But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal Impulses and preferences. --John Stuart Mill

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. --John Quincy Adams

One of the major problems in the study of philosophy is commonly known as "the one and the many," or "the one over the many." In studying real and imagined Greek cities in the classical period, it is an interesting quest to try to determine to what degree these cities were able to, or not able to, balance the needs of the one individual with the many inhabitants comprising a city. Plato, in the Republic, applies his theory of Forms, which has everything to do with the problem of the one and the many, by outlining what he considers to be an ideal "good" city full of harmony, justice, and beauty. Kreon, in the mythical city of Thebes in the Antigone, applies his right of kingship in an attempt to produce harmony among his city's dwellers. The citizens of the real city of Athens in the fifth century B.C., and within her sister colonies, through applying democratic principles, achieved a marvelous advancement in human culture with a synergistic balance between their personal and public lives. They produced a harmonious society that many wish could be emulated in lieu of some of the modern, materialistic societies we find ourselves enmeshed within today. However, these three models of Greek cities had tremendous flaws: In mythical Thebes, through inheritance, a tyrant emerges on the throne and his attempt to force harmony on the city results in the opposite effect; the harmony realized in fifth century Athens and her colonies was at the expense of about eighty-five percent of the population; and the engineered harmony in the Republic strips the humanity from all of its inhabitants, thusly falling far short of any ideal Form of the Good.

Plato’s Republic: The Hive

Plato, in the Republic, through the dialectic voice of Socrates, attempts to discover the nature of Justice. Thrasymachus declares that justice is the advantage of the stronger—of the established government (Rep. 1.338c-e). Kreon, in the Antigone, agrees with this sentiment: "Any man who breaks laws . . . thinks he can give orders to stronger men, gains no praise from me" (Ant. 805-8), and again, "Nations belong to the men with power" (Ant. 888). However, Thrasymachus adds the qualifier "a ruler in the precise sense," meaning that justice prevails for the rulers only when they rule correctly to their own advantage (Rep. 1.341a). Kreon, unfortunately, did not have good sense to know that his decrees were of the utmost disadvantage to his own life as well as those close to him and the citizens at large.

Plato determines that Justice is a kind of excellence of the soul—health, beauty, and well-being of the soul—and excellent souls will cause one to live well and therefore be happy. The opposite then, injustice, is disease, ugliness, and weakness of the soul, that causes one to live badly and to be unhappy (Rep. 1.353d-e). If there is dissention within a group, or if one is at odds with himself, then nothing can be achieved; the excellence is absent in such groups and individuals and there is therefore a lack of justice (Rep. 1.352a). However, this argument alone does not define what justice is nor does it prove that unjust men, who often have more wealth and power than those who perform just deeds, are necessarily unhappy.

Plato expands the discussion to discover what comprises justice in the city. This strategy is appropriate for Plato because the Form of the City correlates directly to the Form of a Man. Just as there are three parts to individual souls—the appetitive drives and desires, the spirited emotions, and reasonable thinking—so, too, in the city there is the corresponding money-making, auxiliary, and deliberative functions. Therefore, the cause of strife and internal struggles within the individual is the same kind of thing that destroys the harmony of a city. When one's appetites conspire to cause one to act contrary to reason, a "civil war of the soul" ensues when the spirited part is not aligned with the reasonable part (Rep. 4.440a-441c). With this analogy, Plato describes the proper city to be divided into three hard class structures with auxiliary soldiers as protectors to be aligned with the guardian-rulers and the third class includes all the rest of the population including money-makers, women, foreigners, and slaves. Justice is now defined in the city as when each of the three classes fulfills its own task and when individuals restrict themselves to one craft. This same kind of justice and harmony ensues within individuals when each part of one's soul fulfills its own task and when the reasonable, wise part rules on behalf of the whole soul (Rep. 2.370b-c 4.441d-e).

It is ironic, as Lewis Mumford relates, that Plato uses Socrates to insist on the division of labor to achieve functional perfection and splitting up of social roles. Had this been the society Socrates was born into, he would have remained a stonecutter all his life and would have been considered unfit even to ask questions about any other concerns. It is as if Plato learned nothing from all that fifth-century Athens had to teach him. From the perspective of the Republic, wholeness can only be achieved by the hive and not within an individual, so the individual must be sacrificed for the sake of the polis (174). Within Plato's epistemological scheme, the study of mathematics ranks high and that of numbers themselves even higher. Mumford rightly judges: "The image of the city that captivated him was a geometric absolute. . . . So strictly did Plato sort out the classes in his ideal city . . . that he returned to the order of an insect community, whose social adaptations are sealed in biological structures . . ." (174-5).

