12-29-2012, 05:10 AM
Here is an argument in the republic on the virtues of injustice:
Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower
which may he a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that,
if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none,
but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if,
though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life
is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes
over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself.
I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the
vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle
and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But
I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often
difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless,
the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path
along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will
establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors
of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies;
and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful
gains and not be punished.
And again on mans nature:
my meaning will be most clearly seen
if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal
is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do
injustice are the most miserable --that is to say tyranny, which by
fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little
but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane,
private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating
any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace
--they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of
temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves.
But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made
slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed
happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of
his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure
injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because
they shrink from committing it.
And one of the arguments against it:
the just are clearly
wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are
incapable of common action; nay ing at more, that to speak as we did
of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not
strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have
laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have
been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine;
if there had not been they would have injured one another as well
as their victims; they were but half --villains in their enterprises;
for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have
been utterly incapable of action.
A quote about the virtues of being caught red handed so to speak, and corrected:
He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and
punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized;
the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected
and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom,
more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength
and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the
body.
There is also a tale told near the end of the republic about the afterlife, it begins like this and is quite long so if you search for it you can read it all:
I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus
tells to the hero Alcinous
And here is a proposed way to educate soldiers in the army of the state they are creating in their minds:
I will speak, although I really know not how to look you
in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which
I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the
soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their
youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received
from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they
were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves
and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were
completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country
being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise
for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens
they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.
Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower
which may he a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that,
if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none,
but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if,
though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life
is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes
over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself.
I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the
vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle
and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But
I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often
difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless,
the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path
along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will
establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors
of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies;
and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful
gains and not be punished.
And again on mans nature:
my meaning will be most clearly seen
if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal
is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do
injustice are the most miserable --that is to say tyranny, which by
fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little
but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane,
private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating
any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace
--they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of
temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves.
But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made
slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed
happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of
his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure
injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because
they shrink from committing it.
And one of the arguments against it:
the just are clearly
wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are
incapable of common action; nay ing at more, that to speak as we did
of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not
strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have
laid hands upon one another; but it is evident that there must have
been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine;
if there had not been they would have injured one another as well
as their victims; they were but half --villains in their enterprises;
for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have
been utterly incapable of action.
A quote about the virtues of being caught red handed so to speak, and corrected:
He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and
punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized;
the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected
and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom,
more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength
and health, in proportion as the soul is more honourable than the
body.
There is also a tale told near the end of the republic about the afterlife, it begins like this and is quite long so if you search for it you can read it all:
I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus
tells to the hero Alcinous
And here is a proposed way to educate soldiers in the army of the state they are creating in their minds:
I will speak, although I really know not how to look you
in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which
I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the
soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their
youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received
from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they
were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves
and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were
completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country
being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise
for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens
they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.