CHAPTER IV
Plato
I - PLATO THE MAN
SOCRATES' execution was not in
vain. By his death like another
conscientious objector four hundred years later, he immortalized the idea which
he served; and the legend of Socrates became the inspiration of all who believe
in reason. But the man who first
formulated the Socratic faith into a systematic philosophy was fundamentally
different from his master. Just as Paul
of Tarsus created an orthodox Christian theology strangely remote in spirit
from that of Jesus, so Plato modified the Socratic ideal of philosophy into a
new Platonic system. Plato and Paul were
both converts to a faith, but each of them changed the faith of his master
almost as much as he was changed by it.
And so in the history both of Platonism and of Christianity we find a
strange tension between the ideals of the master and of the disciple; and at
recurring intervals there is a movement to get behind the disciple's dogma to
the real personality of the master. In
the end loyalty to both is well-nigh impossible.
Consider for a
moment these two men. Plato
and Socrates. No two
personalities could be more sharply opposed: Socrates, the humorous citizen of Periclean Athens, who knew and loved all sorts and
conditions of men; Plato, the aristocrat, who shook the dust of democratic
Athens off his feet: Socrates, the man who knew that he knew nothing; Plato,
the systematic exponent of an authoritarian creed: Socrates, the
conversationalist, and Plato, the master of prose style: Socrates, the
personification of life itself, and Plato, the remote observer of all things living. It will be no surprise to find that the
Socratic ideal under Plato's hand has suffered some startling transformations.
However long we
study Plato's writings, we can never feel that we know Plato. He baffles and eludes our search, and
although we may learn a good deal about him, to know or to like him as a
man is almost impossible. This is due
not only to his deliberate self-effacement in the dialogues - in his letters we
possess extremely personal expressions of opinion - but also to his character. Plato was a divided personality, a man who
deliberately denied himself full realization; a poet who deliberately allowed
the springs of imagination to dry up.
Unless we remember this we shall not grasp the full tragedy of his
life. For he was first
and foremost an artist, to whom practical affairs were of small interest. His poems are among the most exquisite we
possess - and yet the story may well be truth that the young Plato burned his
tragedies and devoted himself tot he cause of philosophy and of the
regeneration of Greece. This decision
was forced upon him by three things: his social position as a member of the
ruling class who was naturally expected to devote his life to public service,
the death of Socrates, which compelled him to see the urgency of the crisis,
and lastly, the experiences of his youth.
Plato was born
in 428. Pericles
was dead: the great plague had ravaged Athens and the dreary years of the
Peloponnesian war had just begun.
Athens, connected by the Long Walls to her port, the Peiraeus,
had become an armed camp into which each summer were huddled the Attic farmers,
sheltering from the Spartan invasion and watching their crops burnt. Plato as a boy can have known little save war
and the rumours of war, revolution and the rumours of revolution. War is never healthy for democracies, and as
Plato grew up, Athens began to crack under the strain. As money ran short and the standard of living
fell, the democratic leaders became more and more imperialist. In 430 Athens had been fighting to defend her
Empire: by 416 it was necessary not only to repel attacks, but to recoup the
losses of the war by some material gains - and Athens launched out on the
enterprise of conquering Sicily, the richest island of the Mediterranean. The failure of the Sicilian expedition -
caused in part by the defection of Socrates' favourite pupil, Alcibiades - meant the downfall of Athens, and in 404, she
capitulated. Defeat in war brought
revolution at home and an aristocratic terror was established. Plato was just twenty-four when this
happened.
Belonging to one
of the most distinguished families in all Athens, he had been brought up in an
atmosphere of counter-revolution. In
aristocratic circles, by this time, democracy was only another name for corruption
and class-politics, and it was taken as self-evident that nothing but armed
revolution could save her from collapse.
Plato had never seen Periclean Athens:
instead, he had heard the savage jeers of the wealthy nobles at the
inefficiency and vulgarity of the jingo democrats, and felt their growing
terror of the uneducated proletariat with whom sovereignty lay. As the situation became worse, the cry for
leadership grew louder, and at last the people itself began to tire of its
freedom. The aristocratic politicians
saw their opportunity, and Plato believed that the turning-point had now come;
his friends would initiate the rule of Law and Order. Long afterwards, in a letter, he described
his feelings in those troubled days: 'My experience as a young man was by no
means unusual. I thought that as soon as
I became my own master I would immediately enter public lief. A sudden change, however, in the political
situation diverted me from my plan. The
democratic regime of the time was generally detested and a revolution took
place. It was headed by fifty-one
leaders, of whom eleven were in the City and ten in
the Peiraeus: these two committees dealt with the
market and with the administration of the two towns. Above them was a supreme committee of thirty. Some of the members of this supreme committee
were relations or acquaintances of mine and invited me to join them, imagining
that I should find the new regime to my taste.
My feelings were in no way surprising if you consider my age at the
time. I thought the new regime would
substitute the reign of justice for the reign of injustice, and so I gave it my
closest attention to see what it would do.
And I saw these gentlemen within a very short time make the democracy
they had destroyed seem like a golden age!
They actually ordered my aged friend Socrates, whom I would not hesitate
to call the most upright man of his time, to take part in the arrest of a
citizen whom they wished to put out of the way.
Their intention was to associate Socrates, whether he wished it or no,
with the activities of the new regime.
He refused to obey and was prepared to face death rather than be made an accessory to their
crimes.
'When I saw all
this and a good deal else besides I was deeply disgusted and dissociated myself
entirely from this deplorable government.
Shortly afterwards, the thirty were turned out and their whole regime
destroyed. Once again I was really,
though less urgently, filled with a desire to take an active part in
politics. Athens was still very unsettled
and revolting incidents were not uncommon.
It was not surprising that those revolutionary times resulted in
personal reprisals of a violent character: but on the whole he restored
democracy exercised considerable moderation.
And yet, as ill-luck would have it, certain influential persons brought
an action against Socrates. The charge
was an outrageous one, of which Socrates was completely innocent. They accused him of impiety, and on this
count the jury condemned to death the man who previously, when some of them had
the misfortune to be in exile themselves, had refused
to take part in the arrest of one of their own friends.
