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Whether you want to relax, learn something new, or rediscover voices from the past, Podcast Library makes it easy to find something worth hearing. Start listening today at p-o-d-c-a-s-t-l-i-b-r-a-r-y dot o-r-g. Book 8, Part 3 And now, what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? For as the government is, such will be the man.
Clearly, he said, in the first place, are they not free, and it's not the city full of freedom and frankness, a man may say and do what he likes. Is that so? he replied. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases.
Clearly. Then, in this kind of state, there will be the greatest variety of human natures. There will. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of states, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower.
And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this state, which is spangled with manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of states. Yes. Yes, my good sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government. Why?
Because of the liberty which reigns there, they have a complete assortment of constitutions, and he who has a mind to establish a state, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy, as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him. Then, when he has made his choice, he may found his state. He will be sure to have patterns enough. And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this state, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed.
There being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a diecast, that you should not hold office or be a diecast if you have a fancy. Is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful? For the moment, yes. And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming?
Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are, and walk about the world, the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares? Yes, he replied, many and many a one. See too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and that don't care about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we suddenly lay down at the foundation of the city, as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty, and make of them a joy and a study. How grandly that she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to honour anyone who professes to be the people's friend.
Yes, she is of a noble spirit. These and other kinder characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. We know her well. Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather, consider, as in the case of the state, how he comes into being.
Very good, he said. It's not this the way. He is the son of a miserly and other carcical father who has trained him in his own habits. Exactly.
And, like his father, he keeps under, by force, the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called unnecessary. Obviously. Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures? I should.
Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong, therefore, in calling them necessary.
We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards, of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good, shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them.
Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, insofar as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways.
It does us good, and it is essential to the continuance of life. Yes. But the condiments are only necessary, insofar as they are good for health. Certainly.
And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary. Very true. May we not say that these desires are spent, and that the others make money, because they conduce to production? Certainly.
And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good. True. And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was served with pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and olicarical. Very true.
Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the olicarical. The following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What is the process? When a young man who has been brought up, as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drone's honey, and has come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasures, then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the olicarical principle within him into the democratical.
Inevitably. And as in the city, like was helping alike, and the change was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a clause of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike, again helping that which is akin and alike. Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the olicarical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul affection and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself.
It must be so. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the olicarical and some of his desires die and others are banished. A spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens.
And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous. Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. They draw him to his old associates and holding secret intercourse with them, breathe and multiply in him. Very true.
At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words which make their abode in the minds of men who adhere to the gods and are their best guardians and sentinels. None better. False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. They are certain to do so.
And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men, and if any help be sent by his friends to the olicarical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness, and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisors offer the fatherly counsel of the aged, will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle, and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, it trembled in the mire and cast forth. They persuade men that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so by the help of a rebel of evil appetites they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with a will.
And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array having garlands on their heads and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names, insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertarianism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. After this he lives on, spending his money and labor and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as unnecessary ones, but if he be fortunate and is not too much disordered in his wits when years have elapsed and the heyday of passion is over, supposing that he then readmits into the city some part of the exiled virtues and does not wholly give himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn.
And when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another. He despises none of them, but encourages them all equally. Very true, he said. Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice.
If anyone says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honor some and chastise and master the others, whenever this is repeated to him, he shakes his head and says that they are all alike and that one is as good as another. Yes, he said, that is the way with him. Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour, and sometimes he is a leptin drink and strains of the flute. Then he becomes a water drinker and tries to get thin.
Then he takes a turn at gymnastics, sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher. Often he is busy with politics and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head. And if he is emilence of anyone who is a warrior or fears in that direction or of men of business once more in that. His life has neither law nor order and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom.
And so he goes on. Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. Yes, I said, his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many. He answers to the state which we described as fair and spangled and many a man and many a woman will take him for their passion and many a constitution and many an example of menas is contained in him.
Just so. Let him then be set over against democracy. He may truly be called the democratic man. Let that be his place, he said.
Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and state alike, tyranny and the tyrant, these we have now to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise? That it has a democratic origin is evident, clearly.
And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchy? I mean, after sort. How? The good which oligarchy proposed itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth.
Am I not right? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy. True.
And democracy has her own good of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution. What good? Freedom, I replied, which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of the state, and that therefore in a democracy alone will the free men of nature deign to dwell. Yes, the saying is in everybody's mouth.
I was going to observe that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy which occasions a demand for tyranny. How so? When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cupbearers presiding over the feast and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draft, she calls them to account and punishes them and says that they are cursed oligarchs. Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence.
Yes, I said, and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught. She would have subjects who are like rulers and rulers who are like subjects. These are men now to her own heart whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a state, can liberty have any limit?
Certainly not. By degrees, the anarchy finds a way into private houses and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. How do you mean? I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents, and this is his freedom, and the matic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the matic, and the stranger is quite as good as either.
Yes, he said, that is the way. And these are not the only evils, I said. There are several lesser ones. In such a state of society, the master fears and flutters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors.
Young and old are all alike, and the young man is on a level with the old and is ready to compete with him in word or deed, and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety, they are loath to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. Quite true, he said. The last extreme of popular liberty is whether a slave, bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser, nor must I forget to tell the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. Why not, as Ascala says, utter the word which rises to our lips?
That is what I am doing, I replied, and I must add that no one who does not know would believe how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other state. For truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen, and they will run at anybody who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them, and all things are just ready to burst with liberty. When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamt the same thing.
And above all, I said, and as a result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become. They chave impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten, they will have no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well. Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny.
Glorious indeed, he said. End of Book Eight, Part Three