Texts in political thought

Summary

Dramatis personae

Dates of birth and death given below are conjectural, except for Socrates.

CALICLES His boyfriend Demos, son of Plato's stepfather Pyrilampes, was in Dodds's words (Plato: Gorgias, p.261, relying here primarily on Aristophanes' Wasps 98) ‘a leading beauty about 422’. On usual assumptions about relative ages of lover and beloved, we might infer that Callicles was probably in his mid to late twenties at the same point in time. Although his ambition to succeed in politics makes Socrates describe him as lover of the Athenian demos (punning on Demos), this behaviour must be interpreted as opportunistic on Callicles' part. The views Plato attributes to him are anything but democratic. And it is probably significant that of the friends of Callicles mentioned at 487c, one at least – Andron – is known to have been a member of the short-lived oligarchic regime of the Four Hundred in 411, and the other two probably to be identified with Athenians known from other evidence to have been wealthy men. There is no trace of Callicles in history outside the Gorgias. It seems likely that for whatever reason his ambitions were unfulfilled.

CHAEREPHON (467–401) One of Socrates' oldest and closest friends, and a well-known figure in the Athens of the Peloponnesian War, frequently the topic of jokes on the comic stage, perhaps in part because of his demonic energy (Apology 21a, Charmides 153b).

Summary

The translation (by TG) is made in the case of Gorgias from the text in Dodds's edition, and in the case of Menexenus and Protagoras from Burnet's edition in the Oxford Classical Texts series. The few variations from these adopted here are mentioned in notes at the appropriate points. The notes to the translation (by MS, as with the rest of the editorial matter) have benefited in various ways from TG 's scrutiny, and the translations in their final form are the outcome of several rounds of comment from MS and rethinking by TG. Raymond Geuss and Quentin Skinner as series editors made suggestions for improvements to the draft of the introduction, all gratefully implemented. The book is therefore very much a joint production, which owes its origins to a suggestion by Jeremy Mynott, at the time Chief Executive of the Press – to whom also thanks are due.

Summary

The Gorgias and the Protagoras

The Protagoras and the Gorgias are not only the longest, but by general agreement the most important among Plato's ‘Socratic’ dialogues (the quixotic Menexenus – on which more later – is another matter). Both present Socrates in argument with leading members of the sophistic movement, questioning the claims to wisdom or expertise that they make. In both Socrates brings the discussion round to his own central preoccupation with living a good life.

But there the resemblances cease. One difference is purely formal. The Gorgias (like the Menexenus) is written as drama, with parts for Socrates, Gorgias, and various other characters, notably Polus (a follower of Gorgias who has authored a book on rhetoric) and Callicles (apparently a rising young Athenian politician). There are few indications of time or place. For the Protagoras, Plato elected for a more complex structure, beginning with a short exchange in direct dramatic form between Socrates and an unnamed companion, which then frames a lengthy report by Socrates, full of circumstantial detail, narrating an early morning visit from a young friend called Hippocrates, and their subsequent encounter with Protagoras and other sophists at the house of the wealthy aristocrat Callias.

The major difference is one of tone. Plato's writing in the Gorgias has little of its usual urbanity.

Summary

Simonides' poem reconstructed

Truly becoming good is hard for a man,

Standing four-square with hands and feet and mind,

Fashioned beyond reproach.

(Missing lines)

It strikes a wrong note,

That saying of Pittacus – though wise the man

Who spoke it – ‘Being good,’ he said, ‘is hard.’

Only a god can have this privilege.

He cannot but be bad, a man, when once

Helpless disaster brings him down.

For any man is good when things go well,

But bad when they go ill.

Best for the longest time are they – whom the gods love.

I will not cast my life's portion away

In hopeless quest for what can never be –

A man who's blameless among those who reap

The broad earth's harvest.

Should I find one,

I'll bring you word.

All those who do no shameful action willingly

I praise and love.

Against necessity not even gods can fight.

(Missing lines)

Enough, for me,

A man who is not bad, not wholly useless,

A sound and healthy man, one who well knows

Justice, the city's profit, I will not

Blame him.

The tribe of fools is numberless –

All things are fair wherein no foul is mixed.

Summary

Dramatis personae

Dates of birth and death given below are conjectural, except for Socrates and for the deaths of Alcibiades and Critias.