'When I
considered all this, the type of men who were administering affairs and the
condition of the Law and of public morality - the more I considered it and the
older I grew, the more difficult appeared to me the task of decent
government. It was impossible to take
action without friends or political associates, and these it was not easy to
find among the politicians, since their methods of government were false to the
true principles and traditional institutions of our country. To find new men for the job, however, was an impossibility.
Moreover, statues and usage alike were degenerating in Athens with
surprising rapidity, and so, although at first I was filled with an ardent
desire to enter politics, when I considered all this and saw how chaotic the
political situation was, I felt completely baffled. I continued to consider how on earth some
improvement could be brought about, not only in the administration, but also in
society as a whole, and I was constantly on the look-out for an opportunity to
intervene. But finally I came to the
conclusion that every city without exception is badly governed, and that the
state of legislation is everywhere so deplorable that no government is possible
without drastic reconstruction combined with some very good luck. And so I was forced to extol true philosophy
and to declare that through it alone can real justice both for the State and
for the individual be discovered and enforced.
Mankind (I said) will find no cessation from evil until either the real
philosophers gain political control or else the politicians become by some
miracle real philosophers.' [See
Plato, Letter VIII.]
It is clear from
this quotation that the shortcomings of the anti-democratic revolution were the
first great disappointment of Plato's life: they shook him out of his
complacency and made him reconsider his whole position. Up till now he had assumed that everything
could be put right if only the gentlemen gained control. Now he realized that 'gentlemen' could behave
worse than the demagogues of the proletariat.
But this did not alter his profound contempt for the working
population. Plato remained an aristocrat,
convinced that the peasant, the craftsman, and the shopkeeper were incapable of
political responsibility. Government was
the perquisite of the gentry, who did not need to earn a living and could
therefore devote their lives to the responsibilities of war and politics. In the eyes of the young Plato there must
always be a ruling aristocracy and a subject people. The latter were the producers and
distributors of material wealth, and Plato had a special word, 'banausic', to express his contempt for their menial
occupations. The former had the paternal
care of the state at heart. Living on
the labour of the subject masses, they gave them in return security, justice,
and defence. Because they were of a
nobler breed, culture and education belonged to them while to the subjects was
allotted that technical training which would best increase their efficiency as
craftsmen or farmers. The political
philosophy of the young Plato was at bottom a longing to return to the Homeric
age of chivalry. Drawn from his reading
of the Iliad, it postulated a radical reconstruction of the social
order. The working classes must be put
in their place: the gentry must regain their old self-confidence and sense of
responsibility.
The failure of
the anti-democratic revolution did not profoundly alter Plato's view: it merely
proved that the reconstruction could not come through the normal political
channels. A discredited aristocracy
could never win power at Athens: but this did not prove that aristocracy as
such was wrong. Somehow, on Plato's
view, the gentry must be trained to play their proper part. How that was to be done he did not know, and
was content for the moment to devote himself to mathematics and pure
philosophy, and to discussions with Socrates, his master and friend.
Then came the trial and the death of Socrates. It is noteworthy that Plato did not lay it to
the charge of the restored democracy, but admitted that the new government
acted with considerable moderation. He
saw, indeed, that it was one of those events which no foresight or human
volition could have prevented. But
because it could happen under a moderate democracy, it disturbed him
profoundly. For years he had talked with
Socrates and studied with him the new science and mathematics and theology:
more than most of his contemporaries he had understood the Socratic
spirit. He had not failed to see
Socrates' deep disgust with the aristocratic clique and his contempt for their Realpolitik.
He had grasped the reason for his refusal to escape from prison, and
seen him as he was, not an agnostic, but a conscientious objector. Now that he was dead, Plato felt himself
alone, but he also felt that his vocation was clear. He must overcome his deep revulsion from
politics and do what Socrates had failed to do.
He must answer the questions which Socrates asked, and discover those
eternal principles of human conduct which alone could bring happiness to the
individual and stability to the State.
He must use the Socratic dialectic not only to discredit hypocrisy and
false pretensions, but to reveal what real justice and courage and temperance
are, and then work out a constitution and a system of law consistent with
them. And lastly, he must build a
city-state so firmly based upon reason and truth that Socrates, the
conscientious objector, could have given it his wholehearted approval and
loyalty, and lived with a good conscience under its protection. For Socrates' death, he believed, could only
be made good if it inspired his friends and disciples to devote themselves to
this one task.
Throughout his
life Plato regarded himself as the fulfilment of Socrates. Because he believed this, he wrote Dialogues
and made no attempt to show where Socrates speaks in his own name and where he
is the mouthpiece of Plato. Any such
distinction would have seemed unreal to the man who had grasped the meaning of
Socrates' life. Reason and truth are not
the trappings of individual personalities: they are eternal and universal, and
in them individual differences disappear.
So at least both Plato and Socrates believed, and therefore the
distinction of the real from the Platonic Socrates was for Plato absurd. Devotion to his memory would encourage Plato
to a meticulous recreation of the world in which Socrates lived and talked, but
not to a rigid separation of the master's philosophy from his own.
In his written
works Plato tried to give flesh and blood to the Socratic spirit, the spirit of
philosophy. The Dialogues are not
dogmatic assertions of truth, but examples of philosophy at work exposing
falsehood, asserting new principles, finding fault again with these new
principles and ascending ever higher in search of laws completely acceptable to
reason. For Plato, the dialogue was the
proper medium of philosophical thought because it displayed in its very form
the fact that truth can only be found by cooperation; and - up to the
time when he wrote the Republic - the Socratic dialogues were his only
published work because Socrates was for him the supreme embodiment of this method.
It is impossible
in one short chapter to solve a problem argued by scholars for hundreds of
years. The relation of Plato to Socrates
is a problem of this sort but it is doubtful whether much of the argument has
been of profit. Plato was no Boswell devoted
to the immortalization of a Johnson far greater than himself. On the other hand his Socrates was not a
fiction behind which his own personality was screened. If we look for analogies, we shall find one
not in the writer of the Fourth Gospel, but in St Paul. The Fourth Gospel is the work of a
contemplative and placid mind. The
dialogues are as fiercely controversial and pugnaciously loyal as Paul's
epistles. Both writers feel themselves
so immersed in the mission of the men whom they describe that it is difficult
to separate what was original from the added touches. Socrates was an individual whom Plato had
loved and whose memory he wished to perpetuate, but he was also the founder of
a movement far greater than himself, which Plato believed himself to have
developed upon true Socratic lines, but far beyond the point which Socrates had
reached. For this reason the Socrates of
the Dialogues is at the same time the historical Socrates and the timeless
spokesman of Platonic philosophy. Plato
saw no inconsistency in this.
