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Read about the evidence
Plato (Plat. Gorg.).

The Gorgias centers on matters of ethics, political justice, and the problematic role of persuasion in the political life of the polis. The bulk of the dialogue consists of a long interchange between Socrates and Callicles—a politically ambitious Athenian citizen who is studying with the rhetoric-teacher Gorgias. Callicles believes that mastery of rhetoric will make him a powerful man and assure him personal security against any threats to his person or his standing. Callicles scorns Socrates for failing to avail himself of the powerful weapons afforded by the art of public speaking. He claims that Socrates would be incapable of protecting himself if someone sought to do him harm. In response, Socrates seeks to show Callicles that the power and security associated with rhetorical skill is illusory, and that in fact rhetorical skill ends in nothing other than the enslavement of the speaker to the whims of his audience: For Socrates, anyone who seeks to persuade a mob ends up being nothing more than the unwitting tool of the passions of the mob. By contrast, Socrates claims that his own, philosophical “craft of politics” is aimed specifically at the improvement of the citizens—he, Socrates, is like a doctor, although the therapy he offers is described in metaphors of military combat. Socrates at one point defines his own approach to “doing good in the polis” as “going to battle with the Athenians” (diamachesthai Ath enaiois: 521a-c).

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Plato (Plat. Gorg.).

Those who willingly engage in battle, rather than spending their time in preparing the means of personal security, risk their lives. Callicles warns Socrates that he is overconfident about his chances of survival. But Socrates responds that he knows perfectly well that in “this polis” anything can happen and he fully expects that if he is accused by some evil man he will in fact be killed. His fate is assured precisely because he is one of the few Athenians, if not the only one “truly to undertake the political craft and to practice politics” (prattein ta politika: 521c-e), that is to say, the only one who tries to improve his fellow citizens through critical struggle, rather than seeking to gratify them. Because he will not address his fellows in the flattering way they desire, Socrates’ position in court will, he says, be equivalent to that of a doctor being prosecuted by a pastrycook before a jury of children. If the doctor claims that his nasty-tasting medicine is really good for the ignorant brats, won’t they just make a great fuss (521e-522a)? The doctor in such a trial would be at an utter dead end (en pas ei aporiai: 522a-b) regarding what to say—and so will Socrates when accused of corrupting the youth and slandering their elders by saying harsh words “in private or public.” He will “be able to say neither the truth, that ‘Justly I say all those things and I do so acting in your interest (to humeteron d etouto), jurymen,’ nor anything else” (oute allo ouden). And so he will suffer whatever comes his way (522b-c). Yet if he is convicted due to a lack of flattering rhetoric, he won’t mind; it is only conviction on a true charge of having done injustice that Socrates fears.

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Plato (Plat. Apol.).
Plato (Plat. Gorg.).

This passage presents a problem, because it seems to contradict the account of the Apology, in which Socrates has a good deal to say to the Athenians, and specifically on on the subject of the benefits he has done them. Leaving aside the insoluble question of what the real Socrates really said on that day in 399 B.C., what sort of comment on the “Socratic ethics of criticism” is implied by Socrates’ prediction here in Plato’s Gorgias of his own courtroom silence? Plato’s re-writing of his own earlier account of the trial in the Apology underlines the new ethical position Socrates has arrived at in the Gorgias. Socrates’ speech, the reader now realizes, cannot have positive public effects for two reasons: First, because Socrates cannot and will not converse with a mob. But, more importantly, because even in an uncoerced one-on-one conversation with an intelligent fellow citizen like Callicles, Socrates’ rhetoric is insufficient to reeducate an individual who has been thoroughly ideologized by the democratic political culture. Thus Plato has shown that Socrates actually has no real capacity to do good in his polis (he cannot “heal” either the political community as a group or the would-be political leader) by “rhetorical” means and so there is no purpose served in delivering a passionate and would-be pedagogical speech in his own defense. Realizing this, Plato’s character Socrates in the Gorgias prefers to defend his own dignity by keeping silent before the childlike jurymen.

Read about the evidence
Plato (Plat. Gorg.).
Plato (Plat. Rep.).
 
Plot on a Map
Athens.

The Gorgias, I would suggest, by showing that Socrates actually has no capacity to do good in the “real world” polis of democratic Athens, kicks out one of the two key props from under the Socratic code of critical ethics. In the Republic Plato goes after the second prop, by showing why it is that Socrates actually has no duty to try to do good either.

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