‘Then tell me, Socrates, do you consider the Americans to be free?’
‘Why, no,’ I said, ‘they are the least free of all the peoples of the
earth. For they live under a tyrant, and one not a whit more merciful
than was Procrustes. For Procrustes forced all over whom he could
obtain power to become standardized, fitting them to that bed of his
and lopping off the feet of those that were too long, but racking and
stretching the limbs of those that were too short, so that the bodies
of all should conform to the same mould. But the tyrant who rules the
Americans――or all whom he can master――is worse than Procrustes, for he
seeks to fashion and control not the body, as is the way of ordinary
tyrants, but the soul itself. He standardizes their souls wherever he
is strong.’
‘Truly a terrible tyrant,’ said Lysis; ‘who and what is he?’
‘His title,’ I said, ‘is Public Opinion, or the Opinion of the
Majority, and he is the offspring of Propaganda.’
‘And why,’ said Lysis, ‘do you call that opinion by so harsh a name?
For it seems to me that it is more sensible to be ruled by the opinion
of the majority than by the whim of a single tyrant like most
barbarians, or the opinion of the minority like the English.’
‘Come,’ I replied, ‘and let us examine this question together. For does
it not seem to you probable that men can be ruled by opinion in many
ways and that some ways may well be good but others bad?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And that there will be a great difference between opinions, since some
will really belong to the people who hold them and be indeed a part
of themselves, while others will be forced upon them from outside and
will be repeated and acted upon through fear, and so far from being an
expression of the soul of him who utters them, they will act as a great
blanket stifling the breath of the soul and killing it and making the
man an automaton and a slave and not a reasonable being at all.’
‘Certainly,’ said Lysis.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we will leave for the present the discussion of the
English soul, being careful to return to it later, and that for several
reasons. For in the first place it is so odd and extraordinary that it
arouses our sense of wonder and we contemplate it without effort, and
secondly because it is always necessary to consider the English when we
consider the Americans, so great is the effect of the two races upon
each other. But now we will look as closely as we can into the nature
of this tyrant, who, as I verily believe, is the chief evil from which
the Americans suffer. And I think I shall lead you to agree with me
when we have seen how their past history has made them into a prey for
such a monster.’
‘Explain it in your own way,’ said Agathon, ‘so that eventually you
come to the point.’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘I wish to approach this matter delicately, treading
carefully like a scout at night and not rushing forward with great
shouts, for I do not know how my words may be repeated and printed
out wrongly in the news-sheets of the Americans. For the Americans
have long ears, and hear everything that is said of them. They are
sensitive people and restive when criticized, and if I speak bluntly,
as I generally do, there will be many who will refuse hereafter to pay
attention not to me only, but to Plato and to all the Greeks. And yet
it is among the Greeks that they find those who can teach them most
and give them the greatest benefits, explaining to them the principles
of right living and, in particular, the necessity for examining our
notions and for being cautious about declaring that we know things,
and, above all, for being tolerant of disagreement and discussion.’
‘The men of Athens,’ said Agathon slyly, ‘have not always shown you
a proper tolerance, Socrates, and they are your own countrymen. How,
then, can you be surprised that the Business Men’s Luncheon Club of
Hootsville, Iowa, was unwilling to hear your doubts, for I know that
that experience is what is in your mind.’
‘A singular power indeed,’ I exclaimed, ‘has been given to you, dear
Agathon, of reading the minds of your friends. But I assure you that
there is in my mind at present no such personal recollection. I have
only the power to think of one thing at a time and I am now thinking
that we shall certainly never finish our inquiry if you keep laughing
to yourself in this way in order to make Lysis curious over the
incidents of my lecturing tour.’
Here Lysis intervened in a charming manner, and said to me: ‘Let him
tell us the story, Socrates, for I can see he is dying to do so, and
I will confess that I want to hear it. And when he has told it he
shall keep quiet, and you shall unfold to us the nature of this Public
Opinion. And if he thinks he can make me doubt the wisdom of your talk
I will tell him at once that he is mistaken, and that we are only
listening to him as to a sort of clown.’
‘So they spoke of Socrates in Hootsville,’ said Agathon, who then
pulled from his robe what I saw were news cuttings. I remembered the
great collection of such cuttings that Xantippe had made, and sent
back with some little malice for the Athenians to read, especially of
cuttings referring in an outspoken manner to myself.
