The Psychology of Inequality. Michael Locke McLendon
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found in Homer’s celebrated poems. Like many in his age, he was acutely aware that the rise of democracy dramatically altered human consciousness. Democrats apprehend the world in ways fundamentally different from those of their aristocratic counterparts. The insights Sophocles dramatizes here remain relevant. His dichotomy between aristocracy and democracy has shaped much of the thinking on the subject and continues to structure scholarly opinion. As we will see in chapter 4, it is the starting point of Tocqueville’s analysis of American democracy.
In brief, Sophocles understands aristocrats to be honor loving, democrats to be prudent and calculating. His character of Ajax, who represents the aristocratic ethos, is a hulking warrior who cares only for honor and glory and fears nothing more than shame.24 His devotion to these values is so complete that he commits suicide after being disgraced by the goddess Athena, who tricked him into slaughtering cattle rather than the Greek leadership he held responsible for awarding Achilles’ armor to Odysseus rather than himself. Ajax proclaims, “Honor in life or in death: a man is born noble, he must have one or the other.”25 Conversely, Odysseus, who is a stand-in for democratic humans, looks after only his personal well-being, and does so in a meticulous and strategic way. As called for by the democratic world in which he lives, he carefully weighs and balances his options, looks to the future, and exhibits a flexibility utterly absent in Ajax. At times, he exhibits little fidelity to ideals or principles and does not look at himself or the world in exalted terms. It is a place that must be carefully navigated, which requires negotiation and compromise.26 For example, regarding honor, Odysseus is willing to sacrifice much to avoid disgrace, as evidenced by the fact that he agrees to bury Ajax because he too will face the same need in the future and does not want to make enemies who might deny him last rites. He sees sacrifice in practical terms. Unlike Ajax, he does not wish to be great and has no need to make statements to the world. His drive for honor is moderated by prudence; he hedges his bets and opts for “not disgrace.” Likewise, he is not strongly attached to moral principle. Paul Woodruff, who writes a persuasive defense of Odysseus, concedes his “values slide around to suit his needs” and that “you can depend on him to look after himself.”27 In the play, he readily admits that his well-being represents his overriding concern and that his compassion for Ajax’s humiliating death stems from his fear that he might share in the same fate.28 The question of whether Ajax deserves burial is secondary to his own desire for a respectful funeral. Presumably, if some moral ideal disrupts Odysseus’s calculations of self-interest, then it can be ignored or rationalized away. Aware of this moral reasoning, Ajax complains Odysseus will do anything if it leads to personal benefit. Sophocles tidily sums up Odysseus’s attitude through one simple exchange with Agamemnon. When Agamemnon questions his unprincipled, individualistic ethic by snidely asking, “It’s all one, then, and each man works for himself?” Odysseus quickly retorts, “There is reason in that. Who else should I work for?”29
To be sure, Sophocles’ Odysseus seems to be motivated by more than his own self-interest. At both the beginning and the end of the play, he appears to show genuine compassion for Ajax and demonstrates the ability to empathize with the loss of life and humiliations of others. For this reason, he has attracted some sympathy from scholars. Woodruff calls him a man of “deep compassion” and “deep reverence,” and March suggests that the pity Odysseus has for the dead is reminiscent of the more appealing portrayal of him in Homer’s Odyssey.30 While his compassion is still selfish,31 it amounts to more than a shrewd attempt to tangibly improve his lot. It comes from a recognition of the precariousness of human fate. Tragedy is around the corner for everyone, Odysseus realizes, himself included. In addition, he makes an appeal to justice and natural law, arguing that both compel him to bury Ajax.32 This, too, implies that he is willing to stand on some moral principle or impulse that is not directly tied to his interests. By including compassion and justice in his moral reasoning, Sophocles complicates his moral psychology and makes it difficult to interpret Odysseus simply as a crass moral opportunist. If he works for himself, he can work for others as well.
