I am looking for a parable that tells about a tyrant and an honest poor man

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kideceudan
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I am looking for a parable that tells about a tyrant and an honest poor man

Post by kideceudan »

Brief paraphrase: In a certain city there lived a tyrant and a poor man, the tyrant did not know about his tyranny and believed that he was doing the right thing, the poor man saw the tyrant's injustice, but he himself did not become like him and therefore remained a poor man. The question was whether to choose to live richly and not knowing that you are hurting others or to live poorly but honestly looking at your actions.

I don’t remember where I read it, for some reason I think that it was from Socrates. I hope this is not my fantasy and would like to find the original one.
Belindi
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Re: I am looking for a parable that tells about a tyrant and an honest poor man

Post by Belindi »

What about
The Emperor's New Clothes
?
Belindi
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Re: I am looking for a parable that tells about a tyrant and an honest poor man

Post by Belindi »

Jack and the Beanstalk.
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Theoryst
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Re: I am looking for a parable that tells about a tyrant and an honest poor man

Post by Theoryst »

There is indeed a very similar parable in Plato's work, but it isn't told by Socrates, it's presented as a challenge to Socrates by one of his interlocutors, Glaucon (Plato's brother) near the beginning of the Republic (around 360). It's called the "Ring of Gyges," and it's a legend of a shepherd who finds a ring that makes him invisible, and uses it to become a horribly abusive tyrant. The philosophical conundrum posed by the legend is that it seems obviously better to be the bad man, with wealth and power, that everyone thinks is a good man (Gyges) than to be the good man, with no wealth or power, who everyone thinks is a bad man (a hypothetical another shepherd who doesn't make the same self-serving choices).

There's a parallel story, posing a similar philosophical challenge, in Ecclesiastes (9:15-16), the story of a poor but wise man who saves a city, but is never rewarded, and is soon forgotten (possibly a reference to 2 Samuel 20). The challenge is the same, why then do good?

Socrates does provide an answer at the end of the Republic --the unjust tyrant is a prisoner of his own vices (think Trump), and thus ultimately unhappier than the poor good man, who is ennobled by his virtues, whatever his circumstances. The answer in Ecclesiastes is more existential --that we must choose to do good without expectation of either earthly or heavenly reward.
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