Exit out of Athens? Migration and Obligation in Plato’s Crito

• Published date: 01 June 2015
• Date: 01 June 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591714541875
• Author: Jennet Kirkpatrick
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Theory

2015, Vol. 43(3) 356 –379

© 2014 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591714541875

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Article

Exit out of Athens?

Migration and Obligation

in Plato’s Crito

Jennet Kirkpatrick1

Abstract

A prevailing theme of the scholarship on Plato’s Crito has been civil

disobedience, with many scholars agreeing that the Athenian Laws do not

demand a slavish, authoritarian kind of obedience. While this focus on civil

disobedience has yielded consensus, it has left another issue in the text

relatively unexplored—that is, the challenges and attractions of leaving

one’s homeland or of “exit.” Reading for exit reveals two fundamental, yet

contradictory, desires in the Crito: a yearning to escape the injustice of the

homeland for self-preservation and freedom (voiced by Crito) and a deep-

seated need to honor one’s obligations and attachments to the homeland

(voiced by the Laws). By exposing the conflicted nature of leaving one’s

native land, Plato’s Crito enriches an understanding of the meaning and

consequences of an exit for the individual.

Keywords

citizenship, migration, obligation, homeland, social criticism

Sometime in the 1960s, Socrates and the Crito became associated with civil

disobedience. For those thinking about how to effect political change through

disobedience, Socrates’ defiant assertion in the Apology became a touch-

stone: “I, men of Athens, salute you and love you, but I will obey the god

1Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jennet Kirkpatrick, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, West

Campus, P.O. Box 37100, Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100, USA.

Email: jennetk@asu.edu

541875PTXXXX10.1177/0090591714541875Political TheoryKirkpatrick

research-article2014

Kirkpatrick 357

rather than you.” Even if the law required it, Socrates added, “I will certainly

not stop philosophizing” (Apology, 29d).1 It may have been this statement

that led Martin Luther King Jr. to proclaim in his “Letter from Birmingham

Jail,” “To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates

practiced civil disobedience.”2 Nelson Mandela further validated the connec-

tion when he cited Socrates as an exemplar for his conduct in prison.3 Some

scholars affirmed the connection, proclaiming in one case, “Socrates took a

small but important first step in the direction of Walden Pond and the

Birmingham Jail.”4

Almost as quickly as this association was noted, it was doubted. Skeptics

focused on the Crito, reinforcing an established line of interpretation that

portrayed Socrates as a figure of obedience, not defiance.5 For Howard Zinn,

Socrates of the Crito was no exemplar of civil disobedience: “Should we

model ourselves on Socrates . . . at his most jingoistic moment?”6 In response

to this line of attack, interpretation of the Crito matured and deepened, as

scholars attempted to understand and explain its apparent conflict with the

Apology. The most influential interpretations in this vein focus on legal obli-

gation by illuminating two distinct kinds of law breaking—“higher lawless-

ness” and “lower lawlessness”—and by exploring the limits of the “persuade

and obey” doctrine.7

While this has been a fascinating and productive line of interpretation, it

has drawn attention away from a pivotal question in the Crito: Will Socrates

leave Athens or will he honor the command of the city to remain for punish-

ment?8 Socrates’ obligations to exit are intimate and existential. Socrates’

friends—Crito, Simmias, and Cebes—want to save his life and, as Crito sug-

gests, so does his family (45b; 45c–d). Given these intimate obligations, one

might expect the dialogue to be a paean to exit, a philosopher’s encomium to

the glories of egress. It is something more, however. The Laws illuminate a

competing attachment to the polity and through their speech reveal the mul-

tiple and abiding dimensions of political attachment and obligation. Making

the unexpected choice, Socrates refuses Crito’s proposal and, by the end of

the dialogue, it is clear that his decision is final in both senses of the word. It

is beyond dispute, and it marks the end of his life.

Read in this way, the Crito offers a deeper understanding of the political

challenges of exiting a political homeland. From an external perspective,

departure from a polity might appear straightforward and procedural, consist-

ing of making the necessary arrangements to leave and providing the funds to

depart. It might seem to involve, in other words, all those things that Crito has

taken care of for Socrates. But as the dialogue unfolds, it points to the interi-

ority of the one who exits, and it suggests that the act of leaving a polity is a

more daunting task than it might first appear. Exit means severing political