Cause of War

Socrates supposes that a city is established because individuals need many things and no one is self-sufficient. He describes several things that one needs, such as shelter, food, and clothing. Glaucon objects that this city of bare necessities is "a city of pigs" and he wants to test the limit of Justice by having Socrates imagine building up a luxurious city (Rep. 2.369b-372e). This is the cause of war, Socrates explains, when small cities are no longer large enough to provide for luxuries and sustain the growing population needed to provide for such things desired beyond bare necessities. Thus cities will need to annex their neighbor's land and they will each need a class of well educated and well trained guardian-soldiers (Rep. 373d). However, according to Lewis Mumford, this is a foreign notion to the Greek village out of which Greek cities sprang forth. The self-contained village just wanted to be left alone and was not interested in conquering others. When Greek cities began to colonize in order to limit the size of the population, Mumford suggests that the purpose of colonization was to retain the sense of family and village affiliation rather than because of the limitations that geography placed on them to fulfill needs for food and water and such (131-2). Richard Braun also expresses that the Athenian city-state was based on kinship (5). Certainly, Antigone obeyed what she thought was a higher law of kinship in honoring her brother with a proper burial, opposing Kreon's decree to leave him unburied (Ant. 51-55, 87-90, 95-96).

Athens: Surplus of Time

Another factor to consider when critiquing Plato's emphasis and glorification of war and soldiering is that the Athens and sister colonies of his time would probably have seemed like a city of pigs to Glaucon, if one is basing such a judgment on physical structures and lack of luxurious amenities. Mumford points out that the housing and sanitary facilities well into the fourth century were primitive (129). Also, there were plenty of naturally defensible sites to found new Greek cities, making them less in need of engineering skills, massive walls, and large armed forces. Poor peasants and shepherds, without any tempting surplus in the cities, could not be easily bribed or exploited; thus there was no need for a strict centrally controlled type of government. Therefore, a looser organization evolved in the Greek cities initiating a prevalence of personal independence and self-reliance. As Mumford expresses: "The Greek poleis in their best days had no great surplus of goods: what they had was a surplus of time, that is, leisure . . . available for conversation, sexual passion, intellectual reflection, and esthetic delight" (127).

A remarkable change in culture took place by the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece. The human mind became conscious of itself and old customs and laws were laid open to the scrutiny of reason. Even the gods changed to meet these new human standards and they were molded either to the human caste or slightly larger, in some cases made to seem ridiculous or contemptible. Citizens were attracted to and made pilgrimages to the contest, religious, and health centers of Olympia, Delphi, and Cos. This, in turn, widened the horizons and deepened the conversations for those who ventured forth from their own more static cities (Mumford 128-143). Within the Greek city of this period, each citizen participated fully in every aspect of common life, from the contests, to law courts, to performing in the plays or singing in the chorus. The result of all of this, Mumford tells us, "was not merely a torrential outpouring of ideas and images in drama, poetry, sculpture, painting, logic, mathematics, and philosophy; but a collective life more highly energized, more heightened in its capacity for esthetic expression and rational evaluation, than had ever been achieved before" (138).

For the citizen of Athens, then, it seems that there is a high degree of harmony between one’s individual needs for a fully actualized life and providing for the needs of the many in the city by actively participating in all aspects of public life. The education of the "whole man" during this period took place not in any special academy or in a rigid course of studies that Plato proposed for the rulers of the Republic, "but in every activity, every public duty, in every meeting place and encounter. Work and leisure, theory and practice, private life and public life were in rhythmic interplay" (Mumford 168-9).

However, the business men, the slaves, the foreigners, and the women were excluded from participation in Athenian democracy. At its height, less than fifteen percent of the population was citizens (Mumford 135, 153-4). The Athenian slave had legal protection and had a chance to buy his freedom (Webster 61). Nevertheless, a slave in any society would hardly consider that his needs were met or in any way balanced with what he was forced to contribute. Because there was an international port in the greater Athens area, this was a thriving industrial and commercial center. As a result, the population of resident foreigners grew (Webster 56). Since, by definition, a citizen could not participate in commerce, this faction of the populace, reduced to the status of irresponsible, second-class citizens, became more and more disenfranchised (Mumford 129). Marriages were arranged by the partners' fathers and control of the property that the wife brought into the marriage was immediately passed to her husband. The women were responsible for the small children, for female slaves, for spinning, and weaving, and for much to do with provisioning and preparing food (Webster 64). But she was not a citizen and thus was excluded from the good life.

