal, break into houses, snatch purses, steal clothes, rob temples, and sell people into slavery. Sometimes, if they are good speakers, they become sycophants and bear false witness and accept bribes. These evils are small, provided that there happen to be only a few such people. c Yes, for small things are small by comparison to big ones. And when it comes to producing wickedness and misery in a city, all these evils together don’t, as the saying goes, come within a mile of the rule of a tyrant. But when such people become numerous and conscious of their numbers, it is they—aided by the foolishness of the people—who create a tyrant. And he, more than any of them, has in his soul the greatest and strongest tyrant of all. d Naturally, for he’d be the most tyrannical. 1184 Socrates/Adeimantus/Glaucon That’s if the city happens to yield willingly, but if it resists him, then, just as he once chastised his mother and father, he’ll now chastise his fatherland, if he can, by bringing in new friends and making his fatherland and his dear old motherland (as the Cretans call it) their slaves and keeping them that way, for this is surely the end at which such a man’s desires are directed. e It most certainly is. Now, in private life, before a tyrannical man attains power, isn’t he this sort of person—one who associates primarily with flatterers who are ready to obey him in everything? Or if he himself happens to need anything from other people, isn’t he willing to fawn on them and make every gesture of friendship, as if he were dealing with his own family? But once he gets 576 what he wants, don’t they become strangers again? Yes, they certainly do. So someone with a tyrannical nature lives his whole life without being friends with anyone, always a master to one man or a slave to another and never getting a taste of either freedom or true friendship. That’s right. Wouldn’t we be right to call someone like that untrustworthy? Of course. And isn’t he as unjust as anyone can be? If indeed what we earlier b agreed about justice was right. And it certainly was right. Then, let’s sum up the worst type of man: His waking life is like the nightmare we described earlier. That’s right. And he evolves from someone by nature most tyrannical who achieves sole rule. And the longer he remains tyrant, the more like the nightmare he becomes. That’s inevitable, said Glaucon, taking over the argument. Well, then, I said, isn’t the man who is clearly most vicious also clearly most wretched? And isn’t the one who for the longest time is most of all c a tyrant, most wretched for the longest time? If, that is to say, truth rather than majority opinion is to settle these questions. That much is certain, at any rate. And isn’t a tyrannical man like a city ruled by a tyrant, a democratic man like a city ruled by a democracy, and similarly with the others? Of course. And won’t the relations between the cities with respect to virtue and happiness be the same as those between the men? d Certainly. Then how does the city ruled by a tyrant compare to the city ruled by kings that we described first? They are total opposites: one is the best, and the other the worst. I won’t ask you which is which, since it’s obvious. But is your judgment the same with regard to their happiness and wretchedness? And let’s not Republic IX 1185 be dazzled by looking at one man—a tyrant—or at the few who surround him, but since it is essential to go into the city and study the whole of it, let’s not give our opinion, till we’ve gone down and looked into every corner. e That’s right, for it’s clear to everyone that there is no city more wretched than one ruled by a tyrant and none more happy than one ruled by kings. Would I be right, then, to make the same challenge about the individuals, assuming, first, that the person who is fit to judge them is someone who in 577 thought can go down into a person’s character and examine it thoroughly, someone who doesn’t judge from outside, the way a child does, who is dazzled by the fac¸ade that tyrants adopt for the outside world to see, but is able to see right through that sort of thing? And, second, that he’s someone—since we’d all listen to him if he were—who is competent to judge, because he has lived in the same house with a tyrant and witnessed his behavior at home and his treatment of each member of his household when he is stripped of his theatrical fac¸ade, and has also seen how he behaves when in danger from the people? Shouldn’t we ask the person b who has seen all that to tell us how the tyrant compares to the others in happiness and wretchedness? That’s also right. Then do you want us to pretend that we are among those who can give such a judgment and that we have already met tyrannical people, so that we’ll have someone to answer our questions? I certainly do. Come, then, and look at it this way for me: Bearing in mind the resem- c blance between the city and the man, look at each in turn and describe its condition. What kinds of things do you want me to describe? First, speaking of the city, would you say that a tyrannical city is free or enslaved? It is as enslaved as it is possible to be. Yet you see in it people who are masters and free. I do see a few like that, but the whole city, so to speak, and the most decent part of it are wretched, dishonored