The Socratic response to government
This dialogue takes place on the day before Socrate's execution in his cell between Socrates and his friend Crito. This dialogue is about another age old arguments: whether two wrongs go together to make a right. It is Socrates' position that they do not. One of the traditions of Athens was that political prisoners are given the opportunity to escape and live in exile, and even if a price were to be put on their head, the nature of Greek politics at the time meant that one could easily seek asylum in one of the neighbouring cities and not be handed back to the authorities. This was particularly the case at the time as Athens had just emerged as the loser from a rather devastating war, and her friends and allies were few and far between.
Basically Crito tries to argue that it would be wrong, and cowardly, for Socrates not to take the opportunity to escape, but a part of his argument seems to be self serving as it would appear that if his friends did not help him then it would look bad on them. However, he also tries to argue that it is obligatory for a father, who has the opportunity to live, to serve his children by remaining alive. While it is a very noble argument, it is clear, especially in the context of the Apology, that for Socrates to flee death would actually serve to undermine his character. His position is that by accepting the sentence, even though the trial in and of itself was unjust, he is in effect taking the high moral ground. The court voted for death, therefore if Socrates is to remain true to himself, he must accept the sentence of the court.
This is another of those dialogues that seem to have some very notable Christian undertones. It is reflective of Jesus willingly going to his death despite the court being corrupt, the sentence harsh, and the charges in effect bogus. The big difference we see here is that after the sentence was handed down Socrates had an opportunity to escape where as Jesus did not. Jesus was executed within hours of being found guilty. Further, Socrates' friends continued to support him right up until the time of his death whereas Jesus' friends pretty much deserted him the minute he was arrested. I guess the difference was that in 5th Century BC Athens, one was not necessarily going to be found guilty by association whereas this could be the case in 1st Century Palestine.
The main biblical undertone in this dialogue moreso relates to Paul's discussion on our response to government (found in Romans 13). Pretty much if Socrates were to be able to read that passage he would no doubt agree with it because we see the same idea here. It is the question of our obligation to the state and our obligation to obeying the laws of the state. It is in effect what is termed as the Social Contract: the state contracts with us to protect us and provide for us while we contract with the state to live within the boundaries of those laws. The difference between 1st Century Rome and 5th Century BC Athens is that one was a dictatorship and the other was a democracy (if in name only).
What we generally don't understand in relation to Paul's writings is the context of the times. For us living in liberal democracies where were have freedom of speech and association, the idea of obeying the laws of the land is second nature. The laws are hardly oppressive, and if the worse we can complain about is the fact that we cannot drink a beer while driving a car, or smoke in a pub, then we can consider ourselves very lucky indeed. We do not live in a land where the authorities can randomly pull us off the street and shoot us in the head simply because they are bored. This was not the case in Athens either because they still lived under the constitution as set out by Solon, despite the fact that it was seen that Socrates was unjustly tried. However, remember that the trial was conducted according to the Laws of Solon, and as such, for the rule of law to remain true to form it was necessary for Socrates to accept the ruling of the court and go to his death.
This was not the case when Paul was writing to the Romans. While Rome did have a constitution, as enacted by Numa Pompilius, that constitution had been shredded long ago by Augustus. Basically, in Rome of Paul's time, what the emperor said, went, and you did not talk back to him. In fact, as we read the succession of emperor's up to this period we notice that they steadily became more and more insane, right up until the point that Nero was running around lighting the streets with burning Christians and killing people for sport. In fact, it is recorded that one of Nero's hobbies was to wonder through Rome and mug people. Like, seriously, he considered himself to be so above the law that he could pretty much behave in a completely uncivilised manner. This was the world in which Paul wrote 'all governments have been appointed by God'. However, we also note that Nero was eventually removed from power, and not simply because somebody stuck a knife in him (as happened with Calligula). Mind you, after Nero was removed, the entire system shifted towards the point of collapse when Rome once again descended into Civil War, only to be saved by the Flavians.
Obviously none of this means that we should not stand up to unjust governments, or hold them accountable. Jesus did, as did Socrates, and both of them were executed for that. What they are saying is not that we should seek to hold people accountable, but we should not go and break laws to do so. Violent revolution was not in their bag of tricks designed to influence social change, and more so, in these cases, the real social change took a very long time to come into effect. In fact, much of what happened happened very slowly, and for social change to work it has to work slowly, because otherwise it does not allow the seeds to change to take root and grow. Consider the instances of France and Russia, two nations which sort social change through violent revolution. In the end it was a disaster for both cases. Some might argue that it worked in the case of the United States, but my position is that this was not a bottom up revolution, but rather a revolt of the wealthy elite against the British Crown.
