A Room of One's Own
정치 참여에 관한 플라톤의 유명 구절의 출처와 맥락 보기 본문
정치 참여 거부에 대한 징벌 중 하나는 자신보다 하등한 존재에 의해 지배당하는 것이다.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
"Therefore good people won’t be willing to rule for the sake of either money or honor. They don't want to be paid wages openly for ruling and get called hired hands, nor to take them in secret from their rule and be called thieves. And they won't rule for the sake of honor, because they aren't ambitious honor-lovers. So, if they’re to be willing to rule, some compulsion or punishment must be brought to bear on them—perhaps that's why it is thought shameful to seek to rule before one is compelled to. Now, the greatest punishment, if one isn't willing to rule, is to be ruled by someone worse than oneself. And I think that it’s fear of this that makes decent people rule when they do. They approach ruling not as something good or something to be enjoyed, but as something necessary, since it can’t be entrusted to anyone better than—or even as good as—themselves. In a city of good men, if it came into being, the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they do now in order to rule. There it would be quite clear that anyone who is really a true ruler doesn't by nature seek his own advantage but that of his subject. And everyone, knowing this, would rather be benefited by others than take the trouble to benefit them. So I can't at all agree with Thrasymachus that justice is the advantage of the stronger..." (Republic, 347b-d; trans. G.M.A. Grube, rev. C.D.C. Reeve.)
문맥을 보면 알겠지만 위 구절은 '정의란 강자의 이익이다'라는 트라시마코스의 주장을 반박 과정에서, 훌륭한 사람들이 왜 '다스리는(통치하는) 일'에 종사해야 하는지 또는 어떻게 해야 훌륭한 사람들을 다스리는 일에 종사하도록 할 수 있는지를 설명하는 과정에서 나왔다. 그러니까 우리가 기대하는 것처럼 시민의 정치 참여를 촉구하는 맥락과는 약간의 괴리가 있는 셈이다.
하지만 그래도 위 구절은 여전히 주목할 만하다. 참된 통치자란 명예를 사랑하는 사람도, 자신의 이익을 도모하는 사람도 아닌, 다스림을 받는 자의 이익을 추구하는 사람이라는 언급은 우리가 어떤 잣대로 통치자의 자질을 판단하고, 또 통치를 해야 하는지를 상기시키기 때문이다. 어찌 보면 퍽 순진한 말 같지만, 진리는 때론 가장 단순한 곳에 웅크리고 있을지도 모른다.
