Thoughts on Socrates

I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the “academic standards” and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.

“Elucidate Glaucon’s views on the common man’s views on justice. Compare the life of a just and honest historical personality with that of an unjust one. Explain your views with the aid of one or more examples from world history. Who do you think leads a better life?”

Glaucon was Plato’s younger brother. In Plato’s The Republic, Plato portrays Glaucon as the youth of the times. His character was painted such that he personified the pragmatic , smug and self-opiniated youth.

Glaucon was of the opinion that “to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice is naturally bad.” People, naturally, want to behave in a selfish and self-indulgent way all the time, even at the sufferings of other poor souls. They do not want the sufferers to get back at them, because being at the receiving end of injustice is absolutely unacceptable to them (to all, in fact). Thus, both the parties arrive at an agreement whereby both neither do injustice nor suffer it. This is a sort of compromise. People do not want to live with this compromise, but neither do they want others to get full power of performing injustice.

This brings us to Glaucon’s next point. He says that “those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice.” This is the most exotic conclusion, I thought, any philosopher could have ever reached. However, on closer inspection, it seems perfectly true. We mere mortals do not possess the power to do whatever our psyche tells us. We are afraid of our parents, our friends, the social authorities, the law of the land. Well, there are psychotics who are not bothered by any of the above. So, society developed an omnipresent guardian – god – to watch over all wrongdoers. When little children go to school, they are given text books full of moralistic stories. I remember a story in which a group of kids go on to steal cookies from a neighbor’s kitchen, and the boy who was keeping a watch cried out. When he was asked by the kids the reason, he said sagely that “God was watching.” In that particular situation, the kids had complete power to steal – there was no one watching. Yet, one child, programmed by his authorities not to do such things because a powerful source is always watching, played spoilsport. But this case has a caveat. If god was the ever powerful being, then what about the atheists? Would they be free to do anything? Well, the vanguards of society found an answer to that also. They created a phantom object – the conscience. If god won’t bother you, then your conscience definitely will. All of these are efforts to undermine the wild imagination of humans, and to make them follow the path of justice.

Then those who follow the just path also run the risk of ridicule. If one is presented with an opportunity to further one’s cause, and if that person passes it up in order to follow the just path, then that person will become the object of public ridicule. The crowds will regard him as a coward. The best example is of a student from my class. He gives the most politically correct answer to the questions asked in class. Once, when another student gave him a hundred rupee note and told him to do the ‘most just act’ he could do, he simply returned that note to the owner. His contention was that giving a lost property to its rightful owner is the most just thing to do. Needless to say, he became the number one bumpkin of our class. He raised the bar for stupidity. However, I asked him later, that if he found a hundred rupee note somewhere and no one’s watching, then what will he do with it? How will he find its ‘rightful owner’? He was silent this time.

This brings in to focus Glaucon’s third point. “No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private.” The student in question might have put up a great show of fair play when presented with money in public, but the question is, will he display the same equitableness when faced with a similar situation alone. The Page 3 socialites who adopt different NGOs do it to gain mileage with the press. Why do they require the camera to do some good? After the public eye is closed, the same ‘socially responsible citizens’ turn in to anti social elements while they drink and drive and mow down laborers. One good example that I can give is of the founder of Infosys Ltd., Mr. Narayan Murthy. His wife has set up the Infosys Foundation, a trust for the underprivileged. Now Mr. Murthy goes and donates two and a half million rupees (that’s 0.06 million dollars) to the Foundation. The media is there to give coverage to the event, the flashes his face on the front pages, calling him the most socially responsible entrepreneur. However, they remain ignorant of the fact that the Foundation is just a ‘money park’, a tax shelter. The same Foundation provides housing to the servants who work at the homes of high level Infosys executives. This way, the only beneficiaries are the Infosys executives, who don’t have to pay for their servants’ housing.

This is all wish-wash. We have had instances of entrepreneurs who have given away whole estates worth more than a hundred million to the local constituency, and even then remain anonymous. There is the British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson who is giving away more that two billion dollars annually for developing alternative jet fuel. And he is doing that even though he is the chairman of the Virgin Atlantic Airways. Nobody asked him to do it. He did this of his own volition. Now that’s what I call justice. Or magnanimity if you want.