But writing was
not enough. Socrates had demanded not
only the discovery of truth, but its embodiment in human society: the double
demand must be fulfilled, and Plato decided to prepare himself for the task. He could not now renounce politics and find
consolation in poetry or in pure philosophy, although every natural inclination
urged him to do so. Science and
mathematics must, if Socrates were right, be harnessed in the cause of Greek regeneration:
they must not be allowed to become a way of escape for an intelligentsia
grown weary and anxious to avoid its civic responsibilities. Plato must have been greatly tempted by the
claims of pure speculation. It was as
easy for him as for the modern academic to pretend that truth alone was his
objective and that its applicability in the real world was not and should not
be the concern of the pure scientist or philosopher: that theory and practice
were rightly divorced from one another and that the former should be proud of
its remoteness from everyday life.
There are many
passages in the Dialogues in which Plato expresses his distaste for practical
life [See particularly the PHAEDO and the
THEAETETUS (172).] and extols the virtues of academic
research. But always on such occasions
an element of self-justification is apparent.
The well-born recluse tries to rationalize his hatred of the mob into a
theory of human stupidity. The academic,
distrusting his political capacities, demonstrates the triviality of
politics. But the apologia is always
uneasy. Plato could never devote himself
to metaphysics without feeling the prick of conscience reminding him that
metaphysics was an escape from life. In
the Republic (496) he says: 'There is only a handful left who are
inspired by the true spirit of philosophy, among them perhaps a man of noble
character who was brought up in a good home and was saved from corrupting
influences by banishment, and so has remained true to his own nature: or a
great personality born in a small city who despises the petty politics of his
home town and can therefore see beyond them.
'Those who become members of this small company and have made
philosophy their own, realize the pleasures and the blessedness which it brings
and appreciate fully the madness which has taken possession of the masses. They all know that to all intents and
purposes nothing sound is ever achieved by the politicians, and that no-one who
tries to uphold justice will find any support on which he can rely. He will indeed be like a man who had fallen
into a den of beasts, refusing to accept the law of the jungle but unable by
himself to hold out against a bestial world: and so, before he can do anything
for the city or his friends, he is put away, and a life is wasted without
profit to himself or anyone else.
'Considering all
this coolly and objectively, the philosopher will remain quietly at his own
work like a traveller caught in a storm who retreats behind a wall to shelter
from the driving gusts of dust and hail.
Seeing the rest of the world filled full with iniquity, he will be
content to keep his own life here on earth unstained by wickedness and impious
actions, so that he may leave this world with a fair hope of the next, at peace
with himself and God.' This streak in
Plato's character is never wholly absent from his writings. It accounts for his ignorance of human nature
- the natural superior can rarely understand the mob which he despises - and
also for the uncertainty which runs through his whole career as to the purpose
and direction of his researches and teaching.
Later moralists and philosophers have shown the same defect - an
inclination to forestall criticism of practical failure by saying in advance:
'I'm willing to try my hand at putting the world to rights: but if my suggestions
fail, I take no responsibility since my real interest is in pure theory.'
It was the
influence of Socrates which saved Plato from renouncing practical life. Socrates may have had a remote and mystical
religion, but his intense interest in the world around made it ridiculous even
to suggest that he could take refuge in pure speculation. The fact that Socrates' feelings for Athens
and his enjoyment of the life of the busy city had never wavered even in the
face of death, was a constant reminder to Plato that a great teacher must also
be a simple human being who loves and understands his fellow men. Plato could never be that, but at least he
could apply the knowledge which he gained to the discovery of some cure for the
miseries of his fellow men.
With these
intentions, shortly after Socrates' death, he left Athens and travelled for
several years in the Mediterranean, probably visiting, among other places,
North Africa, Egypt, and Sicily. He
himself has recorded for us the impression which the first sight of the court
of Dionysius I, Tyrant of Syracuse, produced upon him. 'I was by no means content with the
"blissful life" which I found there, consisting, as it did, of
incessant debauches. No-one whose life
is spent on gorging food twice a day and sharing his bed at night, and so on,
could ever attain real wisdom. The human
constitution cannot stand the strain of that sort of life for long. Nor would he ever be likely to learn
self-control or any other virtue. What
is more, no State, however good its laws, can retain any stability if its
citizens believe in mad extravagance and exert themselves only in the
activities of eating and drinking and in the vigorous pursuit of their
armours. Inevitably in such a state
there is a constant succession of tyrannies, oligarchies, and democracies; and
politicians cannot endure the mention of just government or equality before the
law.'
This visit to
Sicily and South Italy was to prove of great importance in Plato's
development. In the first place he became
acquainted with Archytas, the geometer, who was
trying to apply Pythagorean principles to the government of his native city
Tarentum. Here Plato could see realized
in a wealthy Italian town his dream of the rule of reason, and the sight must
have encouraged him in his own designs.
In the second place, in Syracuse, he met Dion,
the son-in-law of Dionysius I, and immediately struck up a close friendship
with him. A statesman of great practical
ability, Dion was for Plato the ideal man of
action. A passionate student of
philosophy, he was willing to submit himself tot he Platonic discipline and was
later to become an ardent pupil in the Academy.
But, above all, he was the friend of Plato; the two seemed to be
complementary to each other, the politician with a bent for philosophy and the
philosopher driven by his conscience into the practical world. After Socrates, Dion
was the most important influence in Plato's life.
At the age of
forty Plato returned to Athens to see in 387 the conclusion of the ignominious
peace of Antalcidas by which all Asia Minor was
surrendered to Persia. Hellenic
independence was ebbing, but the old feud between Sparta and Athens still
continued and Athens had won back something of the glories of the empire from
her rival. Plato, however, had made his
decision. Athens offered him no
prospects and so in a shady garden outside the walls he founded his new
university - the Academy.
