R: Tell the Noble Lie

In Book 3 of the Republic, Socrates contrives a founding myth, or “noble lie,” which he would teach to all citizens in his ideal city. By telling everyone that they were begotten directly from the earth, he hopes to instill in them a supernatural devotion to their natal soil and a love between all citizens as brothers and sisters. Each of their souls, he would claim, was infused with a type of metal—gold, silver, iron, or brass—according to the station for which they were most fit, whether leadership, advising, or manual labor. In this way, social differences could be attributed to the benevolent will of nature rather than the contrivances of man. All who believed the noble lie, according to Socrates, would live in relative harmony and strive towards the good of the city.

In the context of this debate, a “noble lie” is an untrue or apocryphal narrative promulgated across a community for altruistic reasons, often with the intention of instilling a positive public virtue. This might be a mythologized founding story to promote patriotism, false information on the progress of a war to strengthen morale, or an invented account of a song’s origin to justify its continued use.

As Wilfred McClay argues in the attached essay, “a healthy sense of the future…depends on a mythic sense of the nation. The human need to encompass life within the framework of myth is not merely a longing for pleasing illusion. Myths reflect a fundamental human need for a larger shape to our collective aspirations.” People must attach themselves to founding myths to strengthen their national or institutional identity. Such “noble lies” foster communities based on a shared respect for tradition, which seems inherently conservative. Consider also that absolute transparency is rarely a viable political strategy—how can a leader successfully oversee a war or manage a pandemic if his enemies know his every move or his people are restless with fear? Perhaps the noble lie is the fulfillment of Christ’s command to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

On the other hand, one might argue that belief in a founding myth has little bearing on our sense of duty. In his essay “The Flag of the World,” G.K. Chesterton writes, “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.” The particular form of love that attaches us to a nation, city, or institution is founded on something more substantial than mere admiration of its particular virtues (e.g., its greatness). The affirmative position is itself a lie—patriotism will not gain force by attachment to a false or twisted founding narrative, because whatever obligations we have as members of a society do not rest upon the nobility of its origins. Another issue with the noble lie is simply that it is a lie. Even if one can sometimes be justified in telling falsehoods, by what standard can we determine whether a lie adequately promotes the end of a flourishing and ordered society without resorting to consequentialism?

What is the connection between virtue, duty, and the founding myth? If we love our nation, our party, and the institutions with which we identify, do we love them because they are of noble birth? To what extent does our love of a nation depend on how it was founded, of a person where he was born, of a song how it was written? Should we tell the noble lie? Should we believe it ourselves?