Democracy and Citizenship

Plato

[From The Republic]

In this passage, Socrates debates Adelmantus on the nature of democratic governments and the virtues of citizenship.

"…And the absence of any compulsion to rule in this city," I said, "even if you are competent to rule, or again to be ruled if you don't want to be, or to make war when the others are making war, or to keep peace when the others are keeping it, if you don't desire peace; and, if some law prevents you from ruling or being a judge, the absence of any compulsion keeping you from ruling and being a judge anyhow, if you long to do so -- isn't such a way of passing the time divinely sweet for the moment?" "Perhaps," he said, "for the moment." "And what about this? Isn't the gentleness toward some of the condemned exquisite? Or in such a regime haven't you yet seen men who have been sentenced to death or exile, nonetheless staying and carrying on right in the middle of things; and, as though no one cared or saw, stalking the land like a hero?"

"Yes, many," he said.

"And this regime's sympathy and total lack of pettiness in despising what we were saying so solemnly when we were founding the city -- that unless a man has a transcendent nature he would never become good if from earliest childhood his play isn't noble and all his practices aren't such -- how magnificently it tramples all this underfoot and doesn't care at all from what kinds of practices a man goes to political action, but honors him if only he says he's well disposed toward the multitude?"

"It's a very noble regime," he said.

"Then, democracy," I said, "would have all this and other things akin to it and would be, as it seems, a sweet regime, without rulers and many-colored, dispensing a certain equality to equals and unequals alike."

"What you say," he said, "is quite well known."

"Reflect, then," I said, "who is the private man like this? Or, just as we did in the case of the regime, must we first consider how he comes to be?"

"Yes," he said.

"Isn't it this way? I suppose a son would be born to that stingy, oligarchic man, a son reared by his father in his dispositions."

"Of course."

"Now, this son too, forcibly ruling all the pleasures in himself that are spendthrifty and do not conduce to money-making, those ones that are called unnecessary --"

"Plainly," he said.

"So that we don't discuss in the dark," I said, "do you want us to define the necessary and the unnecessary desires?"

"Yes," he said, "that's what I want."

"Wouldn't those we aren't able to turn aside justly be called necessary, as well as all those whose satisfaction benefits us? We are by nature compelled to long for both of these, aren't we?"

"Quite so."

"Then we shall justly apply the term necessary to them."

"That is just."

"And what about this? If we were to affirm that all those are unnecessary of which a man could rid himself if he were to practice from youth on and whose presence, moreover, does no good -- and sometimes even does the opposite, of good -- would what we say be fine?"

"Fine it would be."

"Then shall we choose an example of what each of them is so that we can grasp their general types?"

"Yes, we must."

"Wouldn't the desire of eating -- as long as it is for health and good condition, the desire of mere bread and relish -- be necessary?"

"I suppose so."

"The desire for bread, at least, is presumably necessary on both counts, in that it is beneficial and in that it is capable of putting an end to life."

"Yes."

"And so is the desire for relish, if in anyway it is beneficial to good condition."

"Most certainly."

"But what about the desire that goes beyond toward sorts of food other than this, of which the many can be rid if it is checked in youth and educated, and is harmful to the body and to the soul with respect to prudence and moderation? Wouldn't it rightly be called unnecessary?"

"Most rightly indeed."

"Then wouldn't we also assert that the latter desires are spendthrifty, while the former are money-making because they are useful for our works?"

"Surely."

"Then won't we also assert the same about sex and the other desires?"

"Yes, we'll assert the same."

"And weren't we also saying that the man we just named a drone is full of such pleasures and desires and is ruled by the unnecessary ones, while the stingy oligarchic man is ruled by the necessary ones?"

"Of course we were."

"Well, then, going back again," I said, "let's say how the democratic man comes out of the oligarchic one. And it looks to me as though it happens in most cases like this."

"How?"

