Vanishing American

This discussion concerning the transformation of democracy into tyranny comes from the Imperfect Societies section. Plato’s “Republic” is staged as a conversation between Socrates and several other Greeks.

Socrates: “Then does not democracy set itself an objective and is not excessive desire for this its downfall?

Glaucon: “And what is this objective?”

“Liberty. You must have heard it said that this is the greatest merit of a democratic society and that for that reason it’s the only society fit for a man of free spirit to live in.”

“It’s certainly what they often say.”

“Then, as I was just saying, an excessive desire for liberty at the expense of everything else is what undermines democracy and leads to the demand for tyranny.”

“Explain.”

“A democratic society in its thirst for liberty may fall under the influence of bad leaders, who intoxicate it with excessive quantities of the neat spirit; and then, unless the authorities are very mild and give it a lot of liberty, it will curse them for oligarchs and punish them.”

“This is just what a democracy does.”

“It goes on to abuse as servile and contemptible those who obey the authorities and reserve its approval, in private life as well as public, for rulers who behave like subjects and subjects who behave like rulers. In such a society the principle of liberty is bound to go to extremes, is it not?”

“It certainly is.”

“What is more it will permeate private life and in the end infect even the domestic animals with anarchy.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well it becomes the thing for the father and son to change places, the father standing in awe of his son, and the son neither respecting nor fearing his parents, in order to assert what he calls his independence; and there’s no distinction between citizen and alien and foreigner.”

“Yes, these things do happen.”

“They do and there are other more trivial things. The teacher fears and panders to his pupils, who in turn despise their teachers and attendants; and the young as a whole imitate their elders, argue with them and set themselves up against them, while their elders try to avoid the reputation of being disagreeable or strict by aping the young and mixing with them on terms of easy good fellowship.”

“All very true.”

“The extreme popular liberty is reached in this kind of society when slaves, male and female, have the same liberty as their owners –not to mention the complete equality and liberty in the relations between the sexes.”

“Let’s have the whole story while we’re at it…”

“Right, you shall. You would never believe –unless you had seen it for yourself -how much more liberty the domestic animals have in a democracy. The dog comes to resemble its mistress, as the proverb has it, and the same is true of the horses and the donkeys as well. They are in the habit of walking about the streets with grand freedom, and bump into people they meet if they don’t get out of their way. Everything is full of this spirit of liberty.”

“You’re telling me! I’ve often suffered from it on my way out of town.”

“What it all adds up to is this: you find that the minds of the citizens become so sensitive that the least vestige of restraint is resented as intolerable till finally, as you know, in their determination to have no master they disregard all laws, written or unwritten.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, this is the root from which tyranny springs; a fine and vigorous beginning.”

Yupp