slaves. Then, if man and city are alike, mustn’t the same structure be in him d too? And mustn’t his soul be full of slavery and unfreedom, with the most decent parts enslaved and with a small part, the maddest and most vicious, as their master? It must. What will you say about such a soul then? Is it free or slave? Slave, of course. And isn’t the enslaved and tyrannical city least likely to do what it wants? Certainly. Then a tyrannical soul—I’m talking about the whole soul—will also be least likely to do what it wants and, forcibly driven by the stings of a dronish gadfly, will be full of disorder and regret. e How could it be anything else? 1186 Socrates/Glaucon Is a tyrannically ruled city rich or poor? Poor. 578 Then a tyrannical soul, too, must always be poor and unsatisfiable. That’s right. What about fear? Aren’t a tyrannical city and man full of it? Absolutely. And do you think that you’ll find more wailing, groaning, lamenting, and grieving in any other city? Certainly not. Then, are such things more common in anyone besides a tyrannical man, who is maddened by his desires and erotic loves? How could they be? It is in view of all these things, I suppose, and others like them, that b you judged this to be the most wretched of cities. And wasn’t I right? Of course you were. But what do you say about a tyrannical man, when you look at these same things? He’s by far the most wretched of all of them. There you’re no longer right. How is that? I don’t think that this man has yet reached the extreme of wretchedness. Then who has? Perhaps you’ll agree that this next case is even more wretched. Which one? c The one who is tyrannical but doesn’t live a private life, because some misfortune provides him with the opportunity to become an actual tyrant. On the basis of what was said before, I assume that what you say is true. Yes, but in matters of this sort, it isn’t enough just to assume these things; one needs to investigate carefully the two men in question by means of argument, for the investigation concerns the most important thing, namely, the good life and the bad one. That’s absolutely right. Then consider whether I’m talking sense or not, for I think our investigad tion will be helped by the following examples. What are they? We should look at all the wealthy private citizens in our cities who have many slaves, for, like a tyrant, they rule over many, although not over so many as he does. That’s right. And you know that they’re secure and do not fear their slaves. What have they got to be afraid of? Nothing. And do you know why? Yes. It’s because the whole city is ready to defend each of its individual citizens. e You’re right. But what if some god were to lift one of these men, his fifty or more slaves, and his wife and children out of the city and deposit Republic IX 1187 him with his slaves and other property in a deserted place, where no free person could come to his assistance? How frightened would he be that he himself and his wife and children would be killed by the slaves? Very frightened indeed. And wouldn’t he be compelled to fawn on some of his own slaves, promise them lots of things, and free them, even though he didn’t want 579 to? And wouldn’t he himself have become a panderer to slaves? He’d have to or else be killed. What if the god were to settle many other neighbors around him, who wouldn’t tolerate anyone to claim that he was the master of another and who would inflict the worst punishments on anyone they caught doing it? I suppose that he’d have even worse troubles, since he’d be surrounded b by nothing but vigilant enemies. And isn’t this the kind of prison in which the tyrant is held—the one whose nature is such as we have described it, filled with fears and erotic loves of all kinds? Even though his soul is really greedy for it, he’s the only one in the whole city who can’t travel abroad or see the sights that other free people want to see. Instead, he lives like a woman, mostly confined to his own house, and envying any other citizen who happens to travel abroad and see something worthwhile. c That’s entirely so. Then, isn’t this harvest of evils a measure of the difference between a tyrannical man who is badly governed on the inside—whom you judged to be most wretched just now—and one who doesn’t live a private life but is compelled by some chance to be a tyrant, who tries to rule others when he can’t even control himself. He’s just like an exhausted body without any self-control, which, instead of living privately, is compelled to compete and fight with other bodies all its life. d That’s exactly what he’s like, Socrates, and what you say is absolutely true. And so, Glaucon, isn’t this a completely wretched condition to be in, and doesn’t the reigning tyrant have an even harder life than the one you judged to be hardest? He certainly does. In truth, then, and whatever some people may think, a real tyrant is really a slave, compelled to engage in the worst kind of fawning, slavery, and pandering to the worst kind of people. He’s so far from satisfying his desires in any way that it is clear—if one happens to know that one must e study his whole soul—that he’s in the greatest need of most things and truly poor. And, if indeed his state is like that of the city he rules, then he’s full of fear, convulsions, and pains