Plato's View on Democracy: Part I

I used to think that a democratic form of government was the very best form of government. The word and the form of government came to us from the Greeks. The words demos “people” and kratos “rule” come together to mean, literally, “rule by the people. A government ruled by the people for the people would seem like a good form of government, but Plato felt differently. He viewed a democracy as the surest path to totalitarianism.

In revealing Plato's views on democracy, I will touch on Plato’s works: Gorgias, Apology, and The Republic. A reminder, Plato writes in dialogues, often using real people as characters in his dialogues. Socrates is a prominent figure in many of Plato's Dialogues, including the three I will use in this post.

Two Points of Clarification:

A few points of clarification before going forward. Plato's views on democracy demand a modest understanding of his theory of forms and his view of the soul. Plato's theory of forms is a multi-layered abstract idea on ideas. A quick and woefully inadequate explanation is that forms are analogous ideas that guide our ideas. They flow out of Plato's view of knowledge as that which has always existed. Our job regarding knowledge is to re-remember it. Forms are non-contradictory true "forms" on certain positions. For example, the form of equal is unequivocally equal and does not possess anything in contradiction to equal. There is no unequal in the form of equal; there is only absolute equal. In our world, I may be equal to you in stature, but I will not be equal to the President. In the form of equal, there is only equal. You get the idea, at least enough to move forward.

Plato's view of the soul is vital as well. The soul, to Plato, is separate from the body and everlasting. The soul never dies and never deteriorates. Plato considers the soul the key to life. It should be the motive for our actions and thoughts. Plato wrote that the man who was tortured to death unjustly would be, ultimately, happier than the man who did the torturing. The soul is greatly influenced by the life lived. A poor life lived will have an adverse affect on the soul in the future. There is much more here, but our time is limited. The soul is key to Plato's views on democracy. I have only put one scratch on a huge surface regarding Plato, but for this post, it should provide just enough information to clarify Plato's views on democracy.

Plato and Democracy:

(I recently traveled to see my parents (six hours one way), and during that travel time I listened to one of my favorite pod casts, "The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps," by Peter Adamson,  ofLondon, England. My comments below are the result of listening to philosophy for the majority of the trip. It was a really long trip.)

The dialogue, Gorgias, was so named for the Sicilian sophist and rhetorician featured in the dialogue. Socrates, who is often at odds with many Sophists, spoke with Gorgias concerning the nature of rhetoric; in this dialogue, he compares it to philosophy. He also spoke with Gorgias’s pupil Polus, who was a rhetorician, concerning tyranny and the tyrant, and how the tyrant is truly the unhappiest of all people because of his own tyranny.

Polus contended that an unjust man, despite the crimes he has committed, is ultimately happy at the end of the day. Despite his unjust actions, which are clearly wrong, he has managed to become powerful, which Polus posited as the key to true happiness. Plato, through Polus, was proposing a correlation between power and happiness. The tyrant, he with the most power, is the happier man, considering he has not yet been defeated or suffered any punishment. Socrates countered with this notion; he contended that, among all "wretched men," it is the unjust and unpunished that are truly the unhappiest because their soul as been adversely affected by their tyranny.

Socrates, through Plato, emphasized throughout his dialogues that men should be concerned about the welfare of their soul. It was not at all unlike Socrates to suggest that a criminal who received punishment for his wrongdoing – correction of his evil action – would, in the end, be far happier than he who did not receive any punishment at all. Again, the focus here was the soul. Let us carry this thought back to the issue of democracy. As Socrates suggested in Gorgias, the criminal who does wrong without receiving any punishment would be the most wretched person of all and, ultimately, the unhappiest. What then, of a democracy, where the majority of people determine actions and policies?

What if, as a majority, the people decided to commit a heinous act, such as an unjustified war against another nation for the sake of land? Or, the people, in a majority, elected an unjust evil leader. Such actions would lead to death and suffering for a great many people. The majority would not judge or correct themselves, for they agreed collectively to partake in that chosen course of action. Once the collective decision was made the matter would be considered closed. As a democracy, the majority’s actions, if incorrect, would adversely affect the entirety of the state and its citizens. In comparison, the individual who was actually a tyrant inflicting evil would only pollute his own soul; a democracy that committed wrongdoing collectively would pollute the souls of everyone in the political process.

Does this mean a democracy is inherently evil? No, of course not, but it does not mean it is inherently good either, which is, currently, our problem. A democracy is a very fine balance of government dependent on many factors working un unison with each other. If one factor goes awry then that balance is lost and, the results are disastrous.

This is the end of Part I. Part II will come in a few days covering what happens when the fine balance of democracy goes awry.