The Interregnum

As I surveyed my news outlets this morning (WSJ, NYT, Guardian, NPR), I suddenly found myself (as I am sure you found yourself) thinking  of Plato following the death of Socrates. Socrates had been right, had he not? Periclean democracy was a sham — an illustration of Gorgias’ fine art, rhetoric or speech-making: marketing.

SOCRATES: You said just now that even on matters of health the orator will be more convincing than the doctor.
GORGIAS: Before a mass audience – yes, I did.
SOCRATES: A mass audience means an ignorant audience, doesn’t it? He won’t be more convincing than the doctor before experts, I presume.
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Now, if he is more convincing than the doctor then does he turn out to be more convincing than the expert?
GORGIAS: Naturally.
SOCRATES: Not being a doctor, of course?
GORGIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And the non-doctor, presumably, is ignorant of what the doctor knows?
GORGIAS: Obviously.
SOCRATES: So when the orator is more convincing than the doctor, what happens is that an ignorant person is more convincing than the expert before an equally ignorant audience. Is this what happens?
GORGIAS: This is what happens in that case, no doubt. (459a-459b)

If Gorgias illustrates the fine art practiced by Athens’ politicians and if the Athenian courts are now packed with the ignorant who fall for Gorgias’ fine art, then clearly Socrates is at risk for publicizing his disdain for the politicians who will charge Socrates and the citizens who will weigh his innocence and guilt.

But I, like you, am not thinking about Socrates. I am thinking about Plato. When the political system is corrupt and when the judicial system is equally corrupt, how are the virtuous and wise to make their way in the world?

One way — Socrates’ way — has a bad ending. Clearly Plato rejects that path. Nor, however, does Plato wish to hold his tongue, stay low, and weather the storm. Instead, he gathers a group of trusted followers around him who, in effect, triangulate. They tell what Plato calls “noble lies,” “pretty stories” they have reason to believe citizens will swallow, but whose effect will be to encourage these citizens to do the right thing. The Guardians who tell these “noble lies” know, of course, that they are lies. But they also know that truth-telling will earn them the same fate as Socrates.

I, like you, woke up thinking of Plato because I am struck how similar he was to Hillary Clinton. It does her and us no good if, like, say, Bernie Sanders, she tells it like it is. She will be crucified. Does this then cast Bernie Sanders, the truth-teller, in the role of Socrates? Will he too be crucified? Are Ms Clinton’s noble lies then — wink, wink, nod, nod — simply the price of admission? Or does she actually believe them herself? Is she one of those who is fooled by Wall Street? If so, then she is neither wise nor virtuous.

The problem illustrates why republican institutions and values are so dependent on the virtue and wisdom of the electorate and why therefore institutions that cultivate virtue and wisdom are so essential to a well-functioning republic. In the absence of strong public institutions and broad economic independence, political actors are left with what are seemingly impossible choices: lie to win; truth-tell and lose.

Thucydides tells the story of what happened to Periclean Athens, how lying and deceit became an everyday practice, making Athens ripe for the kind of take-over contemplated by Phillip of Macedon; like shooting fish in a barrel. Is that what happens when the good guys are moved to lying and deceit simply to stay in the game?

I think I side with Socrates. I think he was right to speak directly even though it cost him dearly. I think that when Plato adopts the strategy of Gorgias (even though, unlike Gorgias, Plato is an expert who understands the lie); I think that Plato helps spoil the pond. Yet, this places Socrates in the unenviable position of being dead and right.

The fact that this increasingly is the alternative illuminates how desperate our situation is politically.