I then explained to them as well as I could about the forty-eight
States that make up the United States, making it plain that each State
had its own government, but that there was also the Federal Government,
which had authority everywhere. And this they understood readily
enough, for the notion of a federation of communities was familiar to
them. I told them briefly of how originally there were North and South,
and of the Civil War, which was fought to establish the ascendancy
of the Federal Government, and I made it plain that that ascendancy
had grown greater to this day and that the State Governments had
become more and more unimportant. And I did not hide from them that
the choosing of parties and policies for the central assembly became
less and less a thing over which ordinary citizens had any control
at all, and that nowhere else in the world did the members so chosen
receive less respect or less truly represent the people electing them.
‘Yet,’ I said, ‘the Americans are extremely attached to their Central
Government, far more than they are to the governments of their own
States.’
Lysis pondered for some moments on these things, and then said: ‘Was
this a great civil war?’
‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘we Greeks have a high standard for such wars,
when Greek meets Greek. But for barbarians it was a stern struggle.’
‘And terrible in its results,’ I said, ‘as you will agree if you are
of my opinion that that Civil War was the most disastrous thing in the
history of the Americans, if it fastened on their necks so great a
mockery of popular government as is their central government.’
‘Assuredly they would not have fought for it if they had foreknown the
future,’ he said.
‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘most of them consider that it was the
turning point in their history, and they have made their chief hero of
the statesman who saved the Union.’
‘Why?’ asked Phaelon.
‘Because being one has made them big and strong, or rather big and
rich. Because the central government made commerce easier between men
in different States, and thus assisted the great development of the
country which has marked the years since the Civil War. In particular
the victory secured the market of the defeated States for the
manufacturers of the North. It is necessary to remember these things,
for in America it is the manufacturers and their wives who decide
what other people shall think, for among their other products they
manufacture public opinion.’
‘Come, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you forget your old friends the
preachers.’
‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I find the preachers have great influence. Yet they
only succeed in those matters where the manufacturers support them,
though the union of the two is irresistible.’
‘What would happen,’ asked Lysis, ‘if the preachers wished one thing
and the manufacturers another?’
‘That seldom happens,’ I said. ‘For the majority of preachers have
never been known to wage a campaign against any activities that are
thought desirable by the men of commerce, such as the prostitution
of the soul which is called salesmanship, or the concentration upon
business success which is called “making good.” But they attack those
pleasures of ordinary men, like gambling and drinking, which the
manufacturers will support them in attacking. For I verily believe
they think it worse to be a drunkard than to sell one’s soul for gold.
Nor is it difficult to understand how they have reached even such
absurdities as this.’
‘We are listening,’ they said.
‘Why, they hold that some sins might unfit a man to serve the Gods,
and in particular the God Progress, for they do not value all the gods
equally, and to Bacchus they will not agree to pay any honours at all.
Now, to those who think like that, a man will seem not wholly bad
though the reasonable part of his soul be subordinated to a shameless
desire for pelf, because such a man can play his part, and, indeed, be
a leader, in that industrial life, walking calmly among the whirring
wheels and running the machines whose buzz they consider a perpetual
song of praise to Progress. But a drunkard cannot safely assist at
these services.’
‘He might,’ said Agathon, ‘if he would not mind being caught up in the
wheels and immolated as a sacrifice, but I can well believe he sees
enough things going round as it is without going into factories to see
more.’
‘So the manufacturers,’ I resumed, ‘were strongly in favour of this
Civil War, and the preachers were with them. And these two parties make
up the minds of millions of people.’
‘It must be fine fun, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to make up so many minds
like that.’
‘Indeed they find it so, yet they must do it with care, for in many
matters they do not have the power of making the Americans think
absolutely anything they please, but only the power of making one out
of several opinions prevail. For they see the American soul like a ship
with full-bellied sails, going to one of several harbours, according
as the winds and currents drive it, and these manufacturers and these
preachers can decide on the harbour and drive that ship before their
mighty blasts and blowings, scattering away all contrary winds.’
At this Lysis looked very thoughtful, and then said slowly: ‘If they
have indeed so much power it must be that there is some correspondence
in the American soul, and that the manufacturers and the preachers
are strong in the national life because the manufacturing part of the
soul and the preaching part of the soul is strong inside the ordinary
American. For so you have explained to me that the constitution of a
State is reflected in the constitution of the souls of its citizens.’