ALCIBIADES (451–404) Flamboyant Athenian aristocratic politician, brought up in Pericles' household as his ward. An associate of Socrates from an early age: Socrates' erotic interest in him is explored in the Symposium, and alluded to in both the Gorgias and the Protagoras. He was the main advocate and initially commander of the Sicilian expedition (415–413), but was indicted in connection with religious scandals and recalled from his command. After intriguing first with the Spartans and then the Persians, he subsequently led the Athenian fleet to victory over the Spartans at Cyzicus in the Bosphorus (410). After further personal vicissitudes, he was murdered by Persian agents in Phrygia (modern Asiatic Turkey).

CALIAS (450–365) His father Hipponicus was an Athenian aristocrat reputed to be the richest man in Greece and still active in the 420s (he served as general in 426/5). The family were connected to Pericles' family by marriage. Following the precedent of Eupolis's comedy Sycophants (421), Plato here imagines Callias as a mature man who has recently inherited the principal family house (315d) and is lavishing his wealth on sophists (see further Apology 20d). We hear of Callias as a public figure in his later years (general, 391; diplomatic envoy, 371).

Presented in the popular Cambridge Texts format are three early Platonic dialogues in a new English translation by Tom Griffith that combines elegance, accuracy, freshness and fluency. Together they offer strikingly varied examples of Plato's critical encounter with the culture and politics of fifth and fourth century Athens. Nowhere does he engage more sharply and vigorously with the presuppositions of democracy. The Gorgias is a long and impassioned confrontation between Socrates and a succession of increasingly heated interlocutors about political rhetoric as an instrument of political power. The short Menexenus contains a pastiche of celebratory public oratory, illustrating its self-delusions. In the Protagoras, another important contribution to moral and political philosophy in its own right, Socrates takes on leading intellectuals (the 'sophists') of the later fifth century BC and their pretensions to knowledge. The dialogues are introduced and annotated by Malcolm Schofield, a leading authority on ancient Greek political philosophy.

Summary

Dramatis personae

MENEXENUS With his cousin Ctesippus became a member of Socrates' intimate circle, to judge from their presence in the prison on the day the hemlock was administered (Phaedo 59b). In the Lysis Menexenus (again in Ctesippus's company) and his friend Lysis are boys of twelve or thirteen. In the Menexenus he is evidently a few years older. Socrates suggests that he came from a prominent political family – but history has left no clues enabling us to identify the public figures Plato might have had in mind.

SOCRATES (469–399) Sustains throughout the dialogue the teasing pretence that he is currently a student of rhetoric, with Pericles' mistress Aspasia for his teacher. What purpose Plato had in representing him in this alien and improbable guise is discussed in the Introduction.

Analysis

234a–236d – Introductory conversation

236d–249c – Speech of Aspasia

236b–237b Introduction

237b–238b Good birth and upbringing: Athenian autochthony and how it shapes the life of the population

238b–239a Good upbringing: the Athenian political system

239a–246b Noble exploits: Athenian history

Summary

CADRE TRAINING, THE PARTY-STATE AND ANTHROPOLOGY

One of the most striking aspects of cadre training and education is how much it is suffused with a discourse on (if not an obsession with) modernity. At the most general level, this takes the familiar shape, common to all reform policies and a linear descendant of the CCP's May Fourth roots, of an unchallengeable belief that China should progress from a state of backwardness and weakness to one of strength and modernity. Of course, the reforms also buy off political discontent with the material fulfilment of the consumerist desires of middle-class life, but the key of the success of the reforms is that they have delivered, or promise to deliver, the completion of China as a modern nation – strong, unified and prosperous – that will at last right all the wrongs that China has suffered in the course of 150 years of humiliation since the Opium War in 1840. What makes this discourse on modernization irresistible to almost all Chinese is that differences in modernity also imply and justify inequalities in status and power: the discourse on modernity not only liberates, but also locks its subjects into a hierarchical vision of the world. The hierarchical nature of the Chinese concept of modernization entails that modernity is always elsewhere: modernization means trying to improve one's place on the ladder of modernity by trying to become like other, more modern places, people, institutions or nations.

