BOOK III
‘Then tell me, Socrates, do you consider the Americans to be free?’
‘Why, no,’ I said, ‘they are the least free of all the peoples of the earth. For they live under a tyrant, and one not a whit more merciful than was Procrustes. For Procrustes forced all over whom he could obtain power to become standardized, fitting them to that bed of his and lopping off the feet of those that were too long, but racking and stretching the limbs of those that were too short, so that the bodies of all should conform to the same mould. But the tyrant who rules the Americans—or all whom he can master—is worse than Procrustes, for he seeks to fashion and control not the body, as is the way of ordinary tyrants, but the soul itself. He standardizes their souls wherever he is strong.’
‘Truly a terrible tyrant,’ said Lysis; ‘who and what is he?’
‘His title,’ I said, ‘is Public Opinion, or the Opinion of the Majority, and he is the offspring of Propaganda.’
‘And why,’ said Lysis, ‘do you call that opinion by so harsh a name? For it seems to me that it is more sensible to be ruled by the opinion of the majority than by the whim of a single tyrant like most barbarians, or the opinion of the minority like the English.’
‘Come,’ I replied, ‘and let us examine this question together. For does it not seem to you probable that men can be ruled by opinion in many ways and that some ways may well be good but others bad?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And that there will be a great difference between opinions, since some will really belong to the people who hold them and be indeed a part of themselves, while others will be forced upon them from outside and will be repeated and acted upon through fear, and so far from being an expression of the soul of him who utters them, they will act as a great blanket stifling the breath of the soul and killing it and making the man an automaton and a slave and not a reasonable being at all.’
‘Certainly,’ said Lysis.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we will leave for the present the discussion of the English soul, being careful to return to it later, and that for several reasons. For in the first place it is so odd and extraordinary that it arouses our sense of wonder and we contemplate it without effort, and secondly because it is always necessary to consider the English when we consider the Americans, so great is the effect of the two races upon each other. But now we will look as closely as we can into the nature of this tyrant, who, as I verily believe, is the chief evil from which the Americans suffer. And I think I shall lead you to agree with me when we have seen how their past history has made them into a prey for such a monster.’
‘Explain it in your own way,’ said Agathon, ‘so that eventually you come to the point.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘I wish to approach this matter delicately, treading carefully like a scout at night and not rushing forward with great shouts, for I do not know how my words may be repeated and printed out wrongly in the news-sheets of the Americans. For the Americans have long ears, and hear everything that is said of them. They are sensitive people and restive when criticized, and if I speak bluntly, as I generally do, there will be many who will refuse hereafter to pay attention not to me only, but to Plato and to all the Greeks. And yet it is among the Greeks that they find those who can teach them most and give them the greatest benefits, explaining to them the principles of right living and, in particular, the necessity for examining our notions and for being cautious about declaring that we know things, and, above all, for being tolerant of disagreement and discussion.’
‘The men of Athens,’ said Agathon slyly, ‘have not always shown you a proper tolerance, Socrates, and they are your own countrymen. How, then, can you be surprised that the Business Men’s Luncheon Club of Hootsville, Iowa, was unwilling to hear your doubts, for I know that that experience is what is in your mind.’
‘A singular power indeed,’ I exclaimed, ‘has been given to you, dear Agathon, of reading the minds of your friends. But I assure you that there is in my mind at present no such personal recollection. I have only the power to think of one thing at a time and I am now thinking that we shall certainly never finish our inquiry if you keep laughing to yourself in this way in order to make Lysis curious over the incidents of my lecturing tour.’
Here Lysis intervened in a charming manner, and said to me: ‘Let him tell us the story, Socrates, for I can see he is dying to do so, and I will confess that I want to hear it. And when he has told it he shall keep quiet, and you shall unfold to us the nature of this Public Opinion. And if he thinks he can make me doubt the wisdom of your talk I will tell him at once that he is mistaken, and that we are only listening to him as to a sort of clown.’
‘So they spoke of Socrates in Hootsville,’ said Agathon, who then pulled from his robe what I saw were news cuttings. I remembered the great collection of such cuttings that Xantippe had made, and sent back with some little malice for the Athenians to read, especially of cuttings referring in an outspoken manner to myself.