The Academy was
both a school and an institute of scientific research. There, for the first time, the two sides of
modern university life joined together.
Visited by nearly all the famous scientists of the time, it soon ceased
to be an Athenian institution and one became one of the centres of Greek
learning. The students, too, were by no
means exclusively from Athens, but included the sons (and daughters!) of some
of the most distinguished families in Greece.
Plato renounced Athenian politics to become the president of the first
pan-Hellenic university. In a later
chapter we shall see something of the educational system which he proceeded to
build up: at present we are only concerned to observe the double purpose of the
Academy, on the one side as an organization of pure research, and on the other
as a training ground for young men of the leisured classes (and mostly of noble
blood) who were destined to a political career in their home cities. Here, at last, Plato had found a field for
practical activity which was not confined to Athenian party-politics: here he
could build up a community of young disciples and imbue them with the moral and
intellectual discipline which was necessary if they were to restore the ancient
glories of Greece. In the pure air of
the Academy they could throw off party and factional interests and avoid the
corruption of life in the degenerate city-state. Steeped in the spirit of philosophy, they
would become leaders of a new and purer Hellenism and carry back with them to
their homes the revolutionary creed of the Academy.
For twenty years
Plato was content to guide the policy of the new university, and in a series of
Socratic dialogues to indicate the lines along which its research should be
conducted. But in 367, when he was close
on sixty, an event happened in Sicily which was to provide the philosopher with
a test of the practical utility of his work.
Dionysius I of Syracuse died and was succeeded by his son, Dionysius
II. The latter, a young man of thirty,
was not a strong character and his education, or lack of it, had done little to
improve his natural capacities. For this
reason Dion became the power behind the throne and
suggested to the new tyrant that Plato should be invited to undertake his
education and to advise him on general policy.
The invitation was given and Plato set sail for Sicily.
We need not carry
the story of Plato's life further; [For
some account of Plato's later life see chapter X.] for it is the Plato of 367 B.C. whom we have decided to
confront with the problems of our modern world.
It is clearly impossible to ask what Plato would think today without
specifying more precisely which Plato we mean, the young disillusioned
politician, the middle-aged president of the Academy, serenely certain of the
power of philosophy to rule the world, or the old man, sceptical and cautious,
who composed the Laws. It is the
second of these whom we have chosen, and for this reason we shall take as
representative of his thought the famous dialogue called the Republic,
which he composed some years before his journey to Sicily. The Republic was not only the manifesto
of the Academy, but also the programme of the philosopher statesman, and if we
read it carefully, we can observe many indications that it was composed with
the possibility of an invitation from Syracuse constantly in view. It has, therefore, a peculiar appropriateness
to our present task, since it discusses all the main philosophical problems,
with reference to practical political questions.
II - PLATO'S PROGRAMME OF POLITICAL
REFORM
The Republic contains Plato's plan for the building
of a perfect state in which every citizen is really happy. He imagines himself invested with supreme
power and asks how he would use it to save humanity from its present
miseries. But if you are going to build
a perfect society, you can only do so by reconstructing existing institutions;
and so Plato was forced to consider the city which he knew so well, and to ask
himself what was wrong with Athens. When
he had discovered this, he could construct a city free from the evils of
Athenian society.
Plato believed that
these evils were there in number: class-war, bad government, and bad
education. Class-war was the most
obvious of the three. Most Greek cities
were either oligarchies or democracies and many alternated through a series of
revolutions between these two forms of class dictatorship. In the former political power was held by an
alliance of landowners and merchants with the support of the farmers and
peasants: in the latter the leaders of the town proletariat moulded policy with
the uneasy support of certain commercial interests. In both the opposition was ruthlessly
fleeced. The effect of the Peloponnesian
war had been to intensify the political struggle. It has been described by Thucydides in a
famous passage. [THUCYDIDES, III, 82.]
'The whole Greek
world was convulsed by the great war. In
each city the democratic politicians called on Athens to assist them in their
domestic conflict, while the oligarchs relied on Sparta. In peacetime they would have had no
justification and no desire for foreign intervention; but in war the weapon of
alliance was ready to hand. Each side
could use it for its own benefit and for the destruction of its opponents, and
intervention could be employed by anyone who was plotting a putsch. Revolution brought these horrors to the
cities of Greece which will always occur so long as human nature is unchanged,
and which vary in their intensity and character according to the variations of
the social conditions. In peacetime and
in prosperity state and individual alike are actuated by higher motives,
because they are not faced with inevitable choices. But war destroys the comfortable routine of
life, schools us in violence and adapts our character to the new conditions....
The cause of all these evils was imperialism, whose fundamental motives are
ambition and the acquisitive instinct, and from which arises the fanaticism of
class-conflict. The politicians on each
side were equipped with high-sounding slogans: the Left claimed they were the
champions of the constitutional rights of the people, the Right that they stood
for aristocracy, law, and order. Both
boasted that there were devoted servants of the community and both made the
community the prize of war. The only
purpose of their policy was the extermination of their opponents, and to
achieve this they flinched from nothing.
Even worse were the reprisals which they perpetrated in total disregard
of morality or of the common good. The
only standard which they recognized was party caprice, and so they were
prepared, either by the perversion of justice or by revolutionary action, to
glut the passing passions engendered by the struggle. Religion was respected by neither: they
preferred to applaud the use of fair phrases for the achievement of odious
ends. Between them the middle class was
wiped out, either because they refused to participate or because neither side
could bear to let them survive.
'Thus
class-conflict produced every form of evil in the Greek world. Simplicity, which is an essential element in
true nobility of character, was ridiculed and disappeared. Society was divided into warring camps,
suspicious of one another. Where no
contract or obligation was binding, nothing could heal the conflict, and since
security was only to be found in the assumption that nothing was secure,
everyone took steps to preserve himself and no-one
could afford to trust his neighbour. On
the whole the baser types survived best.
Aware of their own deficiencies and their opponents' abilities, they
resorted boldly to violence, before they were defeated in debate and struck
down by a conspiracy of minds more versatile than their own; whereas the more
intelligent, confident that they could anticipate the others' plans and that it
was unnecessary to use crude methods where subtle policy was possible, were
taken off their guard and so destroyed.'
