Unthinking treason
Jul. 9th, 2005 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbWe are at war.
The enemy has apologists among us, insisting that the war is our fault. That if we had not done this or that, our cities would not have been bombed and our people murdered.
These are propaganda lies, of course. The enemy knows that it is fighting, in so far as what it does is fighing, or doing whatever it is that it is doing of crime, underhanded violence, and violation of every law, because they hold it to be their duty to force the whole world under one law - theirs. Whatever actually unleashes any particular cycle of local violence is secondary. Our concept of war is strictly local and limited - war is declared, fought, won and lost, there is a peace treaty, and that is the end. Theirs is not: as long as there is one piece of land which does not acknowledge their law, war is an implicit condition, an open sentence, date left blank. Nazism and Communism were no different.
Both Nazism and Communism are defeated, but they left festering sores in the Western mind. The worst of these sores is a constant gnawing doubt as to the rightness, not just of any course of action, but of rightness itself. Both Communism and Nazism were relativistic. They both believed that my good may not be your good, my reason not your reason, and that therefore value judgments were made, and what is more were rightly made, not on grounds of abstract reason, but of group belonging - race, class.
The modern Westerner does not remember from whom he has learned to reject statements of right and wrong as being purely in the service of whoever makes them - this state, that party, that church group. But s/he still automatically thinks that way. S/he is programmed to doubt any scale of values; repeating, without realizing it, the radical Nazi and Communist critique of common reason and morality.
But there is a perverse result of this survival of Nazi/Communist premises in the world of the mind. The original Nazi and Communist creeds taught that it is right for you to think with your class or with your blood, to identify as right that which is advantageous to you. But both cults have been defeated, and defeated in such a manner that their teaching is invalidated. Nazism had promised military victory; it delivered catastrophe. Communism had promised equality, world peace, and universal prosperity; the only thing it ever delivered was military victory. From this, the intellectual successors of Nazism and Communism learned one thing: to think with your class or with your blood is delusive, dangerous, and murderous.
But they never learned that relativism is wrong. They only learned to turn the destructive relativist analysis against themselves - their nations, their social groups, their religion or party. They learned to fear as an open flame the moral doctrine that emanated from their own society. They learned to look at it as if it was the inevitable foundation of tyranny.
This is a sufficiently disastrous attitude at any time; at a time of war, it is treason and catastrophe. It means to doubt, or worse, whether your own cause is worth fighting for at all. It actually implies a presumptive doubt that the enemy may be right - implicit in the doubt that you are probably wrong - which chimes in wonderfully with the enemy's own conviction that they are indeed right; a conviction without which nobody ever starts a war.
Of course, this kind of thinking has limits. If you or your girlfriend are raped or beaten or even vaguely inconvenienced, it will never occur to you to wonder whether your viewpoint might be wrong and the rapist's or mugger's or inconveniencer's right. In fact, in private life this sort of person is often remarkably self-righteous; being incommodated can annoy her (or him) severely and with no shadow of comprehension for the opponent's position. But in situations that do not affect the private world of their affections, in situations that place us in a larger and more abstract moral world: then her/his moral compass fails completely. S/he becomes utterly blind to the different between aggressor and victim, encompassing them all in a feeling that has as much to do with contempt as with compassion, and as much with "why-won't-they-leave-me-alone" as with contempt.
I have found this feeling expressed in the following words: "And they still pretend the creation of the human species was not a major evolutionary aberration?" This, believe it or not, was intended as a comment on the London mass murder. So much for respect for the dead; they are a major evolutionary aberration. So much for distinction between innocent and guilty, between victims and murderers, between friend and enemy. In front of the urgent demand to choose sides, this person retreats into a general assertion that "the human race" is what is wrong. Why won't this damned human race leave me alone?
(The person who committed this statement to paper will no doubt feel ill-used at my taking it seriously. Poor misunderstood her. Let's all feel her pain, everybody.)