When he had refreshed his memory with these, he turned to Lysis and said:—
‘You must understand, Lysis, that our friend here has a different view of time from that held by the Americans. For he lives in a leisurely way and is never hurried even in the pursuit of wisdom. But the Americans are hurried in everything they do. They are hurried into the world and they are hurried out again, and all the time it is a rush, all crying “Step along there, please!” and the young applying to the old their proverb, “Pass right along down the car.” No one here has ever told Socrates to step along. Now in nothing are they more hurried than in the pursuit of wisdom and truth. Most of them do not join in the pursuit at all, saying they have no time to spare from the pursuit of wealth, but some will give twenty minutes in the week at a luncheon. And it was at one of these luncheons that Socrates spoke.’
‘Is it possible both to eat and to talk in twenty minutes?’ asked Lysis.
‘The luncheon lasts a full hour,’ replied Agathon, ‘but you must understand that men so busy have much to do in that hour. In the first place they must all keep friends and indulge in friendly feelings for which there is no time in the rest of the day. And so they wear the names by which their close friends call them on a piece of paper on their garments, so that each friend may remember the special name of the other. The branch of commerce to which each one is devoted is also printed on the piece of paper or card, for the Americans understand that friendship consists in the exchange of services. And for this reason they are careful to have only one of each calling in these clubs. But it is furthermore necessary to feel cheerful and light-hearted and to produce that in the hour is not easy. Least of all to men who have been deluded into denying themselves those fermented beverages which alone can banish the anxieties of commerce. So these men sing songs as they eat, rising between the mouthfuls to sing praises of their club or their town, or sometimes to sing tenderly of their mothers, of whom the food before them has caused them to think with longing. Furthermore, there are announcements to be made and visitors and their callings to be proclaimed. For the Americans never forget their proverb that friendship leads to business. So you will understand Socrates hardly had time to make his points, and, whether or not it was that no one understood him because to save time they had made him begin while the sweet was being served with much clatter, yet it must be admitted that the paper reported it as “confessedly a disappointment after last week’s slap-up talk on personal contacts in business.”’
‘Poor Socrates!’ said Lysis; ‘did no one call yours a slap-up talk?’
‘I am afraid not,’ I said, ‘but then I said things they were not very eager to hear, and even before I spoke there had been much question whether I should be asked.’
‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘many doubted the propriety of asking him, after a local minister had declared that our friend was not only a sort of dago but that he was the lowest of crawling creatures, a man who had knocked his own home town, meaning that he had criticized many of the actions of the Athenians. But another minister said that he had something in him and was a prominent citizen back in Athens, and had secured a wide publicity for his slogan “Boost Knowledge,” though he was mistaken in thinking that Socrates had used that actual expression.’
‘But what was the address about?’ Lysis demanded.
I answered him: ‘It was about the place of liberty in the life of the State, which they did not seem to me to understand.’
‘Indeed,’ said Agathon, ‘they soon grow restive if you speak of liberty.’
‘Indeed yes,’ I assented. ‘And yet two minutes before they had been singing some praises to a sweet land of liberty which was also, as I understood the words, the home of the brave and free. But when the Americans rejoice that they are free they mean free from King George III. For they are slow in some matters.’
‘It is like you Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to seize hold boldly of this question of liberty and not to let go but to force them to examine it.’
‘My heart had been touched,’ I replied, ‘by a spectacle which I saw when first our boat anchored in New York Harbour. There is an island there called Ellis Island, the abode of the rejected of America, where I also spent two days. Many emigrants think that they are emigrating to the United States when in fact they are emigrating to Ellis Island, which is not a land of opportunity at all. So there crowd on Ellis Island the wretched people whom America will not accept. Among the figures in that part of the harbour there was one that at once held my attention because she was so much greater and nobler than the rest. But she was not allowed on the mainland. Going close to her I saw that it was Liberty herself. She also was classed as undesirable. I will confess that I could understand the Amazons of the Mississippi fearing her, so great and strong was she, and of such mighty reputation. Her plight too was more wretched than that of the others, because they all stretched out their hands with longing to the further bank, as the poet has well sung, but with some hope also that there would one day be room for them in the quota. But Liberty had no quota at all.’