‘My excellent Lysis,’ I said, ‘you have well stated a difficult
truth, and much of the power of these people comes from the fact that
an American thinks he ought to listen to a manufacturer because he
himself, in his own soul, thinks highly of manufacturing, and will not
listen to a philosopher, thinking meanly of philosophy. So also he
admires a preacher, though such are seldom humble and many, indeed, go
about bursting with presumption and acting as though they were wiser
and better than all other men. But there is a further explanation of
their power. These manufacturers and preachers are organized and have
the use of money, so that they can pay men to write and repeat the same
things over and over again, till the Americans, from seeing and hearing
them so often, assume that they are true.’
Then Lysis said: ‘Has the strengthening of this power, Socrates, been
the worst of the evils that resulted from the Civil War?’
‘Many and heavy have been the ills,’ said I, ‘resulting from that
contest and the views dictated by the North.’
‘There are those,’ Agathon said, ‘who say that all that has happened
would have happened without the Civil War.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but we cannot pretend to know that. And so I am content
to look at what has taken place and to trace how events have helped
each other without following such writers into the marshes and bogs of
hypothetical imaginings. Now it seems to me that the Civil War gave
the death stroke to their political life, for it made the central
government supreme over the states at the same time as it made the
interests of commerce predominant over the central government.’
‘Explain to us, Socrates,’ they said, as I was expecting they would.
‘Why,’ I said, ‘you can easily understand that the war strengthened the
central government, giving it new duties and new powers, and fixing all
men’s eyes upon it, and accustoming them to think its needs and acts of
greater importance than the concerns of their own localities.’
‘Yes,’ they said.
‘And if that very war is in support of the government’s claim to
authority and is waged successfully, must not the prestige of that
government be established, and that of the smaller governments
diminished?’
‘It must,’ they assented.
‘Now, do you think,’ I asked, ‘that an ordinary man will be able to
understand or even to follow questions of policy, especially when he is
far away from the place of government and is absorbed in the pursuit of
his private gain?’
‘Assuredly not.’
‘And that in proportion as America has increased in size and wealth
each citizen has less and less felt able to take part in the
government, or even to weigh and judge of the opinions of the other
citizens when there are so many of them. For most citizens know only a
small part of their enormous country. And so most of them do not follow
the questions of the public interest and act a part in political
life, which has become in their country a trade like any other. And
as all traders must keep the goodwill of the public, so especially
must those who provide administration. But the need for goodwill is
not a great check in any trade where competition is weak, and two
concerns have a monopoly and can sell what article they like and call
it administration. Furthermore, this war left strong feelings so that
men stood firmly by their parties, and it kept floating in the air many
fine names like “American” and “Republican,” and “Union,” in which
the men of commerce who desired to run the government could dress
themselves up. For it is difficult for such men themselves to invent
names which arouse emotion, and yet they do not dare to call things by
their true names and show themselves as they are. But the memories of
the war made a grand cloak for their business purposes.’
‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘I am beginning to see how their power was riveted
on the necks of the Americans, when they had all those powerful words
at their disposal.’
‘At the very time,’ I said, ‘that they were making those railways
of theirs and were determined to control the public treasury. And,
moreover, does it not follow that power will belong to whoever can
persuade the Americans that popular opinion is with him and that, the
larger the number and the area, the greater the power of those who are
rich and can pay for propaganda?’
‘What exactly is propaganda?’ said Lysis.
‘It is, with advertising, the chief curse of the Americans, and may,
indeed, be described as political advertising. For never in the history
of the world has there been so wonderful a field for the skilful
persuader as are these modern democracies, where all the people can
read and very few of them can think. All are secretly uncertain of
themselves, and in America more so than elsewhere, and look to see
what their neighbours are thinking and desire to be counted among the
majority. For nothing is stronger in America than this desire to belong
to the majority and to say “We think” or “We feel.” And it is natural
for business men to be timid, for their business depends upon the good
opinion of others, and so it is that business men very easily become
hypocrites. I believe myself the American men do not mind dying since
it means joining the great majority.’
‘And one ever growing greater,’ added Agathon.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but they will not enjoy Hades, where time is not money
any more, and no one but Charon has any wealth, so that the most
forward salesmanship will be in vain.’
