On the Tyrant Soul

Soul work is frightening.

It is easier to talk about politics than about our souls. The tyrant “out there” can be demonized, but the tyrant within us makes us uncomfortable.

One simple way to avoid change is to focus on politics or some other external problem. Plato understood this truth. I think this is one reason he used political analogies in his book about the soul and its proper education. We are willing to attack “them,” the powerful, and by the time we realize that Plato has turned the spotlight on us, we are hooked.

We realize that it is not even “we” who are the problem, but “me.” In fact, it is in community that our issues are most likely to be resolved. It is not an accident that Socrates begins the Republic with “I” and ends with “we.” Any progress that has been made in his soul has been made with the help of Glaucon and the other people in his community.

The Tyrant and the Philosopher King

The image of the City in Republic is not meant to be a political manifesto. Plato makes the image as absurd as possible to try to avoid any misunderstanding. Socrates repeatedly calls it a “city in words.” However, it turns out that no political plan is too absurd (philosophers as kings!) to keep somebody, someplace, sometime from trying to implement it. After all, minding my own business and taking care of my own problems is much less interesting than blowing trumpets and leading a movement.

Some problems are external and require external solutions, but many (if not most) require soul work—or so Plato believed.

In Book IX of Republic, Plato discusses the worst kinds of souls and what produces them. The soul of the tyrant, the person who lives by passion but seems to get away with it, is in the lowest place a human can go. Plato’s point is not to point to someone else and say, “Look how bad he is,” but to say: “There but for the Good go we all.” The tyrant harms others, but he also harms himself—even if he becomes king.

We are far more likely to struggle with our own inner tyranny than to be philosopher kings. Plato uses political images (588 C) to convey ideas that dialog cannot express. A good story, a myth, will persuade where unaided reason might not.

The ruler who does all he wishes will become brutish or live in fear. Living according to our passions will harm us. We need to learn sobriety. (591 B)

This is not because the body is evil, but because most of us are too apt to prize our physical good over other goods. The other goods (reason, ideas, beauty) are “higher,” not in the sense that the others are bad, but because they are better and impossible to obtain without effort. One can get a good meal more easily than one can learn the pleasures of critical thinking.

All Things in Moderation

Plato urges us to be good people. That means moderating our desires, not stamping them out. Take money, for example:

He will rather… keep his eyes fixed on the constitution in his soul, and taking care and watching lest he disturb anything there either by excess or deficiency of wealth will so steer his course and add to or detract from his wealth on this principle…” (Republic IX 592)

What is that principle? The good man will do whatever will make him “a better man.” Note that this cannot mean ignoring physical desires. In his image, Plato describes this as “the erotic soul” (dealing with all physical pleasures). It cannot be ignored without danger.

The goal is not to stamp out the soul, but to tame it as part of the whole person. Reason dominates, but the body gives reason the ability to go forward.

The danger of looking to politics as a solution to every problem is that we will miss that sometimes (most times?), the problem is within us. We cannot end racism without giving up our racialism—our natural (but irrational) preference for those like we are.

Of course, there is a bit of hopelessness in Plato, because so few of us will “get it.” Most of us are hurting, and hurting people hurt others. We need mercy, but of mercy Plato knows little.

Thank God for Jesus.

Rachel Motte edited this essay and added the sub-headings.