When he had refreshed his memory with these, he turned to Lysis and
said:――
‘You must understand, Lysis, that our friend here has a different view
of time from that held by the Americans. For he lives in a leisurely
way and is never hurried even in the pursuit of wisdom. But the
Americans are hurried in everything they do. They are hurried into the
world and they are hurried out again, and all the time it is a rush,
all crying “Step along there, please!” and the young applying to the
old their proverb, “Pass right along down the car.” No one here has
ever told Socrates to step along. Now in nothing are they more hurried
than in the pursuit of wisdom and truth. Most of them do not join in
the pursuit at all, saying they have no time to spare from the pursuit
of wealth, but some will give twenty minutes in the week at a luncheon.
And it was at one of these luncheons that Socrates spoke.’
‘Is it possible both to eat and to talk in twenty minutes?’ asked Lysis.
‘The luncheon lasts a full hour,’ replied Agathon, ‘but you must
understand that men so busy have much to do in that hour. In the first
place they must all keep friends and indulge in friendly feelings
for which there is no time in the rest of the day. And so they wear
the names by which their close friends call them on a piece of paper
on their garments, so that each friend may remember the special name
of the other. The branch of commerce to which each one is devoted
is also printed on the piece of paper or card, for the Americans
understand that friendship consists in the exchange of services. And
for this reason they are careful to have only one of each calling in
these clubs. But it is furthermore necessary to feel cheerful and
light-hearted and to produce that in the hour is not easy. Least of all
to men who have been deluded into denying themselves those fermented
beverages which alone can banish the anxieties of commerce. So these
men sing songs as they eat, rising between the mouthfuls to sing
praises of their club or their town, or sometimes to sing tenderly of
their mothers, of whom the food before them has caused them to think
with longing. Furthermore, there are announcements to be made and
visitors and their callings to be proclaimed. For the Americans never
forget their proverb that friendship leads to business. So you will
understand Socrates hardly had time to make his points, and, whether
or not it was that no one understood him because to save time they had
made him begin while the sweet was being served with much clatter,
yet it must be admitted that the paper reported it as “confessedly a
disappointment after last week’s slap-up talk on personal contacts in
business.”’
‘Poor Socrates!’ said Lysis; ‘did no one call yours a slap-up talk?’
‘I am afraid not,’ I said, ‘but then I said things they were not very
eager to hear, and even before I spoke there had been much question
whether I should be asked.’
‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘many doubted the propriety of asking him, after a
local minister had declared that our friend was not only a sort of dago
but that he was the lowest of crawling creatures, a man who had knocked
his own home town, meaning that he had criticized many of the actions
of the Athenians. But another minister said that he had something in
him and was a prominent citizen back in Athens, and had secured a wide
publicity for his slogan “Boost Knowledge,” though he was mistaken in
thinking that Socrates had used that actual expression.’
‘But what was the address about?’ Lysis demanded.
I answered him: ‘It was about the place of liberty in the life of the
State, which they did not seem to me to understand.’
‘Indeed,’ said Agathon, ‘they soon grow restive if you speak of
liberty.’
‘Indeed yes,’ I assented. ‘And yet two minutes before they had been
singing some praises to a sweet land of liberty which was also, as I
understood the words, the home of the brave and free. But when the
Americans rejoice that they are free they mean free from King George
III. For they are slow in some matters.’
‘It is like you Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to seize hold boldly of this
question of liberty and not to let go but to force them to examine it.’
‘My heart had been touched,’ I replied, ‘by a spectacle which I saw
when first our boat anchored in New York Harbour. There is an island
there called Ellis Island, the abode of the rejected of America, where
I also spent two days. Many emigrants think that they are emigrating
to the United States when in fact they are emigrating to Ellis Island,
which is not a land of opportunity at all. So there crowd on Ellis
Island the wretched people whom America will not accept. Among the
figures in that part of the harbour there was one that at once held my
attention because she was so much greater and nobler than the rest.
But she was not allowed on the mainland. Going close to her I saw that
it was Liberty herself. She also was classed as undesirable. I will
confess that I could understand the Amazons of the Mississippi fearing
her, so great and strong was she, and of such mighty reputation. Her
plight too was more wretched than that of the others, because they all
stretched out their hands with longing to the further bank, as the poet
has well sung, but with some hope also that there would one day be room
for them in the quota. But Liberty had no quota at all.’
‘What is this quota?’ asked Lysis.