To the modern
mind, attuned to the concept of indirect aggression, Thucydides' analysis needs
no explanation. In his day, as in ours,
the clash of ideologies could only too easily destroy the possibility of
peaceful change and constitutional government.
Wherever that occurred, violence became the only weapon in the struggle
for survival, and dictatorship the only organization to ensure economic
interests. Plato realized that, unless
the class-war could be ended, Greek culture could not long survive. But between the Left and the Right he, like
Thucydides, found little to choose. Both
were actuated by selfish class interests: both were willing to sacrifice the
national welfare to the immediate interests of their supporters. Both used religion and morality as rhetorical
devices for attaining their material ends.
If there were any advantage, it lay with the oligarchs, for their system
was more stable: because policy was concentrated in the hands of a few, it was
less likely to be swayed by gusts of popular passion. On Plato's view the class-war, if it were
allowed to continue, could end logically only in the destruction of all social
life. For the qualities necessary to
survival were not decency or wisdom or righteousness, but brutality and low
cunning.
But if the
class-war was the prime evil of Athenian life, there were, in Plato's opinion,
two other contributory evils of great importance. The first was the idea that government
belonged by right to a particular social class or to the people as a
whole. He believed that it was a
full-time job and demanded abilities of a peculiar kind. The State could only prosper if political
power were granted to men and women who were capable of using it correctly. But the oligarchs regarded government as the
perquisite of wealth, the democrats of citizenship, and so under both parties
the government was selected for reasons which had little to do with its
capacity for ruling. The result was that
in each case the machinery of State became the instrument of class-interest:
law did not rule but was enslaved to a section of its own subjects. It was on this score that Plato levelled his
most bitter attacks against Athenian democracy.
The people claimed to govern themselves and proudly refused to submit
the control of policy to any body of experts.
Instead the citizen assembly itself made all important decisions. And what was the result? The people being incompetent, power fell into
the hands of demagogues: and 'ruling' became the perquisite not of the wise
statesman, but of the mob-orator who knew how to cajole the people and to
pander to its worst tastes.
'Conceive
something of this kind happening on board ship, on one ship or on several. The master is bigger and stronger than all
the crew, but rather deaf and short-sighted.
His seamanship is as deficient as his hearing. The sailors are quarrelling about the
navigation. Each man thinks that he
ought to navigate, though up to that time he has never studied the art, and
cannot name his instructor or the time of his apprenticeship. They go further and say that navigation
cannot be taught, and are ready to cut to pieces him who says that it can. They crowd round the solitary master,
entreating him and offering him every inducement to entrust them with the
helm. Occasionally when they fail to
persuade him and others succeed, they kill those others and throw them
overboard, overpower the noble master by mandragora
or drink or in some other way, and bind him hand and foot. Then they rule the ship and make free with
the cargo, and so drinking and feasting make just such a voyage as might be
expected of men like them. Further, they
compliment anyone who has the skill to contrive how they may persuade or compel
the master to set them over the ship, and call him a good seaman, a navigator,
and a master of seamanship; any other kind of man they despise as useless. They have no notion that the true navigator
must attend to the year and the seasons, to the sky and the stars and the
winds, and all that concerns his craft, if he is really going to be fit to rule
a ship. They do not believe that it is
possible for anyone to acquire by skill or practice the art of getting control
of the helm, whether there is opposition or not, and at the same time to master
the art of steering. If ships were
managed in that way, do you think that the true navigator would certainly be
called a star-gazer and a useless babbler by the crews of ships of that
description?' [REPUBLIC,
488, Lindsay's translation.]
This was Plato's
picture of Athenian democracy - a poor old skipper bullied, deceived, and
cajoled by a gang of knaves; and he believed that its desperate plight was
caused by its refusal to admit that law and order are only possible if
government are in the hands of an élite
specially trained for the task.
From this
follows naturally his third criticism of Athens. Education, which should be the major
responsibility of the State, had been left to individual caprice and to the
individual's capacity to pay. Here again
was a task which should be entrusted only to the expert and to the man of
proven probity. The future of any State
depends on the younger generation, and it is therefore madness to allow the
minds of children to be moulded by individual taste and force of
circumstance. Equally disastrous had
been the State's laissez-faire policy with regard to teachers and
schoolmasters and sophist-lecturers. It
had allowed anyone who wished to earn his living in this way, whatever he
taught. As a result the man in the
street, under the influence of irresponsible publicists, demagogues, and
rhetoricians, had ceased to believe that such things as law or justice existed. The equalitarian philosophy which held that
each man's opinion was as good as his neighbour's, had
destroyed respect for authority and had turned democracy into licentious
anarchy. Disregard of education was
primarily responsible for this.
Faced by these
three cardinal errors of Athenian democracy, Plato turned naturally enough -
for he was an aristocrat - to Sparta.
Here was a State which - apart from occasional serf revolutions - had
maintained its social and political stability for 200 years. Sparta had not avoided the class-war, but she
had coped with it so successfully that she had escaped revolution. Plato saw that there were three reasons for
this. In the first place, Sparta's
economy was self-sufficient: she was an agricultural State with no imperial
pretensions. In the second place,
government there was in the hands of a specially trained hereditary ruling
caste to whom the pleasures of wealth and luxury were
forbidden; and lastly, in
But his own
political experience had shown him that Sparta was not the perfect State. To begin with, the ruthless suppression of
serfs and the constant fear of revolution which accompanied it could not
satisfy the idealist who wished to make every citizen happy. Plato dreamed of a civilized Sparta in which
the serfs would be subjects, voluntarily submitted to the rule of law, not
slaves terrorized by a secret police.
But further, the Spartan ruling class had in his own
lifetime demonstrated its own limitations.