throughout his life. And it is like it, isn’t it? Of course it is. And we’ll also attribute to the man what we mentioned before, namely, 580 that he is inevitably envious, untrustworthy, unjust, friendless, impious, host and nurse to every kind of vice, and that his ruling makes him even 1188 Socrates/Glaucon more so. And because of all these, he is extremely unfortunate and goes on to make those near him like himself. No one with any understanding could possibly contradict you. Come, then, and like the judge who makes the final decision, tell me who among the five—the king, the timocrat, the oligarch, the democrat, b and the tyrant—is first in happiness, who second, and so on in order. That’s easy. I rank them in virtue and vice, in happiness and its opposite, in the order of their appearance, as I might judge choruses. Shall we, then, hire a herald, or shall I myself announce that the son of Ariston has given as his verdict that the best, the most just, and the most c happy is the most kingly, who rules like a king over himself, and that the worst, the most unjust, and the most wretched is the most tyrannical, who most tyrannizes himself and the city he rules? Let it be so announced. And shall I add to the announcement that it holds, whether these things remain hidden from every god and human being or not? Add it. Good. Then that is one of our proofs. And there’d be a second, if you d happen to think that there is anything in this. In what? In the fact that the soul of each individual is divided into three parts, in just the way that a city is, for that’s the reason I think that there is another proof. What is it? This: it seems to me that there are three pleasures corresponding to the three parts of the soul, one peculiar to each part, and similarly with desires and kinds of rule. What do you mean? The first, we say, is the part with which a person learns, and the second the part with which he gets angry. As for the third, we had no one special name for it, since it’s multiform, so we named it after the biggest and e strongest thing in it. Hence we called it the appetitive part, because of the intensity of its appetites for food, drink, sex, and all the things associated with them, but we also called it the money-loving part, because such 581 appetites are most easily satisfied by means of money. And rightly so. Then, if we said that its pleasure and love are for profit, wouldn’t that best determine its central feature for the purposes of our argument and insure that we are clear about what we mean when we speak of this part of the soul, and wouldn’t we be right to call it money-loving and profit-loving? That’s how it seems to me, at least. What about the spirited part? Don’t we say that it is wholly dedicated to the pursuit of control, victory, and high repute? b Certainly. Republic IX 1189 Then wouldn’t it be appropriate for us to call it victory-loving and honor-loving? It would be most appropriate. Now, it is clear to everyone that the part with which we learn is always wholly straining to know where the truth lies and that, of the three parts, it cares least for money and reputation. By far the least. Then wouldn’t it be appropriate for us to call it learning-loving and philosophical? Of course. And doesn’t this part rule in some people’s souls, while one of the other parts—whichever it happens to be—rules in other people’s? c That’s right. And isn’t that the reason we say that there are three primary kinds of people: philosophic, victory-loving, and profit-loving? That’s it precisely. And also three forms of pleasure, one assigned to each of them? Certainly. And do you realize that, if you chose to ask three such people in turn to tell you which of their lives is most pleasant, each would give the highest praise to his own? Won’t a money-maker say that the pleasure of being honored and that of learning are worthless compared to that of making a d profit, if he gets no money from them? He will. What about an honor-lover? Doesn’t he think that the pleasure of making money is vulgar and that the pleasure of learning—except insofar as it brings him honor—is smoke and nonsense? He does. And as for a philosopher, what do you suppose he thinks the other pleasures are worth compared to that of knowing where the truth lies and always being in some such pleasant condition while learning? Won’t he e think that they are far behind? And won’t he call them really necessary, since he’d have no need for them if they weren’t necessary for life? He will: we can be sure of that. Then, since there’s a dispute between the different forms of pleasure and between the lives themselves, not about which way of living is finer or more shameful or better or worse, but about which is more pleasant and less painful, how are we to know which of them is speaking most truly? 