‘The quota, dear Lysis,’ I said, ‘is another of the mystic numbers
of the Americans and one that serves their desires. For by means of
varying numbers reached in an obscure manner they control the admission
into their country in such a manner that very few can come of those
who will be likely to resist having their souls made for them, but
a greater number of those who yield easily to Americanization. In
particular, is it contrived that hardly any of the Mediterranean
peoples shall be admitted, for these peoples are the hardest of all to
Americanize, as they have lived in civilization for so great a time.’
‘I understand,’ said Lysis.
‘But the people who are least unwelcome to-day are the partly civilized
peoples of North Europe and the British Isles. For these people are not
so wild as to be dangerous and they have lived in a hard struggle with
nature which has made material prosperity seem to them an extremely
great thing and one worthy of great efforts. Now material prosperity is
what the Americans offer, and it is the inducement always held out when
those who make opinion wish to persuade the populace to any particular
course.’
‘But,’ asked Phaelon, ‘why did you not tell the undesirables what you
knew about America, so that they would have been glad they had been
shut out? It does not sound much fun being an alien in America to-day.’
‘It would be grievous indeed,’ I said, ‘did not the aliens live
together in communities, but so banded they maintain their own life
and reproduce Greece or Italy beyond the seas, as is the purpose of
a colony. And it is a source of merriment to these men to be told to
think American thoughts, as the judges say who make them citizens.’
‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘but it is not merriment for their children who
become Americans.’
‘They enjoy it,’ I said, ‘for the children of bad Greeks make good
Americans. And bad we must consider the Greeks to be who leave Greece
and risk their souls in America for the sake of wealth. Such folk do
nothing to lead the Americans to Greek thought.’
‘Being such lovers of profit,’ said Agathon, ‘they are timid and have
little influence.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but coming from civilization they have characters
of their own, and are richly individual, for that is the mark of
civilization, but having left Greece for gain they have no proper
sense of being members of a political community, while the Americans
are filled to excess with that sense. But an alien child brought up in
America will often be both an individual and a citizen.’
Lysis here said: ‘Might not such an alien child combine the faults
rather than the virtues of both types?’
‘That happens,’ I replied, ‘and I have great fears for Xantippe’s
children if she keeps them there to be Americanized.’
‘I may be a blockhead, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘but I should like to
hear you explain much more fully about the strength of the soul when it
is Americanized.’
‘You are prepared to leave the address to the Business Men’s Lunch
Club, then,’ said Agathon, ‘and follow Socrates on a new path?’
‘Yes,’ said Lysis, ‘let us leave the business men. For my part I feel
filled with pity for men leading such a life.’
‘That is well said, Lysis,’ I replied, ‘for I, too, loved these men
and had pity for them, seeing them to work harder than ever during the
short hour of refreshment that their code allows them from business. I
do not wonder that so many of them drop dead, and I often thought of
the captives in the galleys being spurred on to exertions unnatural to
man.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Agathon with a sly look at the other two, ‘your
standard of exertion, Socrates, is lower than that of most men.’
‘I know not how it is in your government office, Agathon,’ I replied,
‘but I do not believe you would long survive the pace set in America,
and, indeed, more and more Americans themselves are becoming sensible
and ceasing to think a man admirable in proportion as he is always at
his business. They have some excellent summer clubs, where they jest
and play not for one day only but for several weeks. But I was going to
tell Lysis that I can satisfy both his desire and yours, for if you, O
Agathon, will tell the substance of my address to those men that will
also reveal in what they are lacking, according to my opinion, and in
what they are strong. For they are lacking in reasonableness, and they
are strong in sociability.’
‘Then let me read the report,’ said Agathon, and he read from the
_Hootsville Courier_ the paragraphs dealing with my address: ‘“The
President of the Club introduced the speaker as one who had made
good in his own line, and though it was not their own line, they
welcomed success wherever they saw it (_applause_). The visitor, as he
understood it, was a specialist in truth and goodness, and would no
doubt give Hootsville some useful tips. If he, the speaker, understood
their visitor’s vocation he was a person you went to consult if you
became doubtful about your religion or your politics and he would make
you more doubtful still (_laughter_). Fortunately, no one in Hootsville
was troubled with any doubts, and he must say he could not see how
their visitor would fit into the life there. Still it was a big world,
and they could not all live in Iowa. He confessed that he had not known
about the visitor till the question of this address was brought up,
but since then had looked up his record and, from the reports of the
debates that he had seen in the Plato publications, he had no doubt
that their visitor had the best of his discussions back in Athens and
had hit a home run every time. They welcomed him as a man who had won
something, even if it was only an argument (_great applause_). That was
what appealed to him, and he thought to all of them, for he did not
claim to have read the reports closely or to know what the arguments
had been about, but he felt clear their visitor had not come out
second best. Hootsville could fairly claim to be listening to about
the best man in his own line that old Athens could send them, and that
would help them to see how Hootsville and Athens compared with one
another (_applause_). He was reminded of a story about a negro, called
Rastus....”