After 404 Sparta had succeeded to the Athenian Empire, and Spartan
citizens had been sent out to administrate many of the towns once ruled by
Athens. The results had been
disastrous. Soldiers who had been used
to barrack discipline and whose natural desires had been suppressed by rigid
social taboos, found themselves in positions of irresponsible authority where
they could do whatever they liked without let or hindrance. Alone on his island, the Spartan
administrator suddenly discovered a new world of pleasures, and a new delight
in giving, not receiving, commands. Like
the public schoolboy in his first term at the university, he 'let himself go',
and within a few years the Spartan Empire was infamous for the cruelty and
corruption of its administration. Once
the individual was allowed to make money and enjoy the pleasures of
self-expression, he discarded his aristocratic sobriety and military restraint
and became a vulgar and brutal voluptuary: once the State discovered the
pleasures of imperialism, it accepted them without any of its responsibilities.
Plato had seen
this happen, and had realized that the cure for Athens was not simply a dose of
Spartan tonic. Something else must be
added, and he believed that this 'something else' was to be found in the
Academy.
For the Academy was designed to produce that spirit of
disinterested research of which Socrates had been a living example. Its students were to become statesmen, who
voluntarily submitted to the law of reason because they saw that this law was
true and right. The Spartan boy had been
taught the soldier's unreasoning submission to the commands of his
superior. He had been 'socially
conditioned' to obey law, and for this reason, when he had to act on his own
initiative and had no superior officer to control him, he could offer no
resistance to natural desire. Just as
'public school morality' often breaks down when the public schoolboy is
isolated from his social class and can indulge himself in a whole gamut of
forbidden pleasures without fear of disapproval, so Spartan militarism had
failed to resist the temptations of imperial power. The Academy, however, provided just the
university training which is supposed to turn a conventional public school
morality into a reasoned and intellectual self-discipline: its products were
not to be mere creatures of habit, but adult men with wills of their own, who
understood the principles of law and decided voluntarily to obey them.
Thus while
Sparta provided the foundations of the Platonic State, the Academy was to turn
it from a tyranny into a benevolent dictatorship, which would rely not on sheer
force, but on impartial government to retain the obedience of the subject
class. The public schoolboy must be put
under the command of the university graduate, his conventional morality
controlled by the law of reason.
In the Republic
Plato sketches the plan of a three-class State.
At the top are the philosopher kings; then come the administrators,
and below them both are all the civilians, who are not fit to rule
themselves. [The words Plato used to describe his
three classes are 'philosophers', 'auxiliaries', and 'craftsmen', but the
literal translation of the two latter are so misleading that I have avoided
them in the text. Since Plato's lowest
class includes all the population except the ruling elite, 'working-classes' is
as misleading a translation as 'craftsmen', and I have finally decided on the
word 'civilian' to indicate the passive unpolitical
nature of the third class. Plato's
rulers are also soldiers, so that the word is not wholly amiss as long as it is
clearly understood that its meaning is not exhausted in this contrast of
soldier and civilian but must also include the contrast of 'politically
responsible' and 'politically subject'.
The substitution
of 'administrator' for 'auxiliary' needs less defence. 'Auxiliary' to the modern ear means precisely
nothing: administrator at least gives something of the prime ideas of 'active
management' and 'public service', and indicates the difference between the
second class who are executive - at once the army and the civil service of the new
State - and the first who are purely deliberative. Below these two, and carefully segregated
from them, are the civilian masses, whose only civic duty is obedience to law,
and abstention from all political activity.
The Greek city-state is to be regenerated by Spartan discipline under
the direction of the philosophic spirit of the Academy.]
And so we reach
the famous proposition in which Plato summarized his whole political programme:
'The city-state can only be saved if the kings become philosophers or the
philosophers become kings.' Plato was
convinced (as Socrates had been) that the good State is the rational State, and
that the good ruler is the man who knows precisely the plan of life which will
give men happiness. The ruler must
understand the world he lives in, and the laws which control it. He must know the science of politics as
clearly as the craftsman knows his special skill. Ruling his not everybody's
job. It is as specialized as any
other science or craft. We do not
imagine that anyone can attend us when we are ill,
nor do we elect our doctors democratically.
We demand knowledge and experience of them, and we submit ourselves
obediently to their commands. If we did
not we should suffer in health. Plato
held that the same was true of politics.
The ruler must be as highly trained as a doctor and he must be obeyed as
implicitly as we obey our doctor's orders.
But the doctor
only looks after our bodily health and he only attends us when we are ill. The ruler is always with us: he must direct
our whole lives, plan our existence, and order our thoughts and emotions as
well as our bodies. Because he controls
our whole lives, his training must be more arduous and his knowledge far wider
than that of the doctor. The ruler (in
Plato's language, the philosopher-king) must know the whole good for man and he
must have the character and resolution to impose it upon us without stint. He must not be beguiled by our complaints or tempted
by our bribes. He must care about the
plan which he knows to be our salvation so much that he can overlook the
distress and pain which we shall suffer, just as the doctor must neglect our
suffering if he is to save our life. In
politics there are no anaesthetics or drugs to make the suffering easier for
the patient to bear. For the good of the
State the ruler must punish and banish and kill the citizen who objects to the
political operation the State must undergo.
Thus the
three-class State is really a two-class State with a subdivision in the ruling
class. The civilians are the vast
majority of the population, the peasants and artisans and tradesmen who are
engaged in the production and distribution of wealth. Their function is to provide the material
basis of social welfare, their happiness to enjoy the just fruits of their
labours under the stable regime of law and order. Plato wastes little time in discussing their
organization, but he assumes that his city will be economically self-sufficient
and will not depend on imports for the necessities of life. Self-sufficiency will avoid the need for
imperialism and for the navy which had given political power in Athens to the
urban worker. In his city there will be
no town-proletariat or big-business or international bankers to upset the
natural harmony of economic interest.
And so he need not worry about the civilians since the economic system
will run itself provided that political power is forbidden to the producer and
distributor of wealth. Class-conflict
arose through the control of government by one vested interest: it is removed,
according to Plato, by allowing no vested interest whatsoever to influence the
government. By depriving every economic
interest of the means of opposition, he is confident that he can restore the
natural identity of interest, create the possibility of an impartial State, and
so remove the possibility of oppression.
For once he has
destroyed the power of the vested interests, a real aristocracy or dictatorship
of the best is possible. From
earliest childhood the ruling class is segregated from the civilians, and given
a special education. They are to be
gentlemen, unsullied by trade and the menial labours of agriculture and
craftsmanship: and they are to follow the gentleman's calling of public service
in the administration and the army.