582 Don’t ask me. Look at it this way: How are we to judge things if we want to judge them well? Isn’t it by experience, reason, and argument? Or could anyone have better criteria than these? How could he? Consider, then: Which of the three men has most experience of the pleasures we mentioned? Does a profit-lover learn what the truth itself is 1190 Socrates/Glaucon like or acquire more experience of the pleasure of knowing it than a b philosopher does of making a profit? There’s a big difference between them. A philosopher has of necessity tasted the other pleasures since childhood, but it isn’t necessary for a profitlover to taste or experience the pleasure of learning the nature of the things that are and how sweet it is. Indeed, even if he were eager to taste it, he couldn’t easily do so. Then a philosopher is far superior to a profit-lover in his experience of both their pleasures. c He certainly is. What about an honor-lover? Has he more experience of the pleasure of knowing than a philosopher has of the pleasure of being honored? No, for honor comes to each of them, provided that he accomplishes his aim. A rich man is honored by many people, so is a courageous one and a wise one, but the pleasure of studying the things that are cannot be tasted by anyone except a philosopher. d Then, as far as experience goes, he is the finest judge of the three. By far. And he alone has gained his experience in the company of reason. Of course. Moreover, the instrument one must use to judge isn’t the instrument of a profit-lover or an honor-lover but a philosopher. What instrument is that? Arguments, for didn’t we say that we must judge by means of them? Yes. And argument is a philosopher’s instrument most of all. Of course. Now, if wealth and profit were the best means of judging things, the e praise and blame of a profit-lover would necessarily be truest. That’s right. And if honor, victory, and courage were the best means, wouldn’t it be the praise and blame of an honor-lover? Clearly. But since the best means are experience, reason, and argument . . . The praise of a wisdom-lover and argument-lover is necessarily truest. Then, of the three pleasures, the most pleasant is that of the part of the 583 soul with which we learn, and the one in whom that part rules has the most pleasant life. How could it be otherwise? A person with knowledge at least speaks with authority when he praises his own life. To what life and to what pleasure does the judge give second place? Clearly, he gives it to those of a warrior and honor-lover, since they’re closer to his own than those of a money-maker. Then the life and pleasure of a profit-lover come last, it seems. Of course they do. Republic IX 1191 These, then, are two proofs in a row, and the just person has defeated the b unjust one in both. The third is dedicated in Olympic fashion to Olympian Zeus the Savior. Observe then that, apart from those of a knowledgeable person, the other pleasures are neither entirely true nor pure but are like a shadow-painting, as I think I’ve heard some wise person say. And yet, if this were true, it would be the greatest and most decisive of the overthrows. It certainly would. But what exactly do you mean? I’ll find out, if I ask the questions, and you answer. c Ask, then. Tell me, don’t we say that pain is the opposite of pleasure? Certainly. And is there such a thing as feeling neither pleasure nor pain? There is. Isn’t it intermediate between these two, a sort of calm of the soul by comparison to them? Or don’t you think of it that way? I do. And do you recall what sick people say when they’re ill? Which saying of theirs do you have in mind? That nothing gives more pleasure than being healthy, but that they hadn’t realized that it was most pleasant until they fell ill. d I do recall that. And haven’t you also heard those who are in great pain say that nothing is more pleasant than the cessation of their suffering? I have. And there are many similar circumstances, I suppose, in which you find people in pain praising, not enjoyment, but the absence of pain and relief from it as most pleasant. That may be because at such times a state of calm becomes pleasant enough to content them. And when someone ceases to feel pleasure, this calm will be painful e to him. Probably so. Then the calm we described as being intermediate between pleasure and pain will sometimes be both. So it seems. Now, is it possible for that which is neither to become both? Not in my view. Moreover, the coming to be of either the pleasant or the painful in the soul is a sort of motion, isn’t it? Yes. And didn’t what is neither painful nor pleasant come to light just now as a calm state, intermediate between them? 584 Yes, it did. Then, how can it be right to think that the absence of pain is pleasure or that the absence of pleasure is pain? 1192 Glaucon/Socrates There’s no way it can be. Then it isn’t right. But when the calm is next to the painful it appears pleasant, and when it is next to the pleasant it appears painful. However, there is nothing sound in these appearances as far as the truth about pleasure is concerned, only some kind of magic. That’s what the argument suggests, at any rate. b Take a look at the pleasures that don’t come out of pains, so that you won’t suppose in their case also that it is the nature of pleasure to be the cessation of pain or of pain to be the cessation of pleasure. Where am I to look? What pleasures do you mean? The pleasures of smell are especially good examples to take note of, for they suddenly become very intense without being preceded by pain, and when they cease they leave no pain behind. But there are plenty of other examples as well. That’s absolutely true. Then let no one persuade us that pure pleasure is relief from pain or c that pure pain is relief from pleasure. No, let’s