How not to suffer injustice
SocratesWhat art, then, can there be for equipping oneself so as to suffer no injustice at all, or as little as possible? Consider whether it seems to you as it does to me. For to me it seems to be this: one must either rule in the city oneself, or even be tyrant, or else be a companion of the constitution in place.
CalliclesDo you see, Socrates, how ready I am to praise, if you say anything finely? That, it seems to me, you have said very finely.
SocratesThen consider this too, and see whether I seem to you to speak well. The closest friend one person can be to another, it seems to me, is the one the men of old, the wise ones, speak of: like to like. Doesn’t it seem so to you too?
CalliclesIt seems so to me.
SocratesSo where a tyrant rules who is savage and uneducated, if there were someone in the city far better than he, the tyrant would surely fear him, and could never with his whole heart become a friend to him?
CalliclesThat is so.
SocratesNor, again, if someone were a far lesser man, could he become his friend either; for the tyrant would despise him and would never take him seriously as a friend.
CalliclesThat too is true.
SocratesThen there remains only one man worth speaking of as a friend to such a man: whoever, being of the same character, blaming and praising the same things, is willing to be ruled and to be subject to the ruler. This man will have great power in this city; nobody will do him injustice with impunity. Isn’t that how it is?
CalliclesYes.
SocratesSo if one of the young men in this city were to reflect, “By what means could I have great power, and nobody do me injustice?”, this, it seems, is the road for him: to accustom himself straight from his youth to be glad and to be pained at the same things as the master, and to equip himself to be as like that man as possible. Isn’t that so?
CalliclesYes.
SocratesThen this man will have secured not suffering injustice and having great power in the city, as your argument goes.
CalliclesCertainly.