The Many Loves of Socrates

A Dialogue on Love, Loyalty and Political Polyamory

By Plutonix

In this playful reimagining of a Socratic dialogue, Athens’ most famous gadfly encounters Cephalus in the bustling Agora and is drawn into a conversation about an unusual modern notion: polyamory. What begins as a discussion about young people’s unconventional approach to love soon widens into a satire on political loyalty, hypocrisy, and the human appetite for freedom. Socrates, ever fond of questioning everything from metaphysics to lunch menus, compares the island youth’s romantic philosophy with the opportunistic ‘polyamory’ of statesmen who pledge fidelity to principles one day and abandon them the next. With wry humour, the dialogue explores whether loyalty is a virtue, a burden, or merely an inconvenience dressed as morality. Readers are invited to laugh, ponder, and perhaps raise a cup of wine to the delicate balance between constancy and self-preservation.

Political Polyamory. Cartoon – The New Yorker

Setting: The sun is warm over Athens, and the Agora hums like a beehive that has just discovered a sale on honey. Merchants hawk figs, citizens debate taxes, and somewhere a donkey brays as if objecting to both. Into this bustle strolls Socrates, late in years, round in the middle, nose delightfully defiant of symmetry. He spots his old friend Cephalus, the prosperous armorer, ambling with surprising energy.

Socrates: My dear Cephalus! What a rare pleasure to see you outside the fortress of your own household, braving the unwashed crowd. Your step has the spring of a young goat—or at least of a goat that has recently discovered wine. To what do we owe this apparition of vigour?

Cephalus: Ah, Socrates. The day is pleasant, and a curious thought has been chasing me around my head like a cat after its tail. I was reflecting on happiness and freedom—no small themes, you will agree.

Socrates: Only themes big enough to keep philosophers employed. Pray continue.

Cephalus: I have heard a tale of a young man from a distant land, far beyond even Crete. This fellow has adopted a mode of life most unconventional. He calls it polyamory. He believes that true success lies not in the traditional trifecta of a house, a wife, and children, but in the freedom to love multiple women at once.

Socrates: Polyamory? A word that sounds as if it were invented by a poet and billed by the syllable. And what, pray, does it signify? Does he love many polys? Or perhaps collects amories the way collectors gather amphorae?

Cephalus: (laughing) Nothing of the sort. He means the freedom to love several women at once—openly, without deception, with the consent of all. He says that clinging to a single spouse is an artifice, a chain forged by custom. He would rather live as a man whose heart is a marketplace—though hopefully less chaotic than the one we stand in.
Socrates: Ah! A fascinating premise. So, this young man believes that the path to a good life is paved not with a single, dedicated love, but with a multiplicity of affections, as a farmer might cultivate not one, but many different fruits in his orchard?

Cephalus: Precisely. He argues that many people enter a single marriage not out of sincerity but out of a sense of obligation, only to live a life of hypocrisy. He, on the other hand, claims to live without a mask, in a state of transparent honesty with his many partners.

Socrates: A noble sentiment, to live without a mask. But tell me, my friend, is there not a similar kind of “polyamory” in the political world? Do we not see men, who, instead of remaining loyal to a single, unshakeable principle, switch their allegiances to many different political parties, supposedly to better serve the people?

Cephalus: You speak a truth I had not considered. It is a common spectacle, is it not? A politician, a man who once swore his undying loyalty to one party, suddenly finds himself in another.

Socrates: Yes, he who once shouted from the rooftops that the other side was the source of all evil, now sits beside them, sharing a meal as if they were old friends. Does he not, in his own way, practise a form of political polyamory? He loves many principles, or at least, many parties, as he seeks what he believes to be the “winning horse.”

Cephalus: But he would claim, would he not, that he does so for the sake of the people? That his principles have not changed, but the means of achieving them have?

Socrates: Ah, but which is the greater truth, Cephalus? The public proclamation, or the private calculation? Does a man who marries many parties do so out of a boundless love for the public good, or out of a more pragmatic love for his own political survival? For we see that these “marriages” are often fleeting. When one party begins to falter, he is quick to seek a new partner.

Cephalus: It’s as if their political principles are not anchors, but rather windsocks, shifting with every gust of public opinion.

Socrates: And do they not, in their own way, live without a mask? For their true face is not one of steadfast loyalty, but of opportunistic ambition. They are transparent in their lack of a fixed allegiance. And yet, this is not seen as a virtue, but as a flaw. So, I ask you, my friend, why is the polyamory of this young man seen as shocking, while the political polyamory of a statesman is seen as… well, as a normal Tuesday?

Cephalus: I suppose because one is a matter of the heart, while the other is a matter of the state.

Socrates: But are they so different? Does not the heart of a politician beat for power? And does not the heart of the young man beat for freedom? Both claim to seek a form of authenticity. Yet one is praised for it in private life, while the other is often criticized for it in public life.

Cephalus: It seems the world has a double standard, Socrates. We admire a man who is loyal to one woman, but we expect a politician to be a chameleon, ready to change his colours to suit the political landscape.

Socrates: Indeed. So, perhaps the young man is right. Perhaps the only way to live without hypocrisy is to live outside the confines of a single, conventional marriage, whether it be to a person or to a political party. For the moment you swear loyalty, you risk being accused of hypocrisy should you ever change your mind. It seems, my dear Cephalus, that the only true loyalty is to one’s own self, and to one’s own survival. What a strange and beautiful contradiction that is.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 12 September 2025