not. However, most of the so-called pleasures that reach the soul through the body, as well as the most intense ones, are of this form—they are some kind of relief from pain. Yes, they are. And aren’t the pleasures and pains of anticipation, which arise from the expectation of future pleasures or pains, also of this form? They are. d Do you know what kind of thing they are and what they most resemble? No, what is it? Do you believe that there is an up, a down, and a middle in nature? I do. And do you think that someone who was brought from down below to the middle would have any other belief than that he was moving upward? And if he stood in the middle and saw where he had come from, would he believe that he was anywhere other than the upper region, since he hasn’t seen the one that is truly upper? By god, I don’t see how he could think anything else. And if he was brought back, wouldn’t he suppose that he was being e brought down? And wouldn’t he be right? Of course. Then wouldn’t all this happen to him because he is inexperienced in what is really and truly up, down, and in the middle? Clearly. Is it any surprise, then, if those who are inexperienced in the truth have unsound opinions about lots of other things as well, or that they are so disposed to pleasure, pain, and the intermediate state that, when they descend to the painful, they believe truly and are really in pain, but that, 585 when they ascend from the painful to the intermediate state, they firmly Republic IX 1193 believe that they have reached fulfillment and pleasure? They are inexperienced in pleasure and so are deceived when they compare pain to painlessness, just as they would be if they compared black to gray without having experienced white. No, by god, I wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, I’d be very surprised if it were any other way. Think of it this way: Aren’t hunger, thirst, and the like some sort of b empty states of the body? They are. And aren’t ignorance and lack of sense empty states of the soul? Of course. And wouldn’t someone who partakes of nourishment or strengthens his understanding be filled? Certainly. Does the truer filling up fill you with that which is less or that which is more? Clearly, it’s with that which is more. And which kinds partake more of pure being? Kinds of filling up such as filling up with bread or drink or delicacies or food in general? Or the kind of filling up that is with true belief, knowledge, understanding, and, in sum, with all of virtue? Judge it this way: That which is related to what is always the same, immortal, and true, is itself of that kind, and comes c to be in something of that kind—this is more, don’t you think, than that which is related to what is never the same and mortal, is itself of that kind, and comes to be in something of that kind? That which is related to what is always the same is far more. And does the being of what is always the same participate more in being than in knowledge? Not at all. Or more than in truth? Not that either. And if less in truth, then less in being also? Necessarily. And isn’t it generally true that the kinds of filling up that are concerned with the care of the body share less in truth and being than those concerned d with the care of the soul? Yes, much less. And don’t you think that the same holds of the body in comparison to the soul? Certainly. And isn’t that which is more, and is filled with things that are more, really more filled than that which is less, and is filled with things that are less? Of course. Therefore, if being filled with what is appropriate to our nature is pleasure, that which is more filled with things that are more enjoys more really 1194 Socrates/Glaucon e and truly a more true pleasure, while that which partakes of things that are less is less truly and surely filled and partakes of a less trustworthy and less true pleasure. That’s absolutely inevitable. Therefore, those who have no experience of reason or virtue, but are 586 always occupied with feasts and the like, are brought down and then back up to the middle, as it seems, and wander in this way throughout their lives, never reaching beyond this to what is truly higher up, never looking up at it or being brought up to it, and so they aren’t filled with that which really is and never taste any stable or pure pleasure. Instead, they always look down at the ground like cattle, and, with their heads bent over the dinner table, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. To outdo others in these b things, they kick and butt them with iron horns and hooves, killing each other, because their desires are insatiable. For the part that they’re trying to fill is like a vessel full of holes, and neither it nor the things they are trying to fill it with are among the things that are. Socrates, you’ve exactly described the life of the majority of people, just like an oracle. Then isn’t it necessary for these people to live with pleasures that are mixed with pains, mere images and shadow-paintings of true pleasures? And doesn’t the juxtaposition of these pleasures and pains make them c appear intense, so that they give rise to mad erotic passions in the foolish, and are fought over in just the way that Stesichorus tells us the phantom of Helen was fought over at Troy by men ignorant