On Courageous Idealism in Greek Philosophy “We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers--thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.[i]” Peter S. Beagle, of J.R.R. Tolkien
On the day he died, John F. Kennedy offered up this hopeful ideal for we, the people. We are, he said:
"watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask...that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility--that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint--and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of peace on earth, good will toward men. That must always be our goal--and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength." [ii]
We might rightly wonder whether idealism itself died that day in Dallas. However, touring Greece, one has occasion to appraise how favorably we moderns compare to Kennedy’s ideal, and those of the ancient Greeks from which our ideals of truth, justice, and freedom come. And to my surprise, I found it quite reasonable to conclude that the state of such courageous idealism as that to which JFK once gave such eloquent voice is appreciably healthy in our time, as it has been in all times of great change since the golden age of Athens.
Looking around our modern world with all its considerable conflict and formidable challenges, it is sometimes easy to discount the efforts of the apparently few who are, often unwittingly, dedicated to these ancient ideals and the revival of that spirit which once animated Greece, and thus, to jump to the conclusion of hopelessness about the human condition, what we tend to call human nature. But this is not, I think, because of an actual lack of idealists in our time, nor a matter of the lack of the power of ideals, but rather, a matter of perceptual illusion. Given the "profound human tendency to idealize the past, 'the myth of the golden age,'"[iii] can easily outshine sources of light that are right before our very eyes. Sheer volume of fanatic realism can bring us to wrongly reason that the loudest must be right and to forget that it only takes a few inspired and courageous individuals, even very humble ones, to make all the difference to the rest of us.
Faced with the question what do we in the late twentieth century have in common, if anything, with those ancient Greeks we have long revered? I am prepared to argue that it is this, bright and courageous individuals who, through their conviction and dedication to ideals of truth, justice, goodness and freedom, advance knowledge for its own sake, even when that knowledge may be at odds with their own advantage.
Philosophy and the Birth of Democracy
I should note that my coming to teach this material and my passion to offer a fresh appreciation of Socrates’ dialectic > method grew out of a larger project to which I’ve committed almost two > decades of my life. It is, at heart, an adaptation of Plato’s Socratic dialogues to film. This purpose > moved me to spend my years in graduate school (Philosophy-Madison) > completing a thorough exegesis of the works of Plato, including all > the relevant material from Aristotle, Xenophon, Thudycides, > Plutarch, as well as many other ancient voices we have yet to > truly hear. Only to discover in the process that it is as if Plato > himself anticipated just such an integration - “as if all lines of > discourse converge on a common center.”
Indeed, this subtle image > presented on the first page of his Republic turns out to be the > heart of his dialectic method. And the sheer beauty of the > cumulative integration that emerged as these voices fell together > compelled me to spend the next four years tuning these voices to > our modern ear and finishing the extensive background research > necessary to present this story accurately. For all that Plato did > well, he did not give us the social and political context that > gives his Socratic dialogues their rich meaning, which accounts in large part > for how his mentor could be so widely misunderstood, even (I was > dismayed to discover) among Socratic scholars.
So my goal has been to produce a lean, but faithful, > adaptation of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues to screenplay format. I > certainly don’t pretend to be able to improve upon Plato’s > eloquent words, mind you, but only hope to inspire renewed > interest in them, and perhaps encourage reevaluation of our > traditional interpretations of this amazing story at that critical moment in time.
Why film? Because, for all its limitations, film has the potential to uplift the > human spirit in the time that it takes to sit through a single > college power lecture. Teaching the works of Plato – who wrote for an under-stimulated > audience – to 21st century Americans – who are anything but! – one cannot > help but feel compelled to try to find a way to deliver the > oft’ maligned teachings of this misunderstood thinker in such a > way that Socrates might actually get a fair trial, once and for > all. What’s more, it may be the best means by which the parallels between that so-> called ‘golden age’ and our own can be dramatized (without being > fictionalized or trivialized). Indeed, it may well be that film alone has > what it takes to finally reach the diverse audience to whom > Socrates actually spoke - which is to say, anyone who can suspend > their disbelief in humanity for just a few short hours.
On Socratic Idealism
Wandering through Plaka at the foot of the Acropolis in old Athens,, one finds what seems at first an unfavorable contrast between what was, once upon a time during the birth of democracy in the 5th century B.C., and what democracy has become in our own sometimes glorious age. Here, in the city where Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom, brought law and justice to the world (by way of a jury system that replace the feuds of power hungry and sometimes bloodthirsty kings and oligarchs, thereby establishing reason’s control over raw force),[iv] it is sometimes difficult to see much connection between what is and what was the polis of antiquity. Did Socrates once sit here...here on these carelessly strewn ruins of what was surely once works of true art? It is not easy to reconcile the many tensions here in Athens, where Greece interfaces with the rest of the world, east with west, tradition with modernity, excellence with decadence. But it is not impossible either, for garbage, smog, and noise cannot obscure the ageless meaning of this place, these people, and the dynamic and dramatic contrasts that one finds here in layers of time on space.