‘Poor Americans,’ said Lysis, ‘they will feel very lost.’
‘They will understand giving a sop to Cerberus,’ said Agathon; ‘it will
be like their own politics. And they will like the crowds.’
‘Come, my good friends,’ I said, ‘cease to tarry with the Americans in
Hades, and let me resume my tale of their earthly misfortunes.’
‘Pray do so, Socrates,’ they said.
‘Then I will say,’ I resumed, ‘that the second great disaster of that
war has been this: that by the mechanism of the Constitution (to use
a phrase often in their mouths, by which they mean that the laws made
for other times and conditions produce different and strange results
to-day), the opinions and ideas of one part of the country become the
laws that are to be obeyed by all the parts. For it is the people of
the North spreading westward to the great rivers that have built up in
the great agricultural plains the growing empire of the Middle West,
of which we spoke earlier, where the preachers and manufacturers have
most power of all, having secured the ear of the women. Except for an
accident once or twice the same party has been in power ever since the
war, and that is the party of the North and the manufacturers, and the
South have hardly more voice in the central government than if they
were frankly governed as subjects.’
‘What sort of people were these in the South?’ asked Lysis.
‘The best of them were the very best sort of barbarians,’ I replied,
‘and the nearest to civilization of all the Americans.’
‘But they are from Ethiopia, are they not?’ said Lysis, ‘for I have
heard men whistling in the streets of Athens songs in which the singer
praises the blackness of his lover’s or mother’s face and these songs
are what men sing in these Southern States.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘can you not guess the explanation, for indeed it is
not difficult? These Southerners had black slaves. Indeed, the war was
largely caused by that.’
‘How,’ said Lysis.
‘Why, among barbarians it is not natural that one man should serve
another, for all are slaves by nature. And, in general all are slaves
to one despot, as among the Persians. Now in America the northern
barbarians were angry that the Southerners were served by Ethiopians,
whom they declared to be in all respects the equals of the whites. And
when they won the doubtful struggle, they wrote in their Constitution
that that was so. For they believe they can change the nature of things
by changing that Constitution of theirs. But, indeed, they have made
much less difference than they think, and freed individuals rather
than the race itself, and the chief part of the Ethiopians, and, as I
believe, the happiest, are those serving in the fields and households
of the South. For, if you do not pursue the life of reason as only the
few can do, it is better to serve a man pursuing, even faintly, that
life than to pass your days in the fever of petty trading. But these
Northerners came from aristocratic countries where they had suffered
the insolence of aristocrats, and did not understand rightly about
personal dignity. For they are filled with pride against personal
service, being full of self-assertion towards individuals and of
slavishness towards public opinion. Whereas, rightly, a man should not
think himself lowered by any useful service to a good man, supposing he
should meet with one, but should feel it extreme degradation to hand
over his soul to the keeping of the crowd. Or does it not seem so to
you?’
‘Why, yes, Socrates,’ answered Agathon; ‘I can see these Northerners
were the most unsuitable people possible to have a voice in the
ordering of the South.’
‘However,’ I said, ‘it has happened now, and the Southerners were
all rendered poor by the exhaustion of the struggle, so that sheer
necessity has changed the character of southern life. But they still
continue to show great understanding, for people who are not Greeks.
They measure things by other standards than quantity, and they do not
think meanly of leisure. But their glories they have left upon the
field of battle.’
‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘and though they were able to prevent the North
from dictating to them how they should live, they have been unable to
do the great work they were needed to do. For nothing else could check
the Middle West when that grew strong.’
‘I agree with you, Agathon,’ I said, ‘and now the standards of the
manufacturers spread steadily through the whole country. That was the
third disaster, and there still remains a fourth.’
‘Tell us, then,’ said Lysis, ‘about the fourth disaster which, as it
seems, this unfortunate Civil War has caused.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘did we not say that it had fixed the attention of
everybody upon the central or federal government?’
‘We did.’
‘And made them cease to think of themselves as members of this state
or that, but rather as Americans.’
‘Assuredly.’
‘But if the North had failed to impose unity, not the Southern States
only but in all probability the Northern ones also would have been
virtually independent of each other, and only joined to one another in
some kind of League such as we Greeks are used to. North America would
have resembled South America, but I think there would have been even
more complete peace among the North American States than among those of
South America.’