of the truth? Something like that must be what happens. And what about the spirited part? Mustn’t similar things happen to someone who satisfies it? Doesn’t his love of honor make him envious and his love of victory make him violent, so that he pursues the satisfaction d of his anger and of his desires for honors and victories without calculation or understanding? Such things must happen to him as well. Then can’t we confidently assert that those desires of even the moneyloving and honor-loving parts that follow knowledge and argument and pursue with their help those pleasures that reason approves will attain the truest pleasures possible for them, because they follow truth, and the e ones that are most their own, if indeed what is best for each thing is most its own? And indeed it is best. Therefore, when the entire soul follows the philosophic part, and there is no civil war in it, each part of it does its own work exclusively and is just, and in particular it enjoys its own pleasures, the best and truest 587 pleasures possible for it. Absolutely. But when one of the other parts gains control, it won’t be able to secure its own pleasure and will compel the other parts to pursue an alien and untrue pleasure. Republic IX 1195 That’s right. And aren’t the parts that are most distant from philosophy and reason the ones most likely to do this sort of compelling? They’re much more likely. And isn’t whatever is most distant from reason also most distant from law and order? Clearly. And didn’t the erotic and tyrannical desires emerge as most distant from these things? b By far. And weren’t the kingly and orderly ones least distant? Yes. Then I suppose that a tyrant will be most distant from a pleasure that is both true and his own and that a king will be least distant. Necessarily. So a tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and a king most pleasantly. Necessarily. Do you know how much more unpleasant a tyrant’s life is than a king’s? I will if you tell me. There are, it seems, three pleasures, one genuine and two illegitimate, and a tyrant is at the extreme end of the illegitimate ones, since he flees both law and reason and lives with a bodyguard of certain slavish pleasures. But c it isn’t easy, all the same, to say just how inferior he is to a king, except perhaps as follows. A tyrant is somehow third from an oligarch, for a democrat was between them. Yes. Then, if what we said before is true, doesn’t he live with an image of pleasure that is third from an oligarch’s with respect to truth?2 He does. Now, an oligarch, in turn, is third from a king, if we identify a king and an aristocrat. d Yes, he’s third. So a tyrant is three times three times removed from true pleasure. Apparently so. It seems then, on the basis of the magnitude of its number, that the image of tyrannical pleasure is a plane figure. Exactly. But then it’s clear that, by squaring and cubing it, we’ll discover how far a tyrant’s pleasure is from that of a king. It is clear to a mathematician, at any rate. Then, turning it the other way around, if someone wants to say how far a king’s pleasure is from a tyrant’s, he’ll find, if he completes the calculation, that a king lives seven hundred and twenty-nine times more e 2. Third because the Greeks always counted the first as well as the last member of a series, e.g. the day after tomorrow was the third day from today. pleasantly than a tyrant and that a tyrant is the same number of times more wretched. That’s an amazing calculation of the diference between the pleasure and pain of the two men, the just and the unjust. Yet it’s a true one, and one appropriate to human lives, if indeed days, nights, months, and years are appropriate to them. And of course they are appropriate. Then, if a good and just person’s life is that much more pleasant than the life of a bad and unjust person, won’t its grace, fneness, and virtue be incalculably greater? By god, it certainly will. All right, then. Since we’ve reached this point in the argument, let’s return to the frst things we said, since they are what led us here. I think someone said at some point that injustice profts a completely unjust person who is believed to be just. Isn’t that so? It certainly is. Now, let’s discuss this with him, since we’ve agreed on the respective powers that injustice and justice have. How? By fashioning an image of the soul in words, so that the person who says this sort of thing will know what he is saying. What sort of image? One like those creatures that legends tell us used to come into being in ancient times, such as the Chimera, Scylla, Cerberus, or any of the multitude of others in which many diferent kinds of things are said to have grown together naturally into one. Yes, the legends do tell us of such things. Well, then, fashion a single kind of multicolored beast with a ring of many heads that it can grow and change at will—some from gentle, some from savage animals. That’s work for a clever artist. However, since words are more malleable than wax and the like, consider it done. Then fashion one other kind, that of a lion, and another of a human being. But make the frst much the largest and the other second to it in size. That’s easier—the sculpting is done. Now join the three of them into one, so that they somehow grow together naturally. They’re