A summary of Plato’s Crito

In one of Plato’s famous dialogues called Crito, Crito visits Socrates’ prison cell before daybreak to persuade him to escape. Socrates is in prison and is condemned to death, but when Crito tells him they could bribe people to bring him out of prison, he refuses. In fact, almost comically, even in prison, Socrates finds the time to use his signature “Socratic method” to decide whether he ought to escape or not. The answer, of course, turns out to be no because, even when one is wronged, one must not wrong the other in return. And the laws must be obeyed even when one is unjustly found guilty.

According to Socrates, the Law is like a father (or a master); the individual is like a child (or a slave). The individual belongs to the State and must do what the state orders him to do. Why? Because, from the day he is born, the individual is nurtured and educated by the State, protected by the State, given his rights by the State, etc. And if he does like what he is given, he can always pack his stuff and leave. (Where to? That’s not the State’s problem.) By staying in the State, the individual enters “into an implied contract that he will do as we [the State] command him.”

This is, in short, why Socrates chooses not to escape and, therefore, die.

Socrates, Jesus, and the opinions of others

Reading Crito now, on a cool Wednesday morning in September, I am reminded of that story in the Bible in which Peter draws his sword and cuts off the high priest’s servant’s ear who, among others, had come to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus. “Put your sword into the sheath,” Jesus says to Peter. “Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” (John 18:11) We see here that, like Socrates, Jesus also chooses not to escape. The cup which His Father has given Him is His hemlock.

Moreover, Crito is not (only) Peter. He is also an inverted Judas. Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but Crito is ready to do the opposite for Socrates. “But, oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape,” Crito says. “For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care.”

When Socrates hears these words, he says that one shouldn’t care about the opinion of the many. Crito disagrees because the opinion of the many has the power to ruin a man’s life. (Remember when Pilate offered to release Jesus, but the crowd persisted, demanding his crucifixion?) Yet Socrates manages to show Crito that the opinions of the unwise don’t matter. Only the opinions of the wise matter. And if there’s only one wise man among many, it’s only his opinion that matters.

In this sense, neither Socrates nor Jesus cared about the opinions of the masses. We can even say that they died because they didn’t care about their opinions.

From the POV of authorities (and the masses), they may have been lawbreakers; from the POV of their followers, however, they were either law-abiding citizens or “fulfillers” of the law. Most importantly, they themselves knew they were doing the right thing.

What can we learn from this?

Socrates did what Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.” He died defending what killed him…

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References

Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Dover Publications, 1992.