Random quote
If either a single person or an oligarchy or a democracy has a soul eager after pleasures and desires—wanting to be filled with them, yet retaining none of them, and perpetually afflicted with an endless and insatiable disorder; and this evil spirit, having first trampled the laws under foot, becomes the master either of a state or of an individual,—then … salvation is hopeless.

An Athenian, in Plato, Laws, Book 4, 714a

Plato’s noble lie

Plato and Pinocchio

Are politicians allowed to lie to convince the people of what they see as a good thing for everybody? That is something I was wondering, as so many politicians proclaim untruths, falsehoods or lies – or how you want to call them – during the current wars to defend them (and not only then). Plato already discussed the problem in his Republic (Πολιτεία, Politeia) 2500 years ago, for example:

Socrates is discussing the ideal state with Glaukon and Adeimantos and raises the question of how to convince the people to help establish this state and to support it. In order to do so, he suggests telling them a “noble lie”:
“How, then,” said I [=Socrates], “might we contrive one of those opportune falsehoods of which we were just now speaking, so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city?”
“What kind of a lie do you mean?” said he. “Nothing unprecedented,” said I, “but a sort of Phoenician tale, something that has happened ere now in many parts of the world, as the poets aver and have induced men to believe, but that has not happened and perhaps would not be likely to happen in our day and demanding no little persuasion to make it believable.”
“You act like one who shrinks from telling his thought,” he said. “You will think that I have right good reason for shrinking when I have told,” I said.
Say on,” said he, “and don't be afraid.”
“Very well, I will. And yet I hardly know how to find the audacity or the words to speak and undertake to persuade first the rulers themselves and the soldiers and then the rest of the city, that in good sooth all our training and educating of them were things that they imagined and that happened to them as it were in a dream; but that in reality at that time they were down within the earth being moulded and fostered themselves while their weapons and the rest of their equipment were being fashioned. And when they were quite finished the earth as being their mother delivered them, and now as if their land were their mother and their nurse they ought to take thought for her and defend her against any attack and regard the other citizens as their brothers and children of the self-same earth.”
“It is not for nothing,” he said, “that you were so bashful about coming out with your lie.”
“It was quite natural that I should be.”
[Then Socrates further elaborates on the “noble lie” and at the end he says:]
Do you see any way of getting them to believe this tale?”
No, not these themselves,” he said, “but I do, their sons and successors and the rest of mankind who come after.”
“Well,” said I, “even that would have a good effect making them more inclined to care for the state and one another. For I think I apprehend your meaning. And this shall fall out as tradition guides.” (Book I, 414b-415d)

Plato uses explicitly the words “lie” (pseudos) and “to lie” (pseudein) in this context. Therefore, I have replaced the word “fiction” by “lie” in the second paragraph of the translation above. Another thing is that, when reading this passage, a modern reader may think that Socrates’s story is not very convincing. Isn’t it? Note how many fantasy stories go around in circles of complot thinkers that are really believed, like about evil people who eat little children for their satanic rites! For Socrates the lie presented here was a serious story that could be used to convince people, although it might be difficult, as the end of the quoted passage shows.
So Socrates, or in fact Plato, suggests here that politicians are allowed to lie if it is for a good cause, in order to convince others to support them. The so-called “noble lie”. It’s no wonder that this view led to many and often strong reactions through the ages.
For me, Plato’s “noble lie” sounds quite Machiavellian, albeit a moderate Machiavellianism. But who decides whether a lie is “noble”? Don’t most of us think that their aims are noble, or not bad, anyway? Or at least they present their aims that way? Machiavelli openly allowed the ruler to deceive the people and his opponents if it was useful to keep him in power. That’s not what Plato says here. A noble lie is not meant to deceive but as a means to convince people in a cause that is good for all and not only for the ruler. Doesn’t Plato tell here that also the rulers must be convinced by the noble lie? Anyway, maybe it was because of the Machiavellianism that Montaigne saw around him that he strictly rejected lying: “In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word. If we did but discover the horror and gravity of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and more justly than other crimes.” And also: “I have this vice in so great horror, that I am not sure I could prevail with my conscience to secure myself from the most manifest and extreme danger by an impudent and solemn lie.” (in “Of Liars”, Essays, Book I-9) Montaigne would even keep his word after having been taken captive by a robber and then released against the promise to pay a ransom later, after his release. Nevertheless, Montaigne admits that rulers and others in power are allowed to use lies in the right circumstances. (see Of Profit and Honesty, Essays, Book III-1) Thus in fact Montaigne allowed the noble lie.
One of the fiercest critics of Plato’s noble lie was Karl R. Popper. In his The Open Society and his Enemies Vol. I. Plato, Popper stated that allowing the noble lie paves the way for fascism and Nazism and other totalitarian ideologies. And it is true that rulers and ideologists of authoritarian if not totalitarian states often make use of lies, falsehoods and falsifications as well in order to justify and support their power and position. Kant stated that lying is always morally wrong, without exception, which implicitly also rejects the noble lie. But what if in the Second World War you had a person in hiding in your home, and a Nazi patrol knocked at your door, asking whether you had hiders in your house. Should you say then “Yes, I have”?
The question whether a noble lie is allowed is not simply a matter of yes or no. Although I agree with Montaigne that lies are reprehensible, it’s more that noble lies should be rejected than that they must or have to be rejected. Anyway, I am going a step further than Montaigne and think that it is allowed to lie against a robber and not keep your promises to him. But ideologies based on a false representation of things are reprehensible, anyway. Popper was right but not for the reason given (see Bert van den Berg et al., ch. 1). A government can be in situations that it would undermine the state and bring many people in danger if it would openly tell the truth. Undoubtedly, there can be good reasons for “white lies” or “noble lies”, but the basic rule must be not to accept a lie, even when presented as noble. Exceptions must be exceptions. And whenever what a political leader says is a lie that then is exposed as a lie, we must not accept it because it is a political leader who says so, as too often happens. For a lie it is and a lie needs a strong justification to be acceptable.