Summary

Like many other party schools, the Party School of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee (Yunnan shengwei dangxiao) cum Yunnan Provincial Academy of Administration (Yunnan sheng xingzheng xueyuan) is located at the edge of the capital, in this case the city of Kunming. This location keeps the school in the immediate proximity of the province's administrative centre, but away from the noise, stress and pollution that are a normal part of city life in contemporary China. The party school is located in the small town of Haikou on the shore of Tianchi, a large mountain lake immediately to the southwest of the city. This location gives the residents of the school not only a stunning view of Kunming city on the other side of the lake, but also places the school in an area that until very recently was largely rural and at the foot of a range of forested hills. The proximity of the hills allows invigorating after-dinner hikes along carefully constructed footpaths leading through the forest and botanical gardens on the hillside to the top. The area is praised for its fresh, crisp air, which clears the mind and helps the students recover from the stress of their work and the onslaught of the unhealthy city environments that they normally inhabit.

Summary

As this book has shown, the training and education of cadres are essential elements of China's cadre management system. The recruitment, promotion, placement, assessment, further education, remuneration and discipline that shape the careers of Chinese cadres are all punctuated by frequent participation in a plethora of training courses specifically designed for the political and professional needs of cadres. Equally important, the pursuit of educational qualifications, from middle vocational all the way to doctoral degrees, and public examinations for specific posts increasingly determine the twists and turns of an individual's career.

In this final substantive chapter I will analyse some of the many connections between cadre training and education, the cadre management system, cadre careers and, ultimately, the composition of China's ruling elite. I will first discuss the expectations, experiences and opinions of cadres about the role of education and training in their own work and career development, followed by a discussion of the fit – or lack thereof – between the realities of cadres' daily work and the party's requirements and ambitions. I will then turn to an analysis of the career paths of leading cadres in Yunnan, and the impact that recent reforms in cadre management had at the time of my fieldwork in 2004 and 2005. In the final section I will turn to the implications of the rise in the status of professional training and qualifications and the composition of China's cadre corps.

Summary

The survey was carried out between September and December 2005 among all cadres who participated in a training programme at the Yunnan Provincial Party School. The questionnaire was designed together with Professor Duan Eryu of the party school, and administered by the class teachers (ban zhuren) at the school. The survey results were coded in MS Excel and analysed in SPSS. A full list of survey variables is attached at the end of this appendix.

A total of 490 questionnaires were distributed with 362, or 74%, valid returns. Three-quarters (74%) of the respondents were men and one-quarter (26%) were women. Around two-thirds of the participants were between the ages of 40 and 49 (65%). The age distribution for men and women was similar, with modal ages of 43 for men and 44 for women. There were seven ranks in the study population: below ke, vice ke, full ke, vice chu, full chu, vice ting and full ting. The largest category of respondents were of ke rank (171, or 47%), followed by chu (133, or 37%), and the highest rank ting (19, or 5%). The largest individual rank in the study was vice chu (93), followed by full ke (83); together they constitute 49% of respondents.

Summary

SOCIALIST GOVERNANCE

The Communist Party's dominance in China amounts to much more than simply holding on to power. In Soviet and Chinese communist political theory, the Communist Party is intimately linked to, but remains separate from, the government. The party does not govern, but leads, directs, controls and inspires all institutions of governance: state, army, judiciary, mass organizations, ‘functional’ work units, state enterprises. The party even guides, mainly through its United Front Department (Tongzhan Bu), the formal institutions of representative government, such as the people's congresses and the people's consultative conferences. In addition to having its own separate organizational setup, the party has created cells of party members in institutions everywhere, ensuring the party's role as the leading force that holds society together. With only slight exaggeration we can indeed say that the party is ‘the organized expression of the will of the dominant class in society, the proletariat’ (Schurmann 1968: 109). This role is predicated on socialist ideology as a mode of governance. Without such an ideology, the party would quickly decay into an electoral machine or a patronage network for the competition and sharing of power: effective perhaps at just that, but no longer a party capable of exercising leadership across society.

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PART II - THE CIRCLE OF SOCIETY

Gorgias

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Editorial note

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Introduction

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CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

A guide to further reading

Appendix

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Protagoras

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Contents

Principal dates

Index

Frontmatter

Plato: Gorgias, Menexenus, Protagoras

Menexenus

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List of illustrations

7 - Conclusions: cadre training and the future of party rule

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4 - Life and work at party schools

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6 - Cadre training, cadre careers and the changing composition of China's political elite

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Appendix 2 - Student questionnaire survey

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2 - Cadres, cadre training and party schools

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Plato: Gorgias, Menexenus, Protagoras

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