Plato's American Republic

‘Does it not seem to you, O Lysis and Phaelon, that these Americans suffer many grievous evils, and do not know where they are, and may truly be called Atlantis, the Lost Continent?’

‘Lost, indeed, Socrates,’ answered Lysis, ‘and I pity them, though it is largely their own fault.’

‘And do you not think,’ I asked, ‘that education might help them, if it were begun when they were quite young and kept up till thirty-five?’

‘It would be worth trying,’ they said, ‘but not safe to stop at thirty-five.’

‘You remember,’ I continued, ‘how in our ideal State we used to agree that there must be a guardian class chosen from those of the best natures and trained up to watch over the life of the state and to govern the ordinary citizens.’

‘Yes, Socrates.’

‘But it seems plain that in America the duties of these guardians, such as suppressing and encouraging opinions and the like, have been usurped by manufacturers and people of that sort who ought never to be given any power at all.’

‘Such is the unhappy truth in America.’

‘We must therefore educate a guardian class for the Americans who shall drive these usurpers from their position of influence and lead the Americans towards wisdom.’

‘We must.’

‘And shall we draw our guardians from men or from women?’

‘As it is America, from women,’ suggested Phaelon.

‘I agree,’ I said, ‘we will make women guardians, for we are desperate and the proverb speaks truly:—

And we will do so for several reasons. For in the first place such an arrangement will seem natural to the Americans themselves, and the poet has well written:

‘And secondly the women live longer and we shall be able to train them more thoroughly. And thirdly, the women show some interest in philosophy, while the men are hopeless. For the women think they know something when in fact they know nothing, but the men are not even aware that there is anything to know. And fourthly the women are accustomed to leisure, and do not fear or despise it, for the men have passed it on to them, not knowing what to do with it themselves.’

‘But there is a better reason than any of these,’ said Agathon.

‘What is that?’ asked Lysis.

‘Why, that the American women are exceedingly agreeable when they are young. Or did you not think so, Socrates?’

‘I did think so,’ I said, ‘and though I did not mention it, I will confess it was the chief reason. They are not so attractive as our Grecian youths, indeed, but they are attractive all the same. For in America the individuals, both youths and maidens and women, but chiefly the maidens, are full of lovableness and goodwill when they are young, but are very quickly brought under the tyranny of propaganda and betrayed by riches and the sense of efficiency into a false valuing of what is to be aimed at in living.’

‘Begin quickly,’ said Agathon, ‘and let us see you open this college for young women, for I take it from what you say you would not wish Xantippe to control so important a matter.’

‘By the dog, no,’ I cried.

‘Then,’ said Agathon, ‘let us found our college.’

‘By all means,’ I said, ‘but first let us see whether any of the existing universities and colleges will be of any use to us, for there are many hundreds of them.’

‘Indeed, Socrates,’ said Lysis in surprise, ‘many hundred colleges? I should not have supposed there were any at all.’

I had been of this opinion, and I said: ‘I had not supposed so either, for I thought no educated person would be willing to listen to Xantippe, but I soon learned the answer to my puzzle, for nothing is easier in America than to attend college and nothing harder than to get educated.’

‘It seems certain that we shall have to change much,’ said Lysis.

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘for at present they educate the men and the women together though they are going to do different work afterwards and so should receive a different training.’

‘Yes,’ they said, ‘we must alter that, and not educate any more of the men.’

‘That will go far to solve one of our problems, for at present the chances of education are destroyed by the numbers of the students, and the Americans think it finer to give a smattering of information to everybody than to give education to a few, and talk with pride of the preposterous numbers that pass through their colleges.’

‘If there are so many students, Socrates,’ asked Phaelon, ‘is there not a great body of teachers? What part do they play in America and could not they be the guardians?’

‘Why,’ I said, ‘of all who suffer from the present ill-ordered life there, none suffer more than do these teachers. But if you will be patient with me I will describe how they live.’

‘Proceed, Socrates.’

‘To begin with, does it not seem to you that those who separate themselves so sharply from the popular outlook and embrace the pursuit of learning rather than that of wealth will be no ordinary Americans, but will either be above or below their fellow citizens.’

‘It would seem so, indeed,’ they answered.