It is, in large part, thanks to these proud sad ruins that we remember at all. Watching here over the changes of twenty-five centuries, now threatened by rust, acid rain, and the combination of ignorance and good intentions, the Parthenon resists the forces of time and nature almost as well as the Athenians resist invasion and sleep.
As a student of ancient ethics, one cannot help but note that the condition of this once glorious land, like the world in which it is nested, is no less than Socrates prophesized would befall whoever "expect[s] to stop denunciation of [their] wrong way of life by putting people to death."[v] In his last public oration, what is called his "Apology" (which, coming from a man who had nothing to be sorry for, is no apology at all, or even defense, but truly a justification) Socrates warned of such a fate:
"When I leave this court I shall go away condemned by you to death, but [my accusers] will go away convicted by truth herself of depravity and wickedness. And they accept their sentence even as I accept mine. No doubt it was bound to be so, and I think that the result is fair enough."[vi]
"Having said so much, I feel moved to prophesy to you...for I am now at that point where the gift of prophecy comes most readily to men--at the point of death. I tell you, my executioners, that as soon as I am dead, vengeance shall fall upon you with a punishment far more painful than your killing of me. You have brought about my death in the belief that through it you will be delivered from submitting your conduct to criticism, but I say that the result will be just the opposite. You will have more critics, whom up till now I have restrained without your knowing it, and being younger they will be harsher to you and will cause you more annoyance. If you expect to stop denunciation of your wrong way of life [this way], there is something amiss with your reasoning. This way of escape is neither possible nor creditable. The best and easiest way is not to stop the mouths of others, but to make yourselves as good men as you can. This is my last message to you who voted for my condemnation."[vii]
None of this is to suggest that Athena's ancient city, or indeed, western culture, has in any meaningful sense deserved its less-than-ideal destiny. Only that the consequences of some causes are especially pervasive throughout time, and that some lessons are very hard--and very important--to learn. Socrates seemed to know that both harm and good would come from his death--harm to those who did not learn to follow the ideal of their own goodness, truth, justice, and freedom, an ideal to which he had dedicated his life--and good in the form of other inspired idealists who would rise up in his defense: "[Y]ou are going to earn the reputation--and the blame...--of having put Socrates to death, 'that wise man'--because they will say I am wise even if I am not..."[viii]
With characteristic irony, he reproved those who think they can simply put moral idealism to death, and cited several individuals, prophetically including Plato, whom he is sure will carry on his work when he is gone: "[Y]ou will find that they are all prepared to help me--the corrupter and evil genius of their nearest and dearest relatives..."[ix]
Socrates exemplified the courageous idealism we associate with the golden age of Athens. Like John Kennedy, he gave powerful voice to a disposition which has been shared (to varying degrees) by idealists ever since, many of whom also gave their lives 'for our sins,' but most who simply gave their lives to the ideal of their own good, truth, justice and freedom--which have single universal forms, Plato knew, but with an infinite variety of particular contents.