"When a young man, reared as we were just saying without education and stingily, tastes the drones' honey, and has intercourse with fiery, clever beasts who are able to purvey manifold and subtle pleasures with every sort of variety, you presumably suppose that at this point he begins his change from an oligarchic regime within himself to a democratic one."

"Most necessarily," he said.

"Then, just as the city was transformed when an alliance from outside brought aid to one party, like to like, is the young man also transformed in the same way when desires of a kindred and like form from without bring aid to one party of desires within him?"

"That's entirely certain."

"And, I suppose, if a counteralliance comes to the aid of the oligarchic party in him, either from the advice and scolding of his father or from other relatives, then faction and counteraction arise in him and he does battle with himself."

"Surely."

"And I suppose that at times the democratic party gives way to the oligarchic; and, with some of the desires destroyed and others exiled, a certain shame arose in the young man's soul, and order was re-established."

"Sometimes that does happen," he said.

"But I suppose that once again other desires, akin to the exiled ones, reared in secret due to the father's lack of knowledge about rearing, came to be, many and strong."

"At least," he said, "that's what usually happens."

"Then, drawn to the same associations, their secret intercourse bred a multitude."

"Of course."

"And, finally, I suppose they took the acropolis of the young man's soul, perceiving that it was empty of fair stuthes and practices and true speeches, and it's these that are the best watchmen and guardians in the thought of men whom the gods love."

"They are by for the best," he said.

"Then, in their absence, false and boasting speeches and opinions ran up and seized that place in such a young man."

"Indeed they did," he said.

"Doesn't he go back again to those Lotus-eaters and openly settle among them? And if some help should come to the stingy element in his soul from relatives, those boasting speeches close the gates of the kingly wall within him; they neither admit the auxiliary force itself nor do they receive an embassy of speeches of older private men, but doing battle they hold sway themselves; and naming shame simplicity, they push it out with dishonor, a fugitive; calling moderation cowardliness and spattering it with mud, they banish it; persuading that measure and orderly expenditure are rustic and illiberal, they join with many useless desires in driving them over the frontier."

"Indeed they do."

"Now, once they have emptied and purged these from the soul of the man whom they are seizing and initiating in great rites, they proceed to return insolence, anarchy, wastefulness, and shamelessness from exile, in a blaze of light, crowned and accompanied by a numerous chorus, extolling and flattering them by calling insolence good education; anarchy, freedom; wastefulness, magnificence; and shamelessness, courage. Isn't it in some such way," I said, "that a man, when he is young, changes from his rearing in necessary desires to the liberation and unleashing of unnecessary and useless pleasures?"

"Yes," he said, "it's quite manifestly that way."

"Then, I suppose that afterward such a man lives spending no more money, effort, and time on the necessary than on the unnecessary pleasures. However, if he has good luck and his frenzy does not go beyond bounds -- and if, also, as a result of getting somewhat older and the great disturbances having passed by, he readmits a part of the exiles and doesn't give himself wholly over to the invaders -- then he lives his life in accord with a certain equality of pleasures he has established. To whichever one happens along, as though it were chosen by the lot, he hands over the rule within himself until it is satisfied; and then again to another, dishonoring none but fostering them all on the basis of equality."

"Most certainly."

"And," I said, "he doesn't admit true speech or let it pass into the guardhouse, if someone says that there are some pleasures belonging to fine and good desires and some belonging to bad desires, and that the ones must be practiced and honored and the others checked and enslaved. Rather, he shakes his head at all this and says that all are alike and must be honored on an equal basis."

"That's exactly," he said, "what a man in this condition does."

"Then," I said, "he also lives along day by day, gratifying the desire that occurs to him, at one time drinking and listening to the flute, at another downing water and reducing; now practicing gymnastic, and again idling and neglecting everything; and sometimes spending his time as though he were occupied with philosophy. Often he engages in politics and, jumping up, says and does whatever chances to come to him; and if he ever admires any soldiers, he turns in that direction; and if it's money-makers, in that one. And there is neither order nor necessity in his life, but calling this life sweet, free, and blessed he follows it throughout" ...