Woman’s Place & Other Classes

Ismene certainly knew her place, when she pleaded with her sister, Antigone, to not go against Kreon's edict: "No, we should be sensible: we are women, born unfit to battle men . . . No, we must obey, even in this . . ." (Ant. 73-7). Kreon is threatened by the thought of any woman getting the better of him. In a heated discussion with Haimon, he admonishes: "I'm alive though, and no woman will rule me. . . . Now they'll have to be women and know their place" (Ant. 646; 716). "Nothing is worse than lack of leadership. . . . That's why we have to defend orderly people, and never let women get the better of us. If we must fall, better to fall to a real man and not be called worse than women" (Ant. 815-24).

One positive aspect of Plato's Republic is that it is recognized that women should not be excluded from the management-ruling class and that women, just as much as men, can be born with the aptitudes and talents needed to fulfill specific roles (5.455d). Nevertheless, Plato strips women and men of their dignity and humanity with the form of controlled and regimented communal living he prescribes for the auxiliaries. The wives and children and property are to be all held in common to all the men. Plato compares "successful" procreation of humans with breeding programs of birds and dogs: ". . . the best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible" and the inferior offspring of lesser men and women are not to be taken to the "rearing pen" in order to have the best possible "herd" (5.457d-460c). So, inferior infants are as disposable as inferior or lame dogs.

This controlled communal living fulfills two purposes in the ideal Republic. First, everyone will essentially be related to everyone else, since no one knows who is whose parents or children, and thusly, there will be "common feelings of pleasure and pain" to provide the bonds to hold the community together. Second, since they own nothing except their own bodies, there will be none of the dissention that comes with the territory of possessions, wealth, children and families (5.462a-64e). This extreme amount of control was necessary only for the guardian class, the most important for the protection of the Republic and from which the rulers would be chosen. When Socrates' interlocutors argued that the guardians could not be happy with such arrangements, he justifies this strategy for producing harmony between the one and the many:

. . . it is not the law's concern to make some one group in the city outstandingly happy but to contrive to spread happiness throughout the city, by bringing the citizens into harmony with each other by persuasion or compulsion, and to make them share with each other the benefits which each group can confer upon the community. (7.519e-520a)

Other controls are necessary in the Republic to ensure that the auxiliaries and rulers will become the best they can possibly be. One takes the form of a myth—the noble lie—a device used to instill a sense of pride in each person's station in life, and to prevent them from desiring possessions; so each person of this class believes he or she is formed from gold "as a gift from the gods" and therefore one has no need of additional gold. In addition, it would be "impious for them to defile this divine possession" by mixing it with any human kind of gold (3.414c-416e). Censorship is another control. Story tellers and artists who portray any bad images of the gods must be rejected. A serious offense is to indicate that the gods lie or change forms. Plato's God Forms are "as far as is possible best and most beautiful . . . always simply in his own form" (2.377c-383a). Furthermore, any character portrayal that is "vicious, mean, unrestrained, or graceless" is to be rejected, while the "beautiful and the graceful" is to be promoted in order to nurture the souls of the students such that they, too, will become "both good and beautiful in character" (3.401b-e).

Drama and The Golden Mean

Plato had great distain for poetry and drama, which were merely imitations three times removed from anything real. He claims, through Socrates' voice, that poetry panders to the parts of men that are "unreasonable, idle and friendly to cowardice," and poetic imitation fosters excessive sex, anger, and desires (10.604d-606d). He is concerned that if one indulges in the pleasure of poetry or drama, then one will be tempted toward action beyond that of the golden mean. Mumford judges that the Delphic doctrine of the golden mean was a big achievement in the height of Athenian culture; this principle applied to cities as well as for individuals (141, 167). Plato defines the right kind of love as loving "a well-behaved and beautiful person with moderation and restraint . . . [with] nothing frenzied or licentious about it" (3.403a-b). According to Plato, one should not take excessive care for the body; one should be harmonized in respect to one's spirited nature as well as wisdom-loving nature, lest one become too rigid or too soft; one should not be money-loving or mean; and one should partake in pleasures of all kinds only with moderation" (3.407c, 3.410d-e, 6.486b, 8.559b-c). He was concerned that if guardians partake in drama then they would be imitating mean or shameful actions; if they enjoy this imitation they may then "come to enjoy the reality" (3.395b-d).