Whereas the civilian, with his vulgar interests in his craft, in
money-making and in family-life, is a natural subject, the ruler, conscious of
the social responsibility which higher intellectual and moral capacities bring,
is a natural gentleman; and in Plato's State only the gentleman must rule. As children, these natural gentlemen are
subjected to an iron discipline. Their
fairy stories, their songs and their dances - all the influences which can
mould their character - are censored and controlled. For they are to be the defenders of the State
against internal discord and foreign aggression and on their absolute integrity
depends the well-being of the whole community.
Their education, therefore, is chiefly concerned to ensure three
things. In the first place all personal
interests must be suppressed, the desire for wealth, family, bodily pleasures,
and so on. For such interests, if they
become paramount in a ruler's life, will corrupt his
administration and make him another wage-earner no better than the
civilians. Plato's élite
therefore must be given a moral training so strict and so severe that nothing
can divert them from their service to the State. Secondly, they must be physically fit, and so
they are brought up to a Spartan simplicity of diet and dress. For they are to be soldiers
as well as administrators and they must be inured to military discipline from
earliest childhood. Lastly, they
must be given the rudiments of mental discipline. But their real intellectual education starts
only at the age of twenty. They must
concentrate for ten years upon higher mathematics and dialectic, until at
thirty an examination is held in which future philosophers are selected.
Those who fail
to pass this examination are the administrators proper, and it is their task to
carry out the commands of the philosopher-kings. Unable themselves to become philosophers,
they see that only obedience to philosophy will bring peace and security to
men. Essentially men of action,
ambitious for themselves and for the city, they have outgrown the petty
pleasures of private life and find in public service their supreme happiness. Though they cannot themselves think
creatively, they can apply the principles of philosophy once they are laid
down, and their moral training has been such that nothing can divert them from
this purpose.
The philosophers
and the administrators live in barracks apart from the civilians. All military and civil power is in their
hands, but they receive only a scanty wage from the subject population, and
they are absolutely forbidden to have any contact with wealth. Owning nothing, they must guard the property
of others, and they will do this faithfully only if their education has taught
them to care for higher things. If a man
wants wealth, he is not denied the fulfilment of his desire, but he must
forfeit political power. Conversely, if
he wants a life of public service, he is given the opportunity, provided that
he renounces all interest in property.
For it is only, in Plato's view, by the complete separation of political
power from ownership of property that class-war can be abolished and the profit
motive become the servant, not the tyrant, of society.
Plato believed
that in a State reconstructed upon these lines, the happiness of every
individual could be secured. Sacrifices
are demanded from each class, but only to ensure the satisfaction of its
dominant interest. By the surrender of
political freedom, which has only brought him class-war, the civilian gains a
stable regime in which rulers of absolute integrity will dispense justice, and
well-trained soldiers will defend him from attack. He has lost his civil liberties, too, but he
has no need of them, now that the social order is really just and
impartial. For criticism is only
necessary where rulers are corrupt: and the civilian is not the man to
criticize since he has neither the knowledge nor the training to do so. The sacrifice of civil liberties, therefore,
is the sacrifice of something which he was incapable of doing well and only
understood under the pressure of necessity.
Apart from these losses - which many in Europe bear today with
equanimity even when they are not blessed with the rule of philosopher-kings -
his gains are enormous: in the first place, justice which is impossible under
any other regime, in the second place, a certainty that his property will
remain his own and that no-one will take it from him. Plato believed that few men would ask for
more.
The
administrators will be happy too. Since
their dominant interest is in government, and the driving motive of their life
is ambition, they cannot but be content to hold in their hands the executive
power of the State. After their early
training they will not greatly miss the wealth which they must forgo, or even
be upset by the law which forbids them to marry and have families;
[See Chapter VII.] for
they are soldiers, inured to barrack life and to the sacrifice of personal
pleasures for the sake of the common weal.
As soldiers, too, they will be content on all decisive questions to obey
the commands of the philosopher-kings - they know that they themselves do not
know. Lastly, the philosophers will be
happy, although they have the heaviest sacrifice to make. For their paramount
interest is in research and yet they are compelled to spend much time and
labour applying the results of their researches to the practical affairs of
State. Plato had a natural
sympathy with the few who were forced to enter the political arena, and among
British statesmen would have recognized in A.J. Balfour the characteristics of
a true philosopher-king. It was men of
this type alone that he chose for supreme political responsibility, hoping that
a select band of Balfours would be able to relieve
each other in rotation of the practical work for which they would all feel a
justifiable distaste.
Such in barest
outline was Plato's programme for the salvation of Greece - the restoration of
the impartial rule of law through the dictatorship of the
philosopher-kings. Only thus could the
three evils of class-war, bad government, and bad education be cured and
happiness provided for every citizen.
The Academy must become not only the conscience but the political
dictator of Greek society. In every city
a Platonic scholar must be vested with absolute power.
There is no
doubt that Plato faced the inevitability of the use of force for the
achievement of these ends. His statesmen
were to be trained soldiers with armies at their disposal, ready if necessary
to meet force with force. But he
believed that the extremes of violence could be avoided by education, and for
this reason the Republic silent on the subject both of how the philosopher
is to attain power and of the details of political organization. We can, however,
[See Chapter X.] fill
in the gaps in the Republic from the history of Plato's and Dion's experiences in Sicily. Plato lived in aristocratic circles and his
pupils were chiefly drawn from the sons of tyrants or leading aristocratic
politicians. It seemed possible,
therefore, that the 'dictatorship of the best' could be achieved without
violent revolution if these young men could gain control in their respective cities. The Academy would then become the central
advisory bureau for a network of aristocratic dictatorships, settling the
general lines of policy on which each of the scholar-statesmen should proceed. It would be the headquarters of an 'open
conspiracy' to clean up Greek politics, the Republic
would be its manifesto and Plato the commander-in-chief.
This plan was no
Utopian dream. Dion
was a force in Sicilian affairs, Archytas in South
Italy, and from many other cities came requests for Plato's advice and
guidance. It seemed possible that the
new university might really convert the rulers in non-democratic cities and
make the kings philosophers. Plato
disregarded the problem of how to capture power not because he was an
unpractical dreamer, but because, in the revolution of which he dreamed, the
capture of power would not prove difficult.
