What is to be done with Alcibiades?

The great thing about smart friends is they remind you of things. A classics professor made an argument and a colleague who did not like the argument reminded me of Alcibiades: the bright, attractive, charming traitor who helped bring an end to the Golden Age of Athens. He was so good that he seemed necessary to many Athenians, but Alcibiades was a snare and a delusion. Put your trust in him and he would con you, betray you, and then send you the bill.

We live in the age of Alcibiades: left, right, and center.

We might despair, but better minds have given us wisdom. Perhaps we should attend.

The most important question of Plato’s Symposium is not asked but demonstrated. What is to be done with Alcibiades? Aristophanes asked this question directly in his play The Frogs and Plato set out to answer it. What happens when a republic needs the brightest and the best, but a failed and corrupt educational system has left the brightest bad?

Aristophanes proposes one answer in his play: “Give the lion his meat.” This is the pragmatic choice. If the republic is in peril, do what it takes.

That seems good, but for Athens ended badly. You might give the lion his meat today, but tomorrow the lion will want more meat, and then the next day more meat still. If you can never smile at a crocodile, you cannot give the lion his meat. There is no end to it. The pragmatist gains short-term victory at the cost of all hope of long-term gain.

The lion will never be sated. What is, then, to be done with Alcibiades?

Nothing can be done with him if Plato is to be believed. He has been so deeply harmed by his own bad choices and a corrupt city that he needs help, not power. If you love Alcibiades, you will not applaud his success, his superficial wins, because they do not address the pain he feels.

Maybe.

Or perhaps Alcibiades can be saved if he will step back from power and pursue philosophy. I am not sure about the fate of Alcibiades in Plato, but I am sure of this: you cannot give the lion his meat and save him.

You cannot use a person as a tool and not destroy the person.

Alcibiades was a victim of a decadent Athens and then Athens needed him. Alcibiades failed, as they had trained him to fail. The advice of Aristophanes to “give the lion his meat” was doubling down on the doom of Alcibiades hoping that as a result Athens might be saved.

No.

You cannot save a city by damning the brightest youngling of that city.

No.

The needs of the many cannot outweigh the needs of the one. It is hard to pity Alcibiades because he is so awesome, but the great and mighty are some of the first to be used.

We cannot praise any move to win with Alcibiades: the ends do not justify the means.

A good society does not destroy a soul to save a city.

If we live in the age of Alcibiades, then we cannot just give the lion his meat or pretend there is not a lion abroad.

We have problems only the lion could solve. We must keep our values, urge  Alcibiades to play by the rules, and then. . . ?

A good city will save Alcibiades and the community. Thank you for the reminder, friend.

Rachel Motte edited this essay.