‘The best,’ I said, ‘are much above their fellows and seek this life from a noble love of noble things. Do you know what happens to a great number of such men in America?’

‘What?’ they asked with apprehension.

‘You do well to look frightened,’ I said gravely. ‘They are made Presidents of universities and colleges, and after that there is no peace for them at all. But they are compelled to spend all their time like the generals of disorderly and worthless troops, organizing the great numbers of their students and providing useless courses for countless blockheads. Moreover, they are driven to associate with the men of commerce and to flatter them for their great wealth.’

‘Why in the world should they have to do that?’ Lysis demanded.

‘To make the college bigger,’ I replied. ‘For the Americans estimate a President by his power to obtain benefactions and so to build new wings and offices, and leave a larger institution than he found. They are soon to build in America the tallest university in the world. And there is a worse consequence even than this waste of fine men in presidential duties.’

‘What can be worse than that?’

‘Why,’ I said, ‘with all the colleges competing for the gifts of rich men will not those colleges obtain most whose teachers teach what the rich men like to have believed?’

‘Naturally.’

‘And where a college has much to hope from wealthy persons will it not hesitate to lose large sums of money rather than discourage free inquiry into everything?’

‘I think it will do more than hesitate, it will sacrifice the inquiries for the gold.’

‘Indeed,’ I said, ‘it often happens, and the teachers do not dare to discuss freely the most important matters. But they are fearful of the opinion of the prosperous and they dread the crowd as no philosopher ought to do. They are careful not to examine closely into the deepest questions of all touching morality and the nature of the gods. They are equally afraid of the question how wealth should be divided and how the state should behave to private riches. So that in the one place where you might hope to see the existing system examined freely, you do not find any such free spirit of questioning, but a nervous desire to give satisfaction to the powerful element of society.’

‘Rich men can avail much,’ said Lysis, ‘though they be base, mechanical fellows.’

‘Why,’ I replied, ‘did I not say a moment ago that some who embraced academic life were above their fellows but others indeed beneath?’

‘Yes,’ they said.

‘And you did not understand me?’

‘No.’

‘Why,’ I said, ‘I meant that many embrace teaching not from any high-minded aloofness to commerce or love of knowledge, but because it is the easiest employment they can find and they shirk the labour of business life. Such men are not really students at all, and spend their lives repeating over and over the small stock of information they gathered in early life. These inferior teachers live the life of donkeys or mules working a water-wheel, treading for ever round and round the same narrow course after they have once learned how the routine goes.’

At which Lysis exclaimed: ‘Truly a miserable existence.’

‘Wretched, indeed,’ echoed Agathon, ‘and one that does more harm than good, for the majority of their students despise them, rightly guessing that they would be prosperous business men if they knew how it was done, and so the things of the mind are brought into dishonour.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we must not blame the teachers that they avoid an unequal contest. For already they have sacrificed much to pursue their calling. Moreover a noble minority strives as bravely as did Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans, preferring all sacrifices before servitude to the barbarian hosts. But these men will agree with us.’

‘Will most of the teachers be with us?’ asked Lysis.

‘Alas,’ I said, ‘the most part of the teachers are not valiant.’

‘What do they fear,’ asked Phaelon, ‘for they know that they will never become at all like Crœsus. It is not a happy thing to be like Crœsus.’

‘No, Phaelon,’ I said. ‘They have no great ambition, as it seems to me. Rather are they driven by fear. They fear, Phaelon, what the rich will do to them.’

‘What?’

‘They might take away their cars. For they have bought cars for which they have not paid, promising to do so by a life of labour. And the rich might take them away. Then, indeed, the poor teachers would have to become philosophers of the Peripatetic School.’

‘They would not love you, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘if they heard you speak unfeelingly like that.’

‘As it is,’ I answered, ‘they do not love the Greeks, and do not think a knowledge of Greece anything but a strange superfluity. They do not consider it a necessity at all.’

‘Then we will not allow such people to teach in our ideal America,’ exclaimed Lysis, hotly.

‘Indeed no,’ I said, ‘for in our college we will have no necessity for a large staff, and so we will not have any of these sham teachers lowering the dignity of learning.’