‘Certainly,’ Agathon said, ‘they live with the Canadians in great and
striking amity. But they do not believe their condition would have been
one to envy.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘probably all sorts of other misfortunes would have
visited them. But they cannot really expect anything else, it being the
nature of barbarians to incur disasters. We, however, are considering
their actual ills to-day. Can they deny that they would have been saved
from that glorification of strength which is a fatal temptation to
great and powerful peoples, and never more than when they are unchecked
by the presence of strong neighbours?’
‘They cannot deny it, Socrates,’ said Agathon.
‘As it is, must we not say the size of their political unit has done
great harm to the American soul? For every number that is sufficiently
large is to them a magical number, and the Americans come easily to
believe that everything they think or do must be right because there
are so many of them thinking or doing it. And most of all do they tend
to think that they cannot have anything to learn from foreign nations
because America is bigger.’
‘Are there really far more Americans than other people?’ asked Phaelon.
‘No,’ I said, ‘there are, in fact, far more Chinamen than there are
Americans――but they say that there is another test of superiority
besides size.’
‘And what is that?’ asked Phaelon.
‘Speed.’
‘How?’
‘The speed,’ I explained, ‘with which the size is attained. And they
say they are greatly superior to the Chinese in speed of development,
and this claim I believe to be true.’
Lysis nodded his head slowly from side to side and said: ‘Indeed,
Socrates, the ills affecting the Americans seem to be many and heavy.’
‘But worse,’ I said, ‘is to come, unless they will change altogether
and abandon their pride and listen meekly to the philosophers.’
‘How, Socrates?’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘they are doomed to frustration, for the opportunities
of wealth are not infinite. And at first it was reasonable to encourage
men of business that the resources of the land might be organized,
but when that has been done there begins a struggle among the people
for the largest share of the resources. And, in the end, that phase
also passes and the game is played out and the different resources are
controlled by different groups of men. No newcomers can fight against
them, and the young men must be content to serve these groups, finding
their reward in promotion and pay as though they were soldiers, as in a
manner they are. And these promotions also grow rigid and mechanical in
time. And great wealth is then only to be won in some strange and lucky
way, and the battle for the market grows keener, and the cleverest men
devote themselves to what they call progressive advertising, and the
“Problem of Salesmanship.”’
‘What is progressive advertising?’ asked Lysis.
‘It is arousing the widest possible sense of want.’
‘What is the Problem of Salesmanship?’ asked Phaelon.
‘It is how best to mislead people about their own desires; persuading
them to give their time and strength and money to obtain something they
do not at all need, thus making them the instruments of your private
gain.’
Phaelon at once demanded: ‘And do they kill the salesman who does this?’
‘By the pillars of Hercules, no! they use the gold of the public
treasury to teach it in their schools, for they think that all men
should learn to prey upon one another in this way, deceiving and doing
harm to one another with their tongues.’
‘It seems to me, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘that these people spend their
energies in many strange and doubtful ways.’
‘They do, indeed,’ I assented.
‘And they have so much energy,’ said Agathon.
‘It is stupendous,’ I said. ‘When I went to Niagara Falls an American
said it made him sad that so much power was going to waste that might
be made productive. And I replied that I felt in that manner about
the vast energies of the people, for if they could be harnessed to
the problems of philosophy much knowledge might result. For if we
could have the energy pure without any of the American nature fixing
its character, armed with so powerful a tool we could clear up many
doubtful speculations. But he seemed to think I wanted everybody to
busy themselves with serious questions, though the thoughts of such
people would, of course, be useless, and he recommended me to take
my proposition to an editor of a magazine, for he said that he “had
a hunch philosophy might catch on, seeing the success of those other
word-puzzle crazes.”’
‘It was lucky for him, Socrates,’ exclaimed Lysis ‘that you are so
patient with fools. Did you reason with him?’
‘I attempted it,’ I replied. ‘But he said he had no time to reason
and that if he once began he would never “make good.” And in that, at
least, I agreed with him.’
‘And you were not angry with him at all, O excellent Socrates,’
exclaimed Lysis.
‘Pity,’ I answered, ‘and not anger, was what I felt, for I knew that
he had not a free mind of his own, but was, like most things in
that country, the result of what they proudly call “mass production
manufacture.”’