PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

When Plato came to the point where it was fitting that he should sum
up, his assurance turned into stage-fright as he thought how absurd it
would sound to say what was in him about the place of reason in
politics. Those sentences in book five of the Republic were hard even
for Plato to speak; they are so sheer and so stark that men can
neither forget them nor live by them. So he makes Socrates say to
Glaucon that he will be broken and drowned in laughter for telling
"what is the least change which will enable a state to pass into the
truer form," [Footnote: _Republic_, Bk. V, 473. Jowett transl.]
because the thought he "would fain have uttered if it had not seemed
too extravagant" was that "until philosophers are kings, or the kings
and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and
political greatness and wisdom meet in one... cities will never cease
from ill,--no, nor the human race..."
Hardly had he said these awful words, when he realized they were a
counsel of perfection, and felt embarrassed at the unapproachable
grandeur of his idea. So he hastens to add that, of course, "the true
pilot" will be called "a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing."
[Footnote: 2 Bk. VI, 488-489.] But this wistful admission, though it
protects him against whatever was the Greek equivalent for the charge
that he lacked a sense of humor, furnished a humiliating tailpiece to
a solemn thought. He becomes defiant and warns Adeimantus that he must
"attribute the uselessness" of philosophers "to the fault of those who
will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly
beg the sailors to be commanded by him--that is not the order of
nature." And with this haughty gesture, he hurriedly picked up the
tools of reason, and disappeared into the Academy, leaving the world
to Machiavelli.
Thus, in the first great encounter between reason and politics, the
strategy of reason was to retire in anger. But meanwhile, as Plato
tells us, the ship is at sea. There have been many ships on the sea,
since Plato wrote, and to-day, whether we are wise or foolish in our
belief, we could no longer call a man a true pilot, simply because he
knows how to "pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars
and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art." [Footnote: Bk. VI,
488-489.] He can dismiss nothing which is necessary to make that ship
sail prosperously. Because there are mutineers aboard, he cannot say:
so much the worse for us all... it is not in the order of nature that
I should handle a mutiny... it is not in the order of philosophy that
I should consider mutiny... I know how to navigate... I do not know
how to navigate a ship full of sailors... and if they do not see that
I am the man to steer, I cannot help it. We shall all go on the rocks,
they to be punished for their sins; I, with the assurance that I knew
better....
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