‘That will be a great gain.’

‘There are already some small colleges in America which can help us.’

‘How so?’

‘Why, they are colleges that deliberately limit their numbers. Often they refuse to train more than five hundred students at a time.’

‘Five hundred students!’ echoed Lysis—‘you call that a small number.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but the Americans do, and if you had been among them you would realize that it is indeed a heroic sacrifice that they make in opposing the common tendency and remaining small.’

‘And how are they to help us?’

‘Why, in the first place we shall find, I think, the best material for our guardians among the pupils there, and secondly we can use these colleges as nurseries and training grounds for assistants for our guardians. Or do you not think they will need assistants in their task of giving a changed outlook to the Americans?’

‘Indeed, yes, Socrates.’

‘And another thing we will altogether change is the great variety of the instruction. For that the Americans have no idea of the purpose of education is seen in the way they provide courses of instruction in everything, even in the things that will only fit a man for low and base employments. The student hurries from course to course and becomes acquainted with the preliminaries of many studies but is advanced in none.’

‘We will keep our guardians to a few studies,’ said Lysis.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and they will have to be very different studies.’

‘What will be the first great change?’ he asked.

‘Why,’ I answered, ‘as it seems to me, the first thing to destroy is their superstitious reverence for what they call facts and their contempt for ideas. For they will often talk as if ideas were less real than facts, instead of more real.’

‘What are these facts?’

‘They may be anything. Lists of names, and long technical words are accepted as facts. The biggest fact is the Divine Fact, Progress, which they worship.’

‘Might not that be called an idea?’

‘You might say so, Lysis,’ I answered, ‘but I would advise you not to do so, for the Americans dearly love Progress and will not tolerate your insults.’

‘Is not evolution another favourite fact?’ asked Agathon.

‘Why,’ I said, ‘some cherish it as much as Progress, of which they say that it is the explanation. But others say that Progress presides over the Americans by the special wish of the divine powers, as a reward for their virtues. And these say evolution is a lie. But neither party will be content to say it is a theory.’

‘And facts are what they teach in their colleges?’ asked Phaelon.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for they have heard that knowledge is power, and they desire power, and they think that knowledge consists of information.’

‘I have seen them myself, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘running about as students, boasting of the number of courses they could take and of the daily information that they could gather into notebooks.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they are complacent, and are sure that when they have information they will instinctively act wisely and well. For we must remember that in a democracy men love to think they themselves are deciding the great questions of life and of the State. And in America they are very much on their dignity in this, being resolved to judge for themselves from the facts, of which they love to speak, and not to value the opinion of each other.’

‘Except of experts, Socrates,’ said Agathon.

‘Indeed, they value experts because experts, they think, know the facts. And so two rules are to be observed carefully by all who would make the Americans think one thing rather than another. First you must call yourself an expert and second you must call everything you say the facts.’

‘And then all will go well with you?’ asked Lysis.

‘Indeed, yes, for none of them know anything about the matters in hand and so they are prepared to hear that the facts are anything in the world.’

‘Well, Socrates,’ said Phaelon, ‘it sounds to me a fine pastime to go persuading these great herds of barbarians that Persians are finer people than Greeks.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they could easily be made to believe that or any other piece of nonsense.’

‘Would it not be fun?’ said Phaelon eagerly. ‘I must do it. Nor will I fear the perils of the country. I will go boldly among them as becomes a Greek, resisting their hold-up men with my sword and opposing their cars with my shield.’

‘You must take care,’ I said, ‘that they do not fell you from behind with a card-index.’

‘Card-index?’ said Phaelon; ‘what weapon is that?’

‘It is more than a weapon to the Americans,’ I said: ‘it is everything. It is the symbol of their way of life and they intend shortly to put it on all their coins, and stamps. It is like a plank to a drowning sailor, for by its means they survive in the great heaving oceans of facts with which they would otherwise be overwhelmed. Or you may think of them as a nation of Ariadnes.’

‘That is certainly a more pleasant picture,’ said Agathon, ‘and for my part I will take care to think of them like that. For as Ariadne had a thread whereby her lover might find his way out of the Labyrinth, so have the Americans card-indexes to prevent themselves from getting wholly lost in the modern world.’