I am not an Englishman and never will be; being of one nation with Beccaria, Dante, Garibaldi and Verdi suits me just fine. But I am a Londoner; I have lived here almost half my life, and longer than in any other place; and in these last two days, my city has made me proud. I feel that in the face of this person's ill-considered outburst, of her plainly stated contempt for her fellow human beings, no answer is as eloquent as our calm in the face of assault, the hard and efficient work of the emergency services, the universal determination to go on with our lives and our work. For it shows that millions of Londoners feel that in their city, in their work, in their way of life, they have something of surpassing importance; something which they will defend, come what may, against whatever terror. Simply our way to be together, to be a city, a country, a civilization, matters to us enough to live and die for it. She may despise our common humanity; she may, when called upon to make a choice, simply want to withdraw from the scene of the struggle, and treat common humanity as if it was something alien and repulsive; but we will, if necessary, die for it - including hers.
The enemy have made themselves known; what they stand for, what they will do. We have equally shown ourselves for what we are, what we stand for, what we value, what we will and will not do. There is no notion of a common humanity here, only a choice between friend and foe. Anyone who sees a common bond between predator and prey, rapist and victim, mugger and mugged, murderer and corpse, is ultimately in bad faith, since her position objectively favours the aggressor. Anyone who, in the struggle of a home assaulted by alien forces and standing up for nothing more than the life and values we have always loved and followed (for the West is our common home, and it is the whole of the West which is under attack) finds refuge in a common notion of humanity - let alone a commonly despised one - is doing the work of the aggressor for him.
People like this sometimes appeal to the value of doubt, to philosophy, to the wisest being he who knows that he knows nothing. Very well. Let us see what that particular Wisest had to say about loving your heritage, patriotism, obeying democratic law, giving up your life for your country, and related matters. From Plato's CRITO:
Soc. Then consider the matter in this way : Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me : “Tell us, Socrates,” they say ; “what are you about ? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us — the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies ? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals ?” What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words ? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out ; and we might reply, “Yes ; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence.” Suppose I say that ?
Cr. Very good, Socrates.
Soc. “And was that our agreement with you ?” the law would say ; “or were you to abide by the sentence of the State ?” And if I were to express astonishment at their saying this, the law would probably add : “Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes : you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us what complaint you have to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the State ? In the first place did we not bring you into existence ? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage ?” None, I should reply. “Or against those of us who regulate the system of nurture and education of children in which you were trained ? Were not the laws, who have the charge of this, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic ?” Right, I should reply. “Well, then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you ? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us ; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands ? — you would not say this ? And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies ? And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are justified in this ? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding ? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not persuaded, obeyed ? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence ; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right ; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him ; or he must change their view of what is just : and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.” What answer shall we make to this, Crito ? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not ?
Cr. I think that they do.
Soc. Then the laws will say : “Consider, Socrates, if this is true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him ; and none of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong : first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents ; secondly, because we are the authors of his education ; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands ; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong ; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us ; that is what we offer, and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions ; you, above all other Athenians.” Suppose I ask, why is this ? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. “There is clear proof,” they will say, “Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service ; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other States or their laws : your affections did not go beyond us and our State ; we were your special favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you ; and this is the State in which you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment in the course of the trial — the State which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not grieved at death. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us, the laws, of whom you are the destroyer ; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question : Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only ? Is that true or not ?” How shall we answer that, Crito ? Must we not agree ?
Cr. There is no help, Socrates.
Soc. Then will they not say : “You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no laws), that you never stirred out of her : the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice ; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
“For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do, either to yourself or to your friends ? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably certain ; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighboring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well-governed cities, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men ? and is existence worth having on these terms ? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates ? And what will you say to them ? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men ? Would that be decent of you ? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed States to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and license, they will be charmed to have the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the fashion of runaways is — that is very likely ; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you violated the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life ? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper ; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things ; you will live, but how ? — as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men ; and doing what ? — eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue then ? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children, that you may bring them up and educate them — will you take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship ? Is that the benefit which you would confer upon them ? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from them ; for that your friends will take care of them ? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world they will not take care of them ? Nay ; but if they who call themselves friends are truly friends, they surely will.
“Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil ; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy ; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.”
The enemy has apologists among us, insisting that the war is our fault. That if we had not done this or that, our cities would not have been bombed and our people murdered.
These are propaganda lies, of course. The enemy knows that it is fighting, in so far as what it does is fighing, or doing whatever it is that it is doing of crime, underhanded violence, and violation of every law, because they hold it to be their duty to force the whole world under one law - theirs. Whatever actually unleashes any particular cycle of local violence is secondary. Our concept of war is strictly local and limited - war is declared, fought, won and lost, there is a peace treaty, and that is the end. Theirs is not: as long as there is one piece of land which does not acknowledge their law, war is an implicit condition, an open sentence, date left blank. Nazism and Communism were no different.
Both Nazism and Communism are defeated, but they left festering sores in the Western mind. The worst of these sores is a constant gnawing doubt as to the rightness, not just of any course of action, but of rightness itself. Both Communism and Nazism were relativistic. They both believed that my good may not be your good, my reason not your reason, and that therefore value judgments were made, and what is more were rightly made, not on grounds of abstract reason, but of group belonging - race, class.
The modern Westerner does not remember from whom he has learned to reject statements of right and wrong as being purely in the service of whoever makes them - this state, that party, that church group. But s/he still automatically thinks that way. S/he is programmed to doubt any scale of values; repeating, without realizing it, the radical Nazi and Communist critique of common reason and morality.
But there is a perverse result of this survival of Nazi/Communist premises in the world of the mind. The original Nazi and Communist creeds taught that it is right for you to think with your class or with your blood, to identify as right that which is advantageous to you. But both cults have been defeated, and defeated in such a manner that their teaching is invalidated. Nazism had promised military victory; it delivered catastrophe. Communism had promised equality, world peace, and universal prosperity; the only thing it ever delivered was military victory. From this, the intellectual successors of Nazism and Communism learned one thing: to think with your class or with your blood is delusive, dangerous, and murderous.
But they never learned that relativism is wrong. They only learned to turn the destructive relativist analysis against themselves - their nations, their social groups, their religion or party. They learned to fear as an open flame the moral doctrine that emanated from their own society. They learned to look at it as if it was the inevitable foundation of tyranny.
This is a sufficiently disastrous attitude at any time; at a time of war, it is treason and catastrophe. It means to doubt, or worse, whether your own cause is worth fighting for at all. It actually implies a presumptive doubt that the enemy may be right - implicit in the doubt that you are probably wrong - which chimes in wonderfully with the enemy's own conviction that they are indeed right; a conviction without which nobody ever starts a war.
Of course, this kind of thinking has limits. If you or your girlfriend are raped or beaten or even vaguely inconvenienced, it will never occur to you to wonder whether your viewpoint might be wrong and the rapist's or mugger's or inconveniencer's right. In fact, in private life this sort of person is often remarkably self-righteous; being incommodated can annoy her (or him) severely and with no shadow of comprehension for the opponent's position. But in situations that do not affect the private world of their affections, in situations that place us in a larger and more abstract moral world: then her/his moral compass fails completely. S/he becomes utterly blind to the different between aggressor and victim, encompassing them all in a feeling that has as much to do with contempt as with compassion, and as much with "why-won't-they-leave-me-alone" as with contempt.
I have found this feeling expressed in the following words: "And they still pretend the creation of the human species was not a major evolutionary aberration?" This, believe it or not, was intended as a comment on the London mass murder. So much for respect for the dead; they are a major evolutionary aberration. So much for distinction between innocent and guilty, between victims and murderers, between friend and enemy. In front of the urgent demand to choose sides, this person retreats into a general assertion that "the human race" is what is wrong. Why won't this damned human race leave me alone?
(The person who committed this statement to paper will no doubt feel ill-used at my taking it seriously. Poor misunderstood her. Let's all feel her pain, everybody.)
