V. Socrates Under the Thirty Tyrants

Seneca offers an example. Even under tyranny, the wise person finds work to do.

Consider Athens when the Thirty Tyrants held power. They killed thirteen hundred citizens. They did not stop when they ran out of reasons. Cruelty fed itself. The city that had the most honorable traditions of law and debate was overrun by a committee of murderers.

In that city, in those circumstances, Socrates walked freely.

He comforted the men who had given up hope. He confronted the wealthy who feared their money would destroy them. He pointed out to the collaborators what they were becoming. He moved through the city as a free man in the middle of thirty tyrants.

Eventually Athens itself killed him. Freedom, it turns out, could not tolerate the freedom of a man who treated the tyrants with open disdain. Notice what he did. In the worst circumstances imaginable, under genuine mortal danger, he found ways to be useful. He did not retreat. He did not pretend the situation was fine. He worked with what was real.

Even in an oppressed world, a person of genuine character finds ways to bring themselves forward. Even in a prosperous world, jealousy and pettiness and a hundred other small vices keep most people small. The circumstances matter less than what you do inside them.