Key Arguments

• The many, in assemblies, courts, theaters, camps, praise and blame with uproar; a youth is carried away by the stream.
• They apply the gentle force of attainder, confiscation, or death when words fail.
• No different type of character is trained in virtue solely by public opinion; in the present evil state of governments, what is saved is saved by divine power.

Source Quotes

Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said.

None, he replied. No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion—I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say. I quite assent, he replied.

When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame—at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have—he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be?

What is that? The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless. Indeed they do; and in right good earnest.

Key Concepts

• Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts?
• whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God
• Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream?
• The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their words are powerless.

Context

Socrates shifts blame for corruption from professional Sophists to the social power of the multitude.

Perspectives

Plato

Diagnoses democratic culture as the de facto paideia that forms souls by appetite and opinion; only a divine or philosophical intervention can rescue some.

Socrates

Underscores the futility of private virtue training against mass opinion and coercion without systemic reform.