I am not an Englishman and never will be; being of one nation with Beccaria, Dante, Garibaldi and Verdi suits me just fine. But I am a Londoner; I have lived here almost half my life, and longer than in any other place; and in these last two days, my city has made me proud. I feel that in the face of this person's ill-considered outburst, of her plainly stated contempt for her fellow human beings, no answer is as eloquent as our calm in the face of assault, the hard and efficient work of the emergency services, the universal determination to go on with our lives and our work. For it shows that millions of Londoners feel that in their city, in their work, in their way of life, they have something of surpassing importance; something which they will defend, come what may, against whatever terror. Simply our way to be together, to be a city, a country, a civilization, matters to us enough to live and die for it. She may despise our common humanity; she may, when called upon to make a choice, simply want to withdraw from the scene of the struggle, and treat common humanity as if it was something alien and repulsive; but we will, if necessary, die for it - including hers.
The enemy have made themselves known; what they stand for, what they will do. We have equally shown ourselves for what we are, what we stand for, what we value, what we will and will not do. There is no notion of a common humanity here, only a choice between friend and foe. Anyone who sees a common bond between predator and prey, rapist and victim, mugger and mugged, murderer and corpse, is ultimately in bad faith, since her position objectively favours the aggressor. Anyone who, in the struggle of a home assaulted by alien forces and standing up for nothing more than the life and values we have always loved and followed (for the West is our common home, and it is the whole of the West which is under attack) finds refuge in a common notion of humanity - let alone a commonly despised one - is doing the work of the aggressor for him.
People like this sometimes appeal to the value of doubt, to philosophy, to the wisest being he who knows that he knows nothing. Very well. Let us see what that particular Wisest had to say about loving your heritage, patriotism, obeying democratic law, giving up your life for your country, and related matters. From Plato's CRITO:
Soc. Then consider the matter in this way : Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me : “Tell us, Socrates,” they say ; “what are you about ? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us — the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies ? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals ?” What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words ? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out ; and we might reply, “Yes ; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence.” Suppose I say that ?
Cr. Very good, Socrates.
Soc. “And was that our agreement with you ?” the law would say ; “or were you to abide by the sentence of the State ?” And if I were to express astonishment at their saying this, the law would probably add : “Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes : you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us what complaint you have to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the State ? In the first place did we not bring you into existence ? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage ?” None, I should reply. “Or against those of us who regulate the system of nurture and education of children in which you were trained ? Were not the laws, who have the charge of this, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic ?” Right, I should reply. “Well, then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you ? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us ; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands ? — you would not say this ? And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies ? And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are justified in this ? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding ? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not persuaded, obeyed ? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence ; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right ; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him ; or he must change their view of what is just : and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.” What answer shall we make to this, Crito ? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not ?
Cr. I think that they do.
Soc. Then the laws will say : “Consider, Socrates, if this is true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him ; and none of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong : first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents ; secondly, because we are the authors of his education ; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands ; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong ; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us ; that is what we offer, and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions ; you, above all other Athenians.” Suppose I ask, why is this ? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. “There is clear proof,” they will say, “Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service ; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other States or their laws : your affections did not go beyond us and our State ; we were your special favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you ; and this is the State in which you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment in the course of the trial — the State which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not grieved at death. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us, the laws, of whom you are the destroyer ; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question : Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only ? Is that true or not ?” How shall we answer that, Crito ? Must we not agree ?
Cr. There is no help, Socrates.
Soc. Then will they not say : “You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no laws), that you never stirred out of her : the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice ; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
“For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do, either to yourself or to your friends ? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably certain ; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighboring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well-governed cities, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men ? and is existence worth having on these terms ? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates ? And what will you say to them ? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men ? Would that be decent of you ? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed States to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and license, they will be charmed to have the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the fashion of runaways is — that is very likely ; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you violated the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life ? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper ; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things ; you will live, but how ? — as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men ; and doing what ? — eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue then ? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children, that you may bring them up and educate them — will you take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship ? Is that the benefit which you would confer upon them ? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from them ; for that your friends will take care of them ? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world they will not take care of them ? Nay ; but if they who call themselves friends are truly friends, they surely will.
“Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil ; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy ; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.”
