“THE IGNOBLE LIE”

PATRICK J. DENEEN

ENG 1100_04 : INTRODUCTION TO UNIVERSITY WRITING

PRIYANSHU CHAUDHARI

May 25, 2023

 Patrick J Deneen is the author of the article the Ignoble Lie . he is known for his works in

field of political science and also he is an professor at University of Notre Dame his works

mainly focuses on the American liberal democracy.

He was born in 1964 and was educated in Rutgers University . He completed his B.A. in

English in the year 1986 and also completed his Phd in Political Science in 1995. He is an

scholar of librelism , democracy , American political thought as well as modern and classical

political thought . He is sole author of five monographs , co-editor of three volumes and author

of numerous academic articles , in which the ignoble lie is one of it .

The article The Ignoble Lie revolves around the political thoughts of the great

Philosophers such as Plato , Socrates , etc . The main thoughts which are being repeatedly

focused in the article are political librelism , inequality , Christianity , etc .

Also it provides the difference between how the upper and lower class thought about the

following factors and how do they implify in themselves and the pros and cons in the political

thinking of people in lower class as well as the elites or also known as elites .
 Moreover , there are some article or book references to support the ideas of author about

the political views of him and supporting statements given by the different writers in favour of

his ideas .

Summary:-

In the very first part of the article, Socrates an philoshoper stated that being an ideal city

is an noble lie and he described this myth into two parts one which encourages common belief in

kinship and common origin and other which divides them into different classes such ranking

were given by reference to gold : which is for elites , silver : which is for ministers , soldiers and

etc , while bronze : which is for the iron workers , he also stated that for a city to succeed both

myth should be accepted , where one teaches to unite and differentiate and the other describes the

existence of inequality between them .

Moreover , when he teaches the ideas of Socrates in the class most of them dislike the

suggestion that was given by the philosopher that inequality is matter of birth right and many of

them find it repugnant and always caused trouble whenever asked to any student by author.

Many students believe that ruling class are more resistant towards the ideas of in equality while

lower class fail to resist it because of improper knowledge of the propaganda which Marx an

philosopher calls it false consciousness .

Plato disbelieves the idea of Marx because he thinks that idea of lie is being beneficial to

both upper and lower class but the people of the upper class don’t want to accept because of the

self interest and don’t want to get benefit of it and also don’t want the lower class to take

advantage of it . Whereas , the Socrates explains that if the upper class and commoners work
together it would make a social contract and would help both sides instead of working as warring

parties . when the response of Socrates was asked in class to review , many students felt that

concept of common kinship seems to unproblematic and uninteresting and modern elite

students focuses on generational and perpetual inequality as main part of myth.

Due to such ideas many students of elite colleges became activists and protested against

the inequality as it touches the gender , caste and disability of a person and author describes an

event happened in year 2017 that a professor named Charles Murray was being welcomed by

disrespectful chants and students protested against him which resulted into a neck injury for him

and his host professor and had to leave lecture hall to a private studio.

Furthermore , Murray was invited to discuss about his book called coming apart , in

which he described about the growing inequality of Americans from year 1960 to 2010 . In that

he mainly focused on two phenomena were one of is that he divided Americans from different

areas through wealth , class , and education . Secondly , he points the uneducated and poor

Americans suffering from social problems such as divorce , unemployment , isolation and many

other social pathology .

Some might think that Murrays lecture might be interesting as it contains evidence and

implications about the economic and class divergences of America today but on the other hand

some might think that students were upset about the inequality that inspired protest against the

professor . One more instance were Murrays work was being protested in the book Bell Curve

were the protest was against the statistical differences between different races in 1994 although

main point of the book was to concern social sorting in the America and many more protest were

held which created Murray as echo of resistance of ruling class being noble lie .
 In this part of article , James Stimson an professor of political science at university of

North California stated in New York Times that working classes are facing the problem of

economic decline because of the mentality they are going through and their lack of ambition and

which is one of the reason why they are lacking behind of the elites which changes the definition

of noble lie and common beliefs of responsibilities and inequality that is presented by the noble

lie .

Also , Plato’s noble lie doesn’t seem to vanish at all even after 2500 years and society is

bound by both ways i.e. radically alike and radically different . Plato main challenge was to

achieve common belief in kinship and origin , and to achieve it there were mainly two factors

that are Political liberalism and other is Christianity .

John Winthrop echoed his his book named a modern Christian charity , he stated that

people that are born at different places and are placed into either high or low nations and ones

which are poor always stays with them , the Christ observed .

lastly the author stated that liberalism as well Christianity coexisted as both of the main

goals of the concepts were met and atlast the proper knowledge between the concepts were

shared properly by the author

Analysis:-

The analysis of this article argues with the political situation of people in America

whether poor or rich author is trying to contrast both of their ideas and been comparing them and

through different references or different case studies and different authors he is trying to prove

his point of view of political liberalism and inequality which is been spread between the higher
and lower class through the help of different philosophers who has shown their own point of

view in describing the society and displaying social values .

Furthermore , he shares his personal experience with the students he taught and asking

them to review the ideals of the concepts that are being displayed in the article and told how they

did react to them with some having same ideals while others protest against it in a very harsh

manner . Also , he describes the solution to that problem with the a new theory which led to a

different meaning to students .

Author greatly emphasis on the political situation of upper and lower class as being

neutral

to both sides and drawing different conclusions on them while the author greatly emphasized on

these both groups he doesn’t added the middle class i.e. out of gold , silver and bronze , silver is

the least mentioned group in them and which is one of the economic pillars of the country .

Although many problems were identified by author but the most highlighting feature that

a society should be the noble lie which he has been spotting repeatedly in the whole article he

wrote article that was given by him .