The Spartan Drama of Plato’s Laws.

The Spartan Drama of Plato’s Laws. Eli Friedland, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.

Eli Friedland’s The Spartan Drama of Plato’s Laws is not an easy read. That said, for those who are well acquainted with Plato’s Laws Friedland’s arguments are fascinating. The book focuses on the drama of the conversation in the Laws. It provides a detailed character analysis of the three interlocutors: Kleinias from Crete, and Megillos from Sparta, and the Stranger from Athens. By closely studying the interaction between them, Friedland is able to argue that Plato’s Laws may be the most important book on politics ever written. Politics has to do with governing a city and Kleinias is meant to govern the new colony of Magnesia. Friedland demonstrates that Kleinias lacks a philosophical disposition; he is even hostile to wisdom. In the Laws, the Stranger and Megillos team up, as it were, in order to test Kleinias’ soul. In the process, Megillos gains reflective insight into his own soul, and an intriguing argument develops about the nature of law and its role in politics.

In the first chapter, Friedland rightly notes that the role and character of Megillos in the Laws has not been given its due in the scholarly literature. He shows that Megillos is reserved yet keen and capable of self-reflection. Not only is Megillos a careful listener, he also supports the Stranger at crucial junctions in the conversation with Kleinias, for example, when Kleinias is reluctant to talk about the symposia. Megillos develops an understanding of the Stranger’s attempt to know and possibly reform Kleinias’ soul.

The second chapter discusses Kleinias, who presents himself as someone who easily accepts the authority of myth and custom. Kleinias is a man of tradition. He lacks self-reflection, and while he acknowledges that the love of money is base and shameful, he does not reject his own base desires. Moreover, Friedland discerns a tyrannical impulse in Kleinias. Kleinias needs the static quality of law as he is not capable of developing political knowledge himself. In chapter three, Friedland argues that the difficulty is that Kleinias’ soul has been shaped by myths that have been adjusted by Cretan customs, and that Kleinias shows little understanding of the original myths. The Stranger uses myths in book three of the Laws in a protreptic way in order to get Kleinias to see or accept “what he was unable to see or accept, and did not want to see or accept from argument alone” (p. 79).

Chapter four deals with ‘responsibility, indignation, and the “Instinct of the Secondary Role”’. Here Friedland offers a plea for a politics of responsibility, which is ultimately philosophical politics. Friedland emphasizes that the Stranger does not experience indignation at Kleinias’ character. Rather, he sees Kleinias’ flaws as opportunities. Kleinias, on the other hand, presents himself as a man of righteous indignation. “Indignation is the polar opposite of genuine responsibility”, so Friedlander argues (p. 84). Genuine responsibility means responsibility taken to the point of developing the judge within oneself and purifying oneself. The point is “not to be indignant about indignation as a necessary political fact” (p. 94). This chapter, possibly the most interesting chapter in The Spartan Drama, holds an important lesson for politics today.

Chapter five deals with nature. Friedland argues that the Stranger uses almost comical images of nature, illustrating not nature itself but, rather, the nature of the image as being removed from nature. This imagery, which is meant to persuade Kleinias to institute common messes for women and to regulate homosexual and extramarital sex, is clearly unconvincing. According to Friedland, the Stranger uses the imagery to see whether Kleinias is susceptible to persuasion. However, Kleinias retains a man of static devotion to law, and law “cannot compel self-reflection” (p. 112).

In chapter six, Friedland pursues the discussion of the effect of imagery focusing on Megillos, whose response obviously differs from that of Kleinias. Megillos responds in a more discerning way, refusing to concede to the imagery while not expressing indignation. He shows that he is not a mere puppet of the laws; he is capable of reflecting on nature. Along the way, he is capable of understanding an image as an image. Friedlander concludes that the true standard of natural right is responsibility as lived by the Stranger and Megillos.

To some, The Spartan Drama may feel incomplete. The focus is on book three and book eight of the Laws, but one might want to see more. For example, it would have been interesting to include book four. Early on in The Spartan Drama, Friedland argues that the different responses by Kleinias and Megillos to the first sentence of the Laws – Is God or a human being responsible for laws? – indicates, on the one hand, Kleinias’ inability to think independently and, on the other hand, Megillos’ ability to take responsibility. The distinction drives a wedge between “according to the god” and “according to nature” (cf. p. 72). The wedge is necessary in order to relegate the response of Kleinias to the level of images and beliefs, and the response of Megillos to the level of nature and philosophy. God and nature are different according to Friedlander “for, to say the least, nature doesn’t look back” (p. 72). The Greeks, however, shared a view of nature as having a cyclical rhythm; things come to be and pass away. The cyclical nature is expressed in the main preamble in book four, where the god holds the beginning, middle, and end” (Laws, 715e). Kleinias acquiesces to the myth, even though the god of the myth is surely different from gods that he is familiar with. One may wonder why he so easily accepts the myth. In The Spartan Drama, the preamble is mentioned without commentary on page 77. It would have been worthwhile to see an explicit analysis.

The dualism that Friedland proposes between nature and philosophy, on the one hand, and law, imagery and myths, on the other is perhaps too stark in chapter five of The Spartan Drama. Law, indeed, cannot compel self-reflection. However, the Stranger proposes that laws include preambles, which provide the members of the colony with the reasoning behind the law. Granted, this is not exactly an impetus for self-reflection, but it encourages a reasoned acceptance of law, while the lawgiver is spurred to make laws that can be explained in more or less reasonable terms. Nevertheless, these comments in no way detract from the real contribution of The Spartan Drama, which focuses on the drama of the Laws, and here the reader will benefit from one of the most meticulous analyses of the souls of Megillos and Kleinias, and the clarification of the Stranger’s particular kind of politics.

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