‘What is this quota?’ asked Lysis.
‘The quota, dear Lysis,’ I said, ‘is another of the mystic numbers of the Americans and one that serves their desires. For by means of varying numbers reached in an obscure manner they control the admission into their country in such a manner that very few can come of those who will be likely to resist having their souls made for them, but a greater number of those who yield easily to Americanization. In particular, is it contrived that hardly any of the Mediterranean peoples shall be admitted, for these peoples are the hardest of all to Americanize, as they have lived in civilization for so great a time.’
‘I understand,’ said Lysis.
‘But the people who are least unwelcome to-day are the partly civilized peoples of North Europe and the British Isles. For these people are not so wild as to be dangerous and they have lived in a hard struggle with nature which has made material prosperity seem to them an extremely great thing and one worthy of great efforts. Now material prosperity is what the Americans offer, and it is the inducement always held out when those who make opinion wish to persuade the populace to any particular course.’
‘But,’ asked Phaelon, ‘why did you not tell the undesirables what you knew about America, so that they would have been glad they had been shut out? It does not sound much fun being an alien in America to-day.’
‘It would be grievous indeed,’ I said, ‘did not the aliens live together in communities, but so banded they maintain their own life and reproduce Greece or Italy beyond the seas, as is the purpose of a colony. And it is a source of merriment to these men to be told to think American thoughts, as the judges say who make them citizens.’
‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘but it is not merriment for their children who become Americans.’
‘They enjoy it,’ I said, ‘for the children of bad Greeks make good Americans. And bad we must consider the Greeks to be who leave Greece and risk their souls in America for the sake of wealth. Such folk do nothing to lead the Americans to Greek thought.’
‘Being such lovers of profit,’ said Agathon, ‘they are timid and have little influence.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but coming from civilization they have characters of their own, and are richly individual, for that is the mark of civilization, but having left Greece for gain they have no proper sense of being members of a political community, while the Americans are filled to excess with that sense. But an alien child brought up in America will often be both an individual and a citizen.’
Lysis here said: ‘Might not such an alien child combine the faults rather than the virtues of both types?’
‘That happens,’ I replied, ‘and I have great fears for Xantippe’s children if she keeps them there to be Americanized.’
‘I may be a blockhead, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘but I should like to hear you explain much more fully about the strength of the soul when it is Americanized.’
‘You are prepared to leave the address to the Business Men’s Lunch Club, then,’ said Agathon, ‘and follow Socrates on a new path?’
‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘let us leave the business men. For my part I feel filled with pity for men leading such a life.’
‘That is well said, Lysis,’ I replied, ‘for I, too, loved these men and had pity for them, seeing them to work harder than ever during the short hour of refreshment that their code allows them from business. I do not wonder that so many of them drop dead, and I often thought of the captives in the galleys being spurred on to exertions unnatural to man.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Agathon with a sly look at the other two, ‘your standard of exertion, Socrates, is lower than that of most men.’
‘I know not how it is in your government office, Agathon,’ I replied, ‘but I do not believe you would long survive the pace set in America, and, indeed, more and more Americans themselves are becoming sensible and ceasing to think a man admirable in proportion as he is always at his business. They have some excellent summer clubs, where they jest and play not for one day only but for several weeks. But I was going to tell Lysis that I can satisfy both his desire and yours, for if you, O Agathon, will tell the substance of my address to those men that will also reveal in what they are lacking, according to my opinion, and in what they are strong. For they are lacking in reasonableness, and they are strong in sociability.’
‘Then let me read the report,’ said Agathon, and he read from the Hootsville Courier the paragraphs dealing with my address: ‘“The President of the Club introduced the speaker as one who had made good in his own line, and though it was not their own line, they welcomed success wherever they saw it (applause). The visitor, as he understood it, was a specialist in truth and goodness, and would no doubt give Hootsville some useful tips. If he, the speaker, understood their visitor’s vocation he was a person you went to consult if you became doubtful about your religion or your politics and he would make you more doubtful still (laughter). Fortunately, no one in Hootsville was troubled with any doubts, and he must say he could not see how their visitor would fit into the life there. Still it was a big world, and they could not all live in Iowa. He confessed that he had not known about the visitor till the question of this address was brought up, but since then had looked up his record and, from the reports of the debates that he had seen in the Plato publications, he had no doubt that their visitor had the best of his discussions back in Athens and had hit a home run every time. They welcomed him as a man who had won something, even if it was only an argument (great applause). That was what appealed to him, and he thought to all of them, for he did not claim to have read the reports closely or to know what the arguments had been about, but he felt clear their visitor had not come out second best. Hootsville could fairly claim to be listening to about the best man in his own line that old Athens could send them, and that would help them to see how Hootsville and Athens compared with one another (applause). He was reminded of a story about a negro, called Rastus....”
‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘he told a long story about an Ethiopian, and sat down with laughter and applause.’ Agathon then read: ‘“The visitor, Mr. Socrates S. Socrates, was understood to say: ‘Men of Hootsville, if you will bear with a stupid and ignorant man (laughter) I would like to correct what I am falsely supposed to think concerning liberty. I am not one of those who think that the ideal state will grant an indiscriminate liberty. For the rulers must regard liberty with caution. For I do not complain that here there is authority and that liberty is restricted, for that is necessary, but that the authority is in the hands of men in no way worthy to hold it and that the restrictions are not imposed for right objects but to achieve the mistaken notions of those holding chief influence in the land. I would not question your carelessness of liberty if you were restraining bad and selfish men, and I would applaud you if I saw the majority taking steps against too much interest in commerce. For commerce can do no more than provide the basis for the good life, but is treated here as though it were the good life itself. Indeed, you put notices, Men of Hootsville, in your offices to discourage the conversation of your friends, writing up: ‘This is our busy day,’ and keeping up the notice for many days in succession; exhorting also your friends ‘Come to the point, but don’t camp on it,’ and these things hinder a friend from opening his soul. For there are many points upon which it is excellent to camp, and chief among them the nature of the good.
‘“‘I see everywhere around me refreshing signs of a growing interest in the Greeks on the part of the Americans. You have taken an extreme interest in the Olympic Games. Your young men love to band themselves into brotherhoods and fraternities named after the letters of our Greek alphabet, while older men band themselves together in a Klan with a Greek name, when they would reform the general polity. I very greatly hope, Men of Hootsville, that it is not true, as your critics allege, that you are so careless and ignorant of Greek things that to you anything Greek is mysterious, and that these associations desire only to suggest secrecy and bewilderment when they name themselves with Greek names. Now we Greeks rightly understand liberty, for liberty is of the seas and of the mountains, and Greece has both indeed but Iowa neither. And your need in Iowa is for more Greeks to teach you (vigorous dissent).
‘“‘More Greeks to help you to discover justice and the rule of reason, O men of Hootsville, about which you know nothing (interruption). For great things are here in issue, the greatest of those that are in our control. Much indeed of our human lot we cannot control. Consider how the poets speak concerning the Fates, how the three sisters sit, the one Clotho spinning the stuff of our human lives, and the next Lachesis, mixing the strands and measuring off the lengths, while the last, Atropos, cuts them with her dreaded shears. Men of Hootsville, we must all accept what the Fates send us, as they sit eternally weaving their varied combinations. If I may use your term, you must all do business with these three sisters. In the end you will find you cannot stand out against them.’” But at that,’ said Agathon, ‘there was a great uproar and they refused to listen any more, though Socrates had by no means reached even the middle of his address, and was but making a preliminary distinction.
‘No self-respecting American business citizen, declared the President, red with anger, would have anything to do with a concern so out of date in factory methods as were these three sisters. Did their visitor know that they in Hootsville and everywhere else in the States, had machines which spun, measured, and cut thread in the single operation. And here there were three women employed all the time on what their American machine could do with a hundredth part of the time and effort. To come to a go-ahead community with such a fool proposition was an insult. Hootsville did not fear the competition of these Fates. Hootsville had been insulted as Chicago would not have been, just because Hootsville had not quite overhauled Chicago yet in population. But he could tell their visitor that that was coming, and would like to warn him that if he went on travelling on commission for these Fates and their underwear garments he had better quit advertising the obsolete process or he’d be railroaded out of every decent town. And it was time for everyone to hurry back to business.’