Plato thought that a city could attain achievement of harmony and the golden mean only when political power and philosophy coalesce, only when philosophers come to rule as kings (5.473d). G.M.A. Grube interprets this to mean not that a king needs to be a metaphysician in the strict sense of the term philosopher, but rather, that "a statesman needs to be a thinker, a lover of truth, beauty, and the Good, with a highly developed sense of values" (133). In addition to these qualities, philosophers do not wish to govern; but they must be forced to climb back into the cave to benefit all others who do not yet know the real world (Rep. 7.519d, 520c). It would be best if each individual had divine intelligence within him to rule his soul, but if that is not the case, then one must be enslaved to philosopher kings who do have the divine rule within themselves (9.590c-d). At this point, Plato has set up the ideal "good" city with properly educated philosopher kings who produce laws aimed at harmony and moderation and with auxiliaries to ensure enactment of such laws.

Inevitable Devolvement of Governments

However, even an ideal city will eventually decline, Socrates laments, and he goes on to describe how each of the five types of governments corresponds with the five types of men's souls, and how each type of government and type of man devolves into the next lower form (4.445c, 8.546b ff). The two worst forms of government, according to Plato, are democracy and dictatorship inhabited with souls that are correspondingly wretched and at odds with themselves. Democracy comes about when the poor are victorious in a revolution against the wealthy in an oligarchy. The problem now becomes too much freedom for an individual to "arrange his own life in any manner that pleases him" (8.555d-557b). Widespread indulgence in "useless pleasures" and lack of discipline within individual souls leads to corrupt and inept rulers who pretend to pander to individual's desires (8. 561c-d). With things out of control, the populace seeks a champion to straighten things out. They elevate this champion, who becomes their leader through hints of wealth redistribution and cancelled debts. He stirs up a war so the people will cling to their need of him and he turns into a dictator (8.562b-567a). Ironically, though, the dictator himself, "driven by violent frenzy," is distrustful and full of fear, and is the least likely to do what he wants to do personally: "the life of the reigning dictator is altogether wretched" (9.577c-579d).

A wretched man is a good description of the tyrant-king Kreon. Antigone admits to Kreon that she went against his edict; she buried her brother who had been a traitor to the city because she believed that the gods' traditions for such rites were infallible and therefore took precedence over Kreon's decree. Haimon, arguing from a democratic point of view, tells Kreon what the majority of citizens are saying in support of Antigone's actions and pleads for Kreon to believe in the voice of the people "for once." Haimon points out that one exposes his true emptiness if he thinks that he alone has intelligence. Kreon stubbornly retorts: "I never surrender when I know something is wrong" (Ant. 883-905). Earlier, the brave Sentry—one of a few who were not among the conforming majority—pointed out Kreon's fallibility to his face: "Sir, it's terrible; you make your mind up when even what's wrong looks right" (Ant. 403-4). The Chorus sings the curse for every dictator: "And when he has bound the laws of this earth beside Justice pledged to the gods, he rules his homeland; but he has no home who recklessly marries an illegitimate cause" (Ant. 450-54). When the suicides of Antigone, Haimon, and Eurydice are discovered, the Messenger states: "Kreon has shown there is no greater evil than men's failure to consult and to consider" (Ant. 1436-9). The Chorus chimes in: "For their grand schemes or bold words the proud pay with great wounds . . ." (Ant. 1532-3).

We can, indeed, find many cases in history that seem to support Plato's assessment that the tyrannical soul is wretched and can cite instances where such rulers' lives end up in personal catastrophe; Saddam Hussein comes to mind as the archetypal despot, formally with many bodyguards, secretly moving from palace to palace, unable to travel in the open, unable to trust anyone, and one who loses family in war and ultimately everything, or so it seems. However, Plato's criticism of democracy is off track. Even though it was restricted to a small percentage of male citizens, Athens of the fifth century B.C. seems to refute the notion that democracy necessarily leads to an undisciplined and unworthy life. As has been discussed, those citizens partook freely and enthusiastically in every aspect of public life, thus enhancing the culture overall and enriching their own individual lives.

The leaders in Athens were wise to realize that for democracy to work the cities must remain small enough such that the population is, as Aristotle proposed, "the largest number which suffices for the purposes of life, and can be taken in at a single view" (Mumford 186). In all their wisdom, though, the great minds of that era did not understand the major shortcomings of their limited democracy—excluding the majority of their population from the good life and denigrating manual labor and commerce. Nevertheless, this limited democracy and culture of fifth century Athens was far superior and conducive to human life and toward producing harmony among the one and the many when compared to the hive-like structured, stifling, and controlled Republic of Plato's imagination and Kreon’s Thebes.

Works Cited

Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1961.

Plato. Plato's Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1974.

Sophocles. Antigone. Trans. Richard Emil Braun. Ed. William Arrowsmith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Webster, T. B. L. "Attica and Its Population." Athenian Culture and Society, (34-57). Reproduced in "Humanities 540" course handbook, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Revised November 1996 (55-67).