3.2: Laughter and Lying

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See 388e-389d. Socrates’ next two recommendations are puzzling. The first suggests that “violent laughter” be avoided lest “a violent reaction” result. The second suggests that permission to tell lies be denied to most citizens, but granted “as a form of drug” to the city’s rulers. With respect to the point about laughter, he may have in mind what he was saying at the end of Book II about gods being perfect and therefore incapable of change of any sort, including presumably violent changes of mood. On this interpretation, Socrates is thinking that the guardians should, ideally, be raised to be as godlike as possible, steady and decisive in their judgments and feelings. But he may also be intending to criticize and reject a particular kind of laughter – the callous sort that comes of unjustly ridiculing others. In the passage he quotes from the Iliad, the craft-god Hephaestus, who has a noticeable limp, is described as causing the other gods to burst into “unquenchable laughter.” To ridicule persons because of their physical handicaps is bad enough, but what is so particularly and grossly unjust in this case is that Hephaestus is doing his best to bring reconciliation and peace between Zeus and Hera, Zeus having just threatened to strangle her. Moreover, Hephaestus’ limp, the trigger for all this laughter, was acquired as a result of his having been hurled to earth by Zeus the last time he rose to his mother’s defense (see Iliad, I.586-594). So what Socrates may be thinking is that to laugh in this way at such a person in such a situation is to lose one’s ethical bearings – something no god could ever do, and no guardian should ever do. With respect to the recommendation about giving permission to lie, this is puzzling because dishonesty seems inconsistent with justice. That rulers should be permitted to lie to enemies in ruse de guerre situations is one thing (see 382c), but how can it be just to deceive one’s fellow citizens? We will have occasion to consider what Socrates has in mind when he begins to offer examples, the first of which comes at the end of Book III. While it is not entirely clear at present to what extent he approves of the deliberate use of falsehoods, it is clear that for a falsehood to be acceptable it has to be properly authorized, and it has to be prescribed for the good of the city.

Can a distinction be made between good laughter and bad laughter?
Do wise people laugh differently, or at different things, than foolish people?
Can you imagine a situation in which it would be right for the rulers of a city to tell lies to their fellow citizens?