Random quote
Conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth, by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.

John Locke (1632-1704)

The way you travel is the way you see

Sunset seen from a moving train

You go from A to B, say from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Bordeaux in the southwest of France. You might think that this is just a matter of going from Amsterdam to Bordeaux and that’s it. But matters are not that simple, for you’ll have many experiences during the journey and they depend on how you go. It’s a different context, but in his “Walking in the City” Michel de Certeau describes how the world looks like – or rather looked like – when we are lifted to the summit of the World Trade Centre that once, before it was destroyed on the 9th of September 2001, dominated the New York skyline. Look down: How different the world from above is from what we see when we are walking down there in the streets of the city. We also have such differences in experience when we are travelling from Amsterdam to Bordeaux and use different means of transport: The aeroplane, the High-Speed Train (HST) or a car. You could even go by bike, as some Dutchmen do. However, I’ll ignore it, since it is of a different order. Cycling such a distance is not simply a matter of going from A(msterdam) to B(ordeaux), but it is being on holiday, and that is not what I want to discuss here. Here I want to talk about different experiences of simply passing from A to B.
Going by plane, train or car are three different ways of travelling or passing, to use a general term, and they include three different ways of seeing the world you are passing, and so three ways of experiencing and discovering it. From an aeroplane you have a bird’s eye view of the world on the ground. This world resembles a map on the internet. However, what you see is real and not represented symbolically like on an internet map. Nevertheless, your experience is map-like, for just like when reading a map on the internet, you see the world but it doesn’t feel that you are in it. The world is passing fast under you, and within two hours you arrive at your destination.
How different are your experiences when you go by train or car. In a train or car you are not passing above a world that is map-like, but you are passing in this world itself. You feel the world as it is and you can distinguish small details. On the other hand, when travelling by train or car, you miss the overview you have from an aeroplane. However, there are differences between the world as seen from the High-Speed Train and the world as seen from a car. The HST brings you along a fixed route that leads through cities like Brussels and Paris. Moreover, there is no direct rail connection between Amsterdam and Bordeaux, and in Paris you have a transfer (not by train) from one railway station to another. Maybe you must also change trains in Brussels, but that’s in the same station. When travelling by car, by contrast, there may be preferred routes, but they are not fixed. You choose your route according to your own wishes: following motorways or secondary ways, during the whole trip or during a part of the trip; avoiding cities or not avoiding them; making one or more detours and intermediate stops; etc. You can pass or visit the intermediate places as you like. When taking the HST, you can interrupt and adapt your journey only where the train stops anyway, while in Paris you must even leave the train and the railway station (Gard du Nord) and mingle with city life somehow, before continuing your travel from Gare Montparnasse. It is true that this stopover in Paris gives you some freedom, for you make the transfer on your own account. By taxi, metro, walking, as you prefer.
Depending on your mode of transport, you experience the world from the air or on the ground. But the experiences on the ground are different for HST travellers and for car travellers, and not only because the HST follows a fixed route, while for the car traveller the route is free. From your perspective, a HST is a cage moving through the landscapes and the cities it passes though it is an efficient, fast, and comfortable cage. You are locked up for almost the whole passage, and you see the landscapes and cities passing through a window, which is a bit like a TV screen. Travelling by train is waiting till you arrive at your destination, meanwhile watching a film that passes by outside the cage. In a car, you are also watching the world passing by through a screen and the world around also looks like a film. Especially on a motorway this is so. But a car is much smaller than a train and the contact with the surrounding world feels much more direct and in fact it is. If you are the driver, this is especially so, for you must adapt yourself (=the car) continuously to the surrounding world, made up of other car drivers, the surface of the road, traffic jams, benches, etc. You can open a window and feel fresh air coming in and you can smell the air outside. You can stop somewhere and walk in the landscape instead of passing through it. In a car you are closer to the landscape than in an HST, and in a car and in an HST you are closer to the landscape than in an aeroplane.
Etc. Even if you don’t agree with the details of my analysis, one thing will be clear: Travelling in an aeroplane, in a HST or in a car are different experiences. Each mode of transport for passing gives another view on the surrounding world and consequently each one is a different way to discover the world. When you pass through places you know, you can see what is changing there, for no place remains the same for a long time. When passing through unknown places, passing is discovering, anyway. What you discover then depends on how you pass, as the example of the trip from Amsterdam to Bordeaux illustrates. The way you pass is the way you see.