At this Phaelon exclaimed: ‘I should dearly love to see what was inside a card-index.’

‘That would not be easy,’ I answered. ‘For they are compiled with great solemnity and reverence and are the nearest things in America to sacred objects. The ritual of compilation is the chief way of practising efficiency and so of worshipping Progress.’

‘But what is on the cards?’ insisted Lysis.

‘The most sacred things of all—entrancing statistics and The Facts, and all the things that Modern Science teaches.’

‘Tell us, Socrates, who is this Modern Science?’

‘A divine priestess,’ I answered, ‘who is invoked in all difficulties, whose words are received with great reverence, and that though her oracles are more than usually incomprehensible and fickle and her words long and horrible. But she is dear to the Americans because she speaks principally about machines, and tells them there shall be more and more of them, and an increasing number of parts in each.’

‘And does she speak true things?’ demanded Lysis.

‘She knows about machines and the substances of the earth, and so the Americans find her “practical,” a word of supreme praise, and in consequence are forever seeking to make her speak on other matters where she has no gift of utterance. They seek encouragement in their beliefs about themselves and insist upon an answer about their race till in self-defence she takes refuge in gibberish.’

‘That is a disappointment to them,’ said Lysis.

‘In no wise,’ I answered, ‘for each can twist her answer to his desires. And she is surrounded by people crying that they have heard her voice and they alone, and using her authority for their own views. It is from this babble of tongues that the facts for the card-indexes are derived. But we will train our guardians never to use such things and to consider them only fit for slaves.’

‘We will,’ they said.

‘For their studies will not be the acquisition of information, which is a training in acquisitiveness and due to the hunger of their souls for quantity. They acquire information as a second best until they can acquire wealth. But our guardians will study those matters which satisfy the reason and those which elevate the soul. Now these studies are many.’

‘You have described such studies many times, Socrates,’ said they all.

‘And do you not agree?’

‘We agree,’ said they all again.

‘And shall we,’ I asked them next, ‘permit our guardians to live in sisterhoods and sororities as they like to do to-day?’

‘Do the young American women live much in sisterhoods?’ asked Phaelon, ‘for I have read of sisterhoods and of convents, and the great principle of the life is to have nothing whatever to do with men.’

I reassured Phaelon. ‘An American sorority is not at all like that. But I think we shall have to say that no men may go near these sororities where we are training our guardians, at least till our guardians have reached thirty-five. For the men are a great distraction.’

‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘we don’t want any young American men, for they are excellent to carry out what they are told but they will never make philosophers. They will correspond indeed to that warrior class which you provided for in your ideal state, but there will be this difference that they will not often be called upon to fight and that their chief duties will be in the ordinary administration, arranging for food and other necessities, and holding the various positions in commerce.’

‘Is commerce still to continue?’ said Phaelon.

‘We must allow it,’ I said, ‘the Americans being what they are, but we will take care that it receives no particular honour.’

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but how are we to keep the women from the men?’

‘We must bring them all to Athens,’ I said.

At this Agathon leaned forward eagerly and exclaimed: ‘And it is agreed that I am to select the guardians, and I will bring them to Athens and will myself superintend their training. And when we get a new generation I will superintend the later stages of their training, from fifteen to thirty-five, while you, Socrates, who are so patient and good with the young shall take charge of them till they are fifteen.’

‘Indeed,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I consider that as settled.’

‘But I am troubled with a difficulty,’ said Lysis, ‘and one which may put out all Agathon’s fine plans, for I do not see how we can educate them in Athens.’

‘How not?’ said Agathon angrily.

‘Why,’ said Lysis, ‘if they come here they will meet the Greek men and will see that there are beings much superior to themselves and lose their belief in themselves, and fall into despair and pine away.’

‘We will unbend,’ said Agathon.

‘Even so, my excellent friend,’ I said, ‘I think Lysis speaks truly: it will not be good for guardians to grow up among people so much superior to themselves. For they will have to rule a race of untravelled and completely self-confident people, and they will never do it if they are doubtful of themselves.’