He did not wish to turn out a ruling class, but to convert it. For this reason he paid little attention to
the democracies, even to Athens. There
he knew his chances were small. Only
where an oligarchy or a military dictator was in control had he a real
possibility of achieving his goal, since here political power was in the hands
of a few men of his own social class.
The real
problems, therefore, were firstly the conversion of the Greek gentleman to
Platonic philosophy, and secondly the pacification of a proletariat avid for
self-government. These are the practical
questions which the Republic tries to answer, and both are in a sense
educational. Of the first we have
already spoken and we shall return to it in a later chapter. But the second is no less important. The civilian must be educated to accept his
subjection to the rule of law. But since
he is naturally incapable of philosophy or of directing his life according to
reason and cannot understand the raison d'être of the State, it is
useless to explain the truth to him. He
must therefore be fed on political and religious myths, 'noble lies' as Plato
called them, which appeal to his emotions and stimulate him to obey the law.
By the 'noble
lie' Plato meant propaganda, the technique of controlling the behaviour of the
stupid majority: and he believed that this was the only sort of general
education which the civilian should receive.
He must, in fact, be content with the education which Plato had prepared
for the children of the ruling class, since politically and morally he would
always remain a child. Just as children
are told improving stories to prevent them from biting their nails or stealing
or telling lies, so the civilian must be fed on propaganda to prevent him from
asserting his right to self-government.
One such story Plato himself suggested: 'Yes,' I said, 'you are no doubt
right; but still listen to the rest of the tale. "You in this city are all
brothers," so we shall tell our tale to them, "but God as he was
fashioning you, put gold in those of you are capable of ruling; hence they are
deserving of most reverence. He put
silver in the auxiliaries, and iron and copper in the farmers and the other
craftsmen. For the most part your
children are of the same nature as yourselves, but because you are all akin,
sometimes from gold will come a silver offspring, or from silver a gold, and so on all round.
Therefore the first and weightiest command of God to the rulers is this
- that more than aught else they be good guardians of and watch zealously over
the offspring, seeing which of those metals is mixed in their souls; if their
own offspring have an admixture of copper or iron, they must show no pity, but
giving it the honour proper to its nature, set it among the artisans or the
farmers; and if on the other hand in these classes children are born with an
admixture of gold and silver, they shall do them honour and appoint the first
to be guardians, the second to be auxiliaries.
For there is an oracle that the city shall perish when
it is guarded by iron or copper." [REPUBLIC, 415, Lindsay's translation. For a macabre
modern parallel compare Hitler's speech at the Nuremberg Rally in 1934.]
Philosophy for
the ruler, and propaganda for the rest - this, says Plato, is the best way of
avoiding bloodshed in the establishment and maintenance of the 'dictatorship of
the best'. The mistake of Socrates had
been his belief that the Law of Reason was suitable to everyone. He had condemned rhetoric and sophistical education altogether and tried to convert the
city of Athens to philosophy. But
philosophy and reason are poison to the masses.
Misunderstood and perverted by them, they merely intensify social unrest. The masses need not the truth, but a
convenient falsehood. They, like Adam
and Eve, must be forbidden to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
- for their own sakes. The
philosopher-king therefore will not condemn propaganda altogether, but will
demand the absolute control of it by the Government. Literature, music, religion, science -
everything which can disturb their minds must be censored by the rulers and
regulated so as to promote the loyalty of the masses to the new regime. The perfect State will be for the civilian
quite literally 'a fool's paradise', controlled by a few wise men, who out of their compassion for the masses provide them with
superstitions and ceremonies and popular philosophies fit for their feeble
capacities. [Cf. 'The Grand Inquisitor' in THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, where
the same theory is worked out.]
Plato's
philosophy is the most savage and the most profound attack upon liberal ideas
which history can show. It denies every
axiom of 'progressive' thought and challenges all its fondest ideals. Equality, freedom, self-government - all are condemned as illusions which can be held only by
idealists whose sympathies are stronger than their sense. The true idealist, on Plato's view, will see
men as they are, observe their radical inequalities, and give to the many not
self-government but security, not freedom but prosperity, not knowledge but the
'noble lie'. The perfect State is not a
democracy of rational equals, but an aristocracy in which a hereditary caste of
cultured gentlemen care with paternal solicitude for the toiling masses.
Before the First
World War, the Republic was often treated as the 'Ideal State' which
Plato never intended to put into practice.
Its whole conception seemed far-fetched and remote to a generation which
assumed liberal ideas as self-evident truths of human nature. A world which believed that, under the flags
of science, general education, and democracy, it was marching to perfection,
could not swallow Plato's estimate of the common man, or seriously approve his
educational programme. Unaware of the
class-war, it could not understand his hatred of democracy and acceptance of
dictatorship. But because Plato was a
famous philosopher, he was rarely condemned outright as a reactionary resolutely
opposed to every principle of the liberal creed. Instead, he was elevated to a higher rank,
became an idealist, remote from practical life, dreaming of a transcendent City
of God.
World war has
changed all that. Plato's so-called
'idealism' is now seen for what it is - a grimly realistic estimate of the
moral and intellectual capacities of the masses. Knowing what class-war and revolution mean,
we can understand why Plato advocated dictatorship to prevent them. Having some experience of the effects of
propaganda, we can treat 'the noble lie' not as an amusing fantasy but as an
extremely practical instrument of government.
Our modern objection to Plato is that he is much too 'realistic' in his
analysis of human nature.
For this reason
it is extremely pertinent to ask ourselves: 'If Plato lived again, what would
he make of our world, and what would we make of him?' His cure for the diseases
of society are only too applicable today, and there are many who begin
to feel, 'After all, if it could be done, it would be worth doing. Perhaps we have been building on foundations
of sand. The ideals of freedom and
democracy are crumbling away. Is it not
better before it is too late to replace them with the Platonic
"dictatorship of the best"?'
It is to such people that this book is addressed. For it tries to show how Plato fared in his
own world, and how he would fare in ours.