This emphasizes the fact that Glaucon says – “People do not want to be just but want to be believed to be just.” History is rife with examples of poor farmers and dainty princesses living a life of hell, and of headstrong generals and crafty courtiers living in pure bliss. The just person is always the one to bear the brunt of any negative situation. The scheming ones will slip away by using their persuasive skills or high contacts and leave the just and honest ones to take full blow of the axe. The public at large pity the just and honest ones, but do not want such a life for themselves. Yet, they strive to be just and principled and delude themselves that they are always just. They want everyone only to believe that they are just. Who wants to live a life of hardship and blight? And even then, that belief is also a delusion.

We always equate hardship with justice. The difficult path is always the correct path. The road of vice begins beside you; while the road of virtue is across the mountain. Why is it that the just way of living of always less colorful. Why do we say that the just will get to sit beside god, while the evildoers will burn in hell. Who has seen it happen? Isn’t god one of our own creations? Why is it always necessary to be poor and live an ascetic life if you have to be just and honest and enlightened? Why is the way to get a billion dollars always an unjust path? Why aren’t the just and honest people the richest and the most powerful on this planet? Why is simple and just living so revered if it is so hard? Why do we follow the ‘correct’ path unwillingly if we almost always follow the wrong path? Why don’t we just interchange the labels of these paths?

The answers to these questions (may) lie in cultural programming. The way we are brought up and the stories we hear from our elders at a young and impressionable age conditions us to believe so. It is our elders who have glorified the just and
the honest. But we need not take their word for granted. We can think on our own, don’t we? We need not subscribe to the dogma and sham put up by society. It is completely okay if we live by the work hard and party harder mantra.

I personally believe that Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison did more good than Gandhi and Socrates and Karl Marx and other philosophers and religious gurus put together. Gandhi, to those who know him closely, understand him as a stubborn child who never grew up. Most of the other religious gurus and philosophers led very uninteresting lives. Maybe the people around them did not understand them at while they were alive. I think Socrates became ‘Socrates’ just because he gave up his life to stand by his ‘ideals’. And he was glorified to no end by the historians. But the two other examples – Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison – led legendary lives; in fact, Steve Jobs is leading a legendary life. But by all means they were not just, nor were they honest in all of their transactions. I think greatness in this life is much much more desirable than greatness in heaven (or the next life, if there is one).

Going by the definitions of a just person given by Socrates, a just and honest person should not do anything for honor and glory. Thus, if he ever achieves fame, without his/her volition, only then can that person be said to have led a successful and just life. So, the people who come to my mind who fit the bill are Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. There may be many more about whom I am ignorant. And I have purposely left out religious leaders out of this. And the people who led an unjust and successful life that come to my mind are Dhirubhai Ambani and Robert Mugabe. Now let us analyze why I have categorized them as such.

First the ‘unjust’ ones. Dhirubhai Ambani was a man of tremendous ambition and energy. He was born in a poor family. He did not want to remain poor. He used all means to increase his wealth. However, he often left corruption and low work ethics in his wake. By hook or by crook, he achieved his end. He enjoyed tremendous wealth in his lifetime. He had antagonized many; and he had made millionaires out of many.

Next is Robert Mugabe – the current President of Zimbabwe. Born to a carpenter, he rose rapidly through the ranks of the international intelligence agency KGB while getting eight degrees from the University of South Africa. He arranged massive coups to take over from the previous rulers of Zimbabwe. His Presidency comes at the cost of twenty thousand innocent lives which were massacred by his underground troops. He even ordered mass murders in 1983. Yet, now the country is having a GDP growth rate of twenty six percent year-on-year. This progress indicates that though Mugabe’s rise was marked by violence, his stay will be marked by hyper growth.

Now, let us have a look at the ‘just’ category. While Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, was a strong opponent of apartheid, he became a symbol of freedom and equality. He has been presented with more than four hundred awards, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize of 1993. Mother Teresa needs no introduction. She is the most respected, most loved person on this whole planet. It is said that when Mother speaks, the whole world listens. Even though she is no more now, the world’s respect to her has not faded an iota.

Now, what we understand from these four lives is that we need to live life on the extremes if we ever have to become successful. Either be totally unjust, have no regrets about doing unethical activities and just ram your way through to achieve your end; or be the most loving and principled person known. We need to attain biblical proportions in our behavior – we are either completely just or completely unjust. There is no room for mediocrity.

I wrote this probably in mid-January 2008 for PHI 210. I got 95 for this one. My teacher, Mrs. Aarti Walia, really appreciated my work. She complimented me by writing – “That was impressive. You couldnt have written better.” Thats all I needed to get more into this philostuff.