At the same time, however, Sophocles’ nuanced portrayal of Odysseus’s moral impulses contains an obvious tension. Self-interest and justice do not always lead to the same conclusion. Sometimes, following justice requires that we work against ourselves. All this begs the question: Would Odysseus agree to bury Ajax if he believed it would harm his self-interest? For example, what if burying Ajax threatened his high standing and reputation among the Greeks or even the chance that he might receive a proper burial? There is no direct evidence in the text that answers this question. By presenting Odysseus’s self-interest as coinciding with justice—that is, both point to honoring Ajax in death—Sophocles avoids the tensions in Odysseus’s moral reasoning.33 Accordingly, it might be presumptuous to contend that Odysseus is either opportunistic or compassionate and just. It might be argued that his willingness to utilize contradictory forms of moral reasoning confirms suspicions that he is a slippery, unprincipled opportunist who will say anything to further his interests. On this interpretation, Odysseus appeals to justice and natural law only as rhetorical device. If other people are moved by such considerations, then it makes sense to refer to them. It is just as plausible, however, to adopt Woodruff’s and March’s softer stances. The text cannot rule out either interpretation. Perhaps Sophocles only means to suggest that justice and natural law can find space to operate in the democratic consciousness and are not fully eclipsed by self-interest.
In any event, there are a few aspects of Sophocles’ dichotomy between aristocratic and democratic worldviews that are worthy of elaboration. First, the portrayal of Odysseus in Ajax as fundamentally prudent is slightly out of step with the more common view of him as cunning, artful, and clever. In Homer’s Odyssey, the reader is meant to marvel at his resourcefulness and sense of élan, which gets him out of numerous life-threatening predicaments. The Odysseus of the Ajax, by contrast, comes off as a somewhat meek and risk averse. His reasoning is not fantastical or unduly clever (unless his appeals to justice and natural law are more cynically interpreted as a function of his self-interest). At best, it is reminiscent of the reasoning in the “veil of ignorance” from Rawls’s Theory of Justice—a classic hedge to avoid the worst possible outcomes.34 In addition, the submissive attitude of Odysseus toward Ajax at the end of the play arguably undermines the suspicion and distrust that many Greeks allegedly had of him. If he is often unprincipled, he is not conniving and deceptive. He is not the liar that he is sometimes made out to be in the literature. Indeed, his behavior is entirely predictable once his conservative orientation is understood. His selfishness is petty and ordinary, and more likely to inspire contempt than wariness.
Second, it is easy to overstate the differences between the aristocratic ethic and the democratic one. It is not as if aristocrats do not calculate or have no interest in money, just as it would be wide of the mark to suggest that democrats are indifferent to honor and sacrifice. Even Sophocles blurs the line between aristocrats and democrats. Every bit as self-centered as Odysseus, Ajax too works for himself by calculating that suicide can restore his honor and secure his destiny as a great warrior, whatever the consequences for anyone else. On the other side of the ledger, Odysseus still values honor. To reiterate, he elects to bury Ajax so as to not make enemies who might seek to shame him by denying him a proper burial. While his selfishness is noteworthy because it is enlightened and encourages compassion toward enemies, it is does not fully abandon the central value of aristocratic ethics.
Still, the two men reason from entirely different places. Ajax is narrowly focused on the value of his identity. He cares only about his aristeia, his being best on the battlefield, and defines himself solely by being superior to his peers. This superiority is his essence. It is, to borrow an epigram from Pindar, who Ajax is.35 In the text, it is described as his destiny. If he holds a “great deeds” ethic, the emphasis is on “deeds” plural. His superiority is not based on one flash-in-the-pan achievement; it is sustained superiority rooted in his superior nature. The idea is that he is great, not merely that he does great things. This is why he can only interpret his defeat to Odysseus as an insult and cannot negotiate or bargain with the Greek leadership to lessen his humiliation. When the leaders of the Greek army judge him less worthy of Achilles’ armor than Odysseus and Athena tricks