‘I can loosen the knot of difficulty,’ said Agathon: ‘I will build my college a little way out of Athens, and when you come to give them your instructions you shall be concealed by a partition and I will say you are the gods themselves. Nay, there is a machine called the broadcast in use in America itself which enables men to practise useful deceptions of that kind.’

‘I think not, my friends,’ I said. ‘They have suffered already from being told that too abundantly, and I think it will be best to tell them a myth while they are in their cradles, saying they are the children of the people of Atlantis, and the sisters in some sort of the Greeks.’

‘Better say cousins,’ corrected Agathon.

‘The cousins, then, of the Greeks. And then they shall learn with the pride of our own youth and maidens both gymnastic and music and all the other studies which we agreed to be necessary for our guardians.’

Here Lysis said: ‘There is still one small matter to be resolved: How are you going to get your guardians, and the first supply of young girls to train? For their men will not part with them.’

‘That is easy,’ I said, ‘as they are Americans, and the men do not control the women.’

Lysis looked puzzled: ‘But surely the mothers control the daughters, at any rate when they are very young.’

‘Why, no,’ I said, ‘that rarely happens either. We will invite such of the young girls as seem to us to be the best endowed by nature and to be likely to make good guardians and to be susceptible of education, no matter whether they be five or fifteen, and they will come if we convince them, whatever the parents may think. For I assure you that their parents have no power over them at all.’

‘Really, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘I cannot believe that some of these great women of the Middle West do not rule their children by terror as well as their husbands.’

‘If we find that to be so,’ I said, ‘and some of the presidents of these Women’s Clubs are indeed so overpowering that it may well prove to be the case, we can easily convince the parents by a few statistics. We will tell them that the liver corrodes and that metabolism is inhibited unless the years from fifteen to thirty-five are spent in Athens. And as that will be Science that we are telling them they will send their children to Athens. For they all honestly desire the well-being of their children, even those who are permanent presidents of their clubs.’

‘We may take it, then, O Socrates,’ said Agathon, eagerly, ‘that the young women will be here soon.’

‘And when they are here,’ I said, ‘they shall live in sororities as they do to-day. And I think their present sororities are a foreshadowing of their life here, and that now they do what they can, but live in a dark cave compared with the bright sunlight of their coming existence. To-day they know little Greek, three letters being the general standard, but soon they will speak and think in Greek all the time.’

‘And when we have educated them,’ asked Lysis, ‘will it be a difficult matter for them to obtain authority to rule in America?’

‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘it will be easy if they have enough money.’

‘That will be easy,’ I said, ‘for they will be trained to consider it their duty that each of them marries a millionaire.’

‘They will find that easy,’ said Agathon, ‘for I will be careful to instruct them in the arts of courtship.’

Lysis then asked: ‘But when they have these funds at their command, what will be the quickest way for them to persuade the ordinary Americans to accept their rule?’

‘Why,’ I said, ‘they must proclaim a Philosophy Week, for these weeks are not expensive to buy and they give you the right to worry people for seven days.’

‘And what shall they say?’ asked Phaelon.

‘It will be simple enough,’ I said. ‘They must announce a new way to national and individual prosperity. For prosperous peoples are forever looking for ways to prosperity. And the adjective new recommends anything.’

‘And then, Socrates?’

‘And then they must proclaim that Philosophy is the key to Bigger and Better Business, and must tell the story of Thales, who was a philosopher and easily outwitted the men of commerce of his day, amassing a fortune in olive presses.’

‘But Thales lived long ago.’

‘That must be kept dark,’ I said; ‘but the story will throw a new light on philosophy and if the propaganda is well done every progressive business house will add to its staff a philosopher from Greece. And our guardians must go about persuading the women that there will be no real progress till Congressmen are philosophers or philosophers Congressmen.’

‘Why yes, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you shall yourself question the aspirants for Congress and say which are truly philosophers and the guardians will persuade the populace not to vote for any of the others. And you shall select trusty Greeks who will hand over power to the guardians.’

‘It will take the fortunes of many husbands,’ I said, ‘but in the end the guardians will control the central government, and then they can do what they like with the country, and make brave changes and substitute a noble rule for an ignoble one.’

‘It is important to lose no time,’ said Agathon, ‘in bringing the maidens to Athens. For the sake of saving the Americans,’ he added.