‘Well,’ said Agathon, ‘he told a long story about an Ethiopian, and sat
down with laughter and applause.’ Agathon then read: ‘“The visitor,
Mr. Socrates S. Socrates, was understood to say: ‘Men of Hootsville,
if you will bear with a stupid and ignorant man (_laughter_) I would
like to correct what I am falsely supposed to think concerning
liberty. I am not one of those who think that the ideal state will
grant an indiscriminate liberty. For the rulers must regard liberty
with caution. For I do not complain that here there is authority
and that liberty is restricted, for that is necessary, but that the
authority is in the hands of men in no way worthy to hold it and that
the restrictions are not imposed for right objects but to achieve the
mistaken notions of those holding chief influence in the land. I would
not question your carelessness of liberty if you were restraining bad
and selfish men, and I would applaud you if I saw the majority taking
steps against too much interest in commerce. For commerce can do no
more than provide the basis for the good life, but is treated here as
though it were the good life itself. Indeed, you put notices, Men of
Hootsville, in your offices to discourage the conversation of your
friends, writing up: ‘This is our busy day,’ and keeping up the notice
for many days in succession; exhorting also your friends ‘Come to the
point, but don’t camp on it,’ and these things hinder a friend from
opening his soul. For there are many points upon which it is excellent
to camp, and chief among them the nature of the good.
‘“‘I see everywhere around me refreshing signs of a growing interest
in the Greeks on the part of the Americans. You have taken an extreme
interest in the Olympic Games. Your young men love to band themselves
into brotherhoods and fraternities named after the letters of our
Greek alphabet, while older men band themselves together in a Klan
with a Greek name, when they would reform the general polity. I very
greatly hope, Men of Hootsville, that it is not true, as your critics
allege, that you are so careless and ignorant of Greek things that to
you anything Greek is mysterious, and that these associations desire
only to suggest secrecy and bewilderment when they name themselves with
Greek names. Now we Greeks rightly understand liberty, for liberty
is of the seas and of the mountains, and Greece has both indeed but
Iowa neither. And your need in Iowa is for more Greeks to teach you
(_vigorous dissent_).
‘“‘More Greeks to help you to discover justice and the rule of reason,
O men of Hootsville, about which you know nothing (_interruption_).
For great things are here in issue, the greatest of those that are in
our control. Much indeed of our human lot we cannot control. Consider
how the poets speak concerning the Fates, how the three sisters sit,
the one Clotho spinning the stuff of our human lives, and the next
Lachesis, mixing the strands and measuring off the lengths, while the
last, Atropos, cuts them with her dreaded shears. Men of Hootsville, we
must all accept what the Fates send us, as they sit eternally weaving
their varied combinations. If I may use your term, you must all do
business with these three sisters. In the end you will find you cannot
stand out against them.’” But at that,’ said Agathon, ‘there was a
great uproar and they refused to listen any more, though Socrates had
by no means reached even the middle of his address, and was but making
a preliminary distinction.
‘No self-respecting American business citizen, declared the President,
red with anger, would have anything to do with a concern so out of date
in factory methods as were these three sisters. Did their visitor know
that they in Hootsville and everywhere else in the States, had machines
which spun, measured, and cut thread in the single operation. And here
there were three women employed all the time on what their American
machine could do with a hundredth part of the time and effort. To come
to a go-ahead community with such a fool proposition was an insult.
Hootsville did not fear the competition of these Fates. Hootsville had
been insulted as Chicago would not have been, just because Hootsville
had not quite overhauled Chicago yet in population. But he could tell
their visitor that that was coming, and would like to warn him that if
he went on travelling on commission for these Fates and their underwear
garments he had better quit advertising the obsolete process or he’d be
railroaded out of every decent town. And it was time for everyone to
hurry back to business.’