Socrates on career advice

Young girls are constantly being told that they will have failed unless they get a top job as prime minister, CEO of a Footsie company, rocket scientist or cutting-edge TV presenter, preferably all four together. Plato would not have objected, arguing in his Republic that men and women possessed exactly the same innate abilities for running his ideal state. But Socrates has some wise advice, arising from the famous saying inscribed in the forecourt of Apollo’s temple at Delphi: γνῶθι σαυτόν (gnôthi sauton), ‘Know thyself’.

Socrates is conversing with the young Euthydemus, who wants to go into politics. The assumptions he makes about it are all too simple, which leads Socrates to suggest he go back to basics: ‘Isn’t it obvious that people are successful when they know themselves, and failures when they do not? Those who know themselves know what suits them best, because they can distinguish between what they can, and what they cannot, do. By doing what they know about, they meet their own needs and achieve their ends; while by steering clear of things they don’t understand, they avoid failure and mistakes…’. And so on.

But Socrates then adds a vital condition: being able to distinguish good from evil. ‘Of course I can do that,’ snorts the young man. ‘Oh, really?’ replies Socrates, and states that possessing beauty, strength, wealth or glory should not be seen as good. Euthydemus is incredulous, until Socrates points out that each can have disastrous consequences for the possessor. The poor young man gives up.

Living in a world where most people’s way of life was fixed from birth, ancient Greeks tended not to indulge in fantasies about ‘what might be’. But there was still hope (Pandora’s box is a Greek myth), and plenty of advice about realistically making the most of what you had, though ‘luck’ was also regularly invoked.