joined. Then, fashion around them the image of one of them, that of a human being so that anyone who sees only the outer covering and not what’s inside will think it is a single creature, a human being. It’s done. Then, if someone maintains that injustice profts this human being and that doing just things brings no advantage, let’s tell him that he is simply saying that it is benefcial for him, frst, to feed the multiform beast well and make it strong, and also the lion and all that pertains to him; second, 1196 Socrates/Glaucon 588 b c d e Republic IX 1197 to starve and weaken the human being within, so that he is dragged along 589 wherever either of the other two leads; and, third, to leave the parts to bite and kill one another rather than accustoming them to each other and making them friendly. Yes, that’s absolutely what someone who praises injustice is saying. But, on the other hand, wouldn’t someone who maintains that just things are profitable be saying, first, that all our words and deeds should insure that the human being within this human being has the most control; second, that he should take care of the many-headed beast as a farmer does his b animals, feeding and domesticating the gentle heads and preventing the savage ones from growing; and, third, that he should make the lion’s nature his ally, care for the community of all his parts, and bring them up in such a way that they will be friends with each other and with himself? Yes, that’s exactly what someone who praises justice is saying. From every point of view, then, anyone who praises justice speaks truly, and anyone who praises injustice speaks falsely. Whether we look at the matter from the point of view of pleasure, good reputation, or advantage, a praiser of justice tells the truth, while one who condemns it has nothing c sound to say and condemns without knowing what he is condemning. In my opinion, at least, he knows nothing about it. Then let’s persuade him gently—for he isn’t wrong of his own will— by asking him these questions. Should we say that this is the original basis for the conventions about what is fine and what is shameful? Fine things are those that subordinate the beastlike parts of our nature to the human— or better, perhaps, to the divine; shameful ones are those that enslave the d gentle to the savage? Will he agree or what? He will, if he takes my advice. In light of this argument, can it profit anyone to acquire gold unjustly if, by doing so, he enslaves the best part of himself to the most vicious? If he got the gold by enslaving his son or daughter to savage and evil men, it wouldn’t profit him, no matter how much gold he got. How, then, e could he fail to be wretched if he pitilessly enslaves the most divine part of himself to the most godless and polluted one and accepts golden gifts in return for a more terrible destruction than Eriphyle’s when she took 590 the necklace in return for her husband’s soul?3 A much more terrible one, Glaucon said. I’ll answer for him. And don’t you think that licentiousness has long been condemned for just these reasons, namely, that because of it, that terrible, large, and multiform beast is let loose more than it should be? Clearly. And aren’t stubbornness and irritability condemned because they inharmoniously increase and stretch the lionlike and snakelike part? b 3. Eriphyle was bribed with a golden necklace by Polynices to persuade her husband, Amphiaraus, to join the “Seven Against Thebes.” He was killed. See Odyssey xi.326–27; Pindar, Nemean 9.16 ff. 1198 Glaucon/Socrates Certainly. And aren’t luxury and softness condemned because the slackening and loosening of this same part produce cowardice in it? Of course. And aren’t flattery and slavishness condemned because they subject the spirited part to the moblike beast, accustoming it from youth on to being insulted for the sake of the money needed to satisfy the beast’s insatiable appetites, so that it becomes an ape instead of a lion? c They certainly are. Why do you think that the condition of a manual worker is despised? Or is it for any other reason than that, when the best part is naturally weak in someone, it can’t rule the beasts within him but can only serve them and learn to flatter them? Probably so. Therefore, to insure that someone like that is ruled by something similar to what rules the best person, we say that he ought to be the slave of that best person who has a divine ruler within himself. It isn’t to harm the d slave that we say he must be ruled, which is what Thrasymachus thought to be true of all subjects, but because it is better for everyone to be ruled by divine reason, preferably within himself and his own, otherwise imposed from without, so that as far as possible all will be alike and friends, governed by the same thing. Yes, that’s right. This is clearly the aim of the law, which is the ally of everyone. But it’s also our aim in ruling our children, we don’t allow them to be free until we establish a constitution in them, just as in a city, and—by fostering their best part with our own—equip them with a guardian and ruler similar 591 to our own to take our place. Then, and only then, we set them free. Clearly so. Then how can we maintain or argue, Glaucon, that injustice, licentiousness, and doing shameful things are profitable to