Random quote
‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

David Hume (1711-1776) 

John Locke on democracy

Dutch government buildings in The Hague. At hte left the office of the Prime Minister (the "Little Tower").
 Behind the office buildings of the ministries,  the roof and towers of the parliament are just visible.

In these days of increasing polarization and the rise of autocracy, it should be good to read John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government”. The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is one of the intellectual fathers of western democracy and an important advocate of toleration (which he defended especially in his “A Letter Concerning Toleration”). The Second Treatise was first published in 1689 (though anonymously), but Locke had written it already in the years 1680-81.

Unlike Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who thought that “A man is a wolf to another man” and that people were continuously making war with each other, according to Locke people are basically peaceful and inclined to consensus and to cooperate with others and to help them. We can say that peace and cooperation are the basic concepts for describing the natural state of society. In this original natural state – which is a hypothetical idea for Locke; not a (pre)historical fact – everybody is equal to everybody and free to do what they please, “though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. … [T]here cannot be supposed any … subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s.” (Sect. 6.) However, if everybody is “absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body”, there is a problem, for if everybody is his own king “as much as he, every man his equal, … the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. … [This makes people] willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and … property.” (Sect. 123.) In other words, people choose a government and a king or other ruler. The power of this ruler is not absolute. Far from that. Rulers derive their authority only from the consent of the governed. No government is legitimate if it doesn’t have this consent and is controlled either directly by the people, which means by the consent of the majority, or, more often, by representatives chosen by them. If it doesn’t, it “subverts the end of government”. (Sect. 140)
The idea that a government must be based on people’s consent – or paraphrasing the American (but Lockean) statement “no taxation without representation” by “no laws without representation” – has an important consequence: It is allowed to overthrow any government that rules without this consent. When consent is lacking, the people have the right to impeach and remove the ruler. When a ruler fails or exceeds the powers he received from the people, the latter have a right of resistance. “When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to resist the force of those, who without authority would impose any thing upon them.” (Sect. 212; cf. Sect. 219) “Whensoever therefore the legislative [=ruler] shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security…” And it is not only when a ruler directly damages the lives, property etc. of the governed that he can be removed, but he “acts also contrary to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes; or openly pre-engages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such, whom he has, by solicitations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs; and employs them to bring in such, who have promised before-hand what to vote, and what to enact. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security?” (Sect. 222.)

In short
- People basically live in peace together and are inclined to cooperate.
- In order to regulate interhuman cooperation and to solve frictions between people we need a ruler.
- Therefore, people voluntarily give up their executive power and place it into the hands of a civic community, where, however, the majority holds supreme power.
- The community delegates this power to a government and ruler to enact and enforce laws for the public good. Government and ruler are controlled by the people or their representatives.
- When a ruler or government abuses its power, tramples on the people's rights, or governs without popular consent, the government becomes illegitimate.
- When a government has become illegitimate, the people have a right if not an obligation to resist and to remove it and to replace it with a new government.

Alas, there is a big gap between dream and reality, also in politics.