anyone, since, even though he may acquire more money or other sort of power from them, they make him more vicious? There’s no way we can. Or that to do injustice without being discovered and having to pay the penalty is profitable? Doesn’t the one who remains undiscovered become b even more vicious, while the bestial part of the one who is discovered is calmed and tamed and his gentle part freed, so that his entire soul settles into its best nature, acquires moderation, justice, and reason, and attains a more valuable state than that of having a fine, strong, healthy body, since the soul itself is more valuable than the body? That’s absolutely certain. Then won’t a person of understanding direct all his efforts to attaining c that state of his soul? First, he’ll value the studies that produce it and despise the others. Clearly so. Republic IX 1199 Second, he won’t entrust the condition and nurture of his body to the irrational pleasure of the beast within or turn his life in that direction, but neither will he make health his aim or assign first place to being strong, healthy, and beautiful, unless he happens to acquire moderation as a result. Rather, it’s clear that he will always cultivate the harmony of his body for the sake of the consonance in his soul. d He certainly will, if indeed he’s to be truly trained in music and poetry. Will he also keep order and consonance in his acquisition of money, with that same end in view? Or, even though he isn’t dazzled by the size of the majority into accepting their idea of blessed happiness, will he increase his wealth without limit and so have unlimited evils? Not in my view. Rather, he’ll look to the constitution within him and guard against e disturbing anything in it, either by too much money or too little. And, in this way, he’ll direct both the increase and expenditure of his wealth, as far as he can. That’s exactly what he’ll do. And he’ll look to the same thing where honors are concerned. He’ll willingly share in and taste those that he believes will make him better, 592 but he’ll avoid any public or private honor that might overthrow the established condition of his soul. If that’s his chief concern, he won’t be willing to take part in politics. Yes, by the dog, he certainly will, at least in his own kind of city. But he may not be willing to do so in his fatherland, unless some divine good luck chances to be his. I understand. You mean that he’ll be willing to take part in the politics of the city we were founding and describing, the one that exists in theory, for I don’t think it exists anywhere on earth. b But perhaps, I said, there is a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees. It makes no difference whether it is or ever will be somewhere, for he would take part in the practical affairs of that city and no other. Probably so, he said.
After heeding such wisdom, perhaps the timely and pertinent depiction of Napolean and the film for his namesake that is to fill theaters soon proves a useful canary in the gold mine as to how there are perhaps instances where tyranny is called for in times of great turmoil, political upheaval, and unrest, but that in turning oneself into the figurehead in the midst of such circumstances, one invariably faces the greatest dangers and threats one could possibly imagine as is evidenced by the life of this astounding figure... :
Consider the words of Nietzsche concerning this man:
My Belief in the Virilising of Europe. We owe it to Napoleon (and not at all to the French Revolution, which had in view the "fraternity" of the nations, and the florid interchange of good graces among people generally) that several warlike centuries, which have not had their like in past history, may now follow one another - in short, that we have entered upon the classical age of war, war at the same time scientific and popular, on the grandest scale (as regards means, talents and discipline), to which all coming millenniums will look back with envy and awe as a work of perfection: - for the national movement out of which this martial glory springs, is only the counter-shock against Napoleon, and would not have existed without him. To him, consequently, one will one day be able to attribute the fact that man in Europe has again got the upper hand of the merchant and the Philistine; perhaps even of "woman" also, who has become pampered owing to Christianity and the extravagant spirit of the eighteenth century, and still more owing to "modern ideas." Napoleon, who saw in modern ideas, and accordingly in civilisation, something like a personal enemy, has by this hostility proved himself one of the greatest continuators of the Renaissance: he has brought to the surface a whole block of the ancient character, the decisive block perhaps, the block of granite. And who knows but that this block of ancient character will in the end get the upper hand of the national movement, and will have to make itself in a positive sense the heir and continuator of Napoleon: - who, as one knows, wanted one Europe, which was to be mistress of the world.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science
Book V - Aphorism # 362
Humility Recognizes When Fate Employs Ancient Wisdom As A Calling Card For One's Self & Society
Solar Mysterium
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