Calling the god at Delphi as witness to his mission, Socrates spent his life testing the claim of the oracle, who had once told Socrates' friend that Socrates was the wisest of all men. All too aware of his ignorance, Socrates took it upon himself to find someone who knew more. Questioning anyone who could answer, including poets, craftsmen, and sophists, he found that many pretended to knowledge which they could not possibly have had, and ignored that which was right in front of their eyes. On this he concluded that, ignorant as he knew himself to be, he must indeed know more than others, for he at least knew how much he did not know, which is to say, he had humility, which others--impressed with their own superior wisdom, expertise, and certainty that they think they have nothing to learn from others--seem quite ignorant as the importance of. He noticed, as is so often the case still today, that those who proclaim the loudest how much they know about some things actually seem to know the least about how much that there is to know, how much they have left to learn about what matters.[x]
His inquiry into the nature of truth, which arose from his sincere humility regarding the oracle's claim, was the sin for which Socrates was condemned to choose between death or exile. "Corrupting the youth of Athens," they called it. And death, he said, knowing that good would come of it, was a good man's only choice:
"You are mistaken...if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider...whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one."[xi]
"The truth of the matter is this, gentlemen. Where a man has once taken up his stand...there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonor."[xii] "[T]o be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not...[death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."[xiii]
Here we see the depth and intensity of Socrates courage, once and for all, when he is asked to chose his own punishment:
"You know that I am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a hundred deaths."[xiv] "[B]ecause I do not believe that the law of god permits a better man to be harmed by a worse."[xv] "I am convinced that I never wronged anyone intentionally...so, being convinced that I do no wrong to anybody, I can hardly be expected to wrong myself by asserting that I deserve something bad...prison...a fine...banishment."[xvi]
[Again, death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."[xvii] "The difficulty is not so much to escape from death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong."[xviii] "Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death."[xix]
And so Socrates willingly accepted death as both the cause and the effect of goodness, and gave this last advice to all those, for all time, who might be listening--a beneficiary whose numbers, he knew, could only increase by his sacrifice:
"[T]o let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living..."[xx]
However much the world has changed since Socrates' or even John Kennedy's death, and we cannot be sure that it has not been for the better, for we cannot know what would otherwise have been without the sacrifices of these courageous idealists who have reminded us time and again, both in and out of those bright shining moments we call golden ages, of our lost ideals and our waiting potentials.
Notes and References
[i]Peter S. Beagle of J.R.R.Tolkien , "Introduction" to The Hobbit; or There and Back Again, (Ballantine Books; New York, 1937) [Watsonville, California, July 14, 1973]
[ii]John F. Kennedy, Speech to have been delivered before the Dallas Citizens Council, Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963, (in Vital Speeches of the Day, (Vol. XXX, #4. Dec.1, 1963) p. 107.
[iii] B.B.Powell, Classical Myth: A New Approach (a work in progress; quote taken from Classics 370 worktext), p. 45.
[iv] Powell, p. 182.
[v] Plato, "Apology," in Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p.24.
[vi] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 24.
[vii] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 24.
[viii] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 23.
[ix] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.19.
[x] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 9.
[xi] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 14.
[xii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 15.
[xiii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15.
[xiv]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 16.
[xv]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 16.
[xvi]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 22.
[xvii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 15.
[xviii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 24.
[xix]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 25.
[xx]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 23.
Remembered for his extensive wisdom, Socrates himself claimed to know nothing, or at best, very little, and gave credit to all those from whom he learned, including women and children, rulers and slaves, citizens and foreigners, and ancestors from his own and from all parts of the known world. He never fails to credit wisdom wherever he finds it – especially in the hearts and minds of those many who grew up listening at his feet.
Socrates was challenged to this life of inquiry by the Sacred Oracle at Delphi who had declared him at a very young age to be the wisest man in Greece. To the contrary, Socrates of all people knew how truly little he actually knew—which is to say, how very much he had to learn. And so, in an attempt to find someone wiser than himself, he'd set out asking questions, especially of those who had cultivated a reputation for knowledge. Enlightened by humility itself, Socrates seeks the wise, but ultimately discovers the ignorant—and so comes to be thought of as a stinging gadfly to the lazy horse that is Athens.
His search for truth was made possible by the newfound freedom of speech that came with the birth of democracy, which as it happens, was also the birth of bullshit, or what we these days call political spin. And so the search for truth became a meaningful quest for the practical wisdom needed to keep democracy honest. His life spanned the so-called golden age of Greece during the very height of its glory - a time when many aspired to the highest of their potentials, and the practice of talking things out reasonably was held dear as the only safeguard against the tyranny of deceit. But that first and only democracy, before our own, was short-lived, and ultimately Socrates himself was put to death for asking too many questions.
Socrates never wrote a word himself or took a single drachma for his trade. He simply spent his all the days of his life engaging the greatest minds of his time in a startlingly lucid discussion that encompasses the most profound questions humans in all times and places face. What is Justice? Wisdom? Courage? Temperance? Virtue? Happiness? Friendship? Love?
With his unwavering faith in human nature and his endearing way of treating everyone with equal respect, Socrates taught good teaching, good politics, and even good medicine, by the example of good friendship. He shows by the way he lives that self-knowledge is self-mastery - and that when one is able to master oneself, he feels no need to master others. He teaches them, and us, to judge our selves, rather than others, and to measure ourselves, not against others or the customs of our time, but as compared to the ideals of human excellence that are still and always possible in this world.
In this way, Socrates was the first to teach the young to question the norms and conventions, or ethos of their time, not only to keep authority honest, but because this question and answer process is necessary to fix understanding in the mind, and so essential to true education and good character.
But since experts throughout time (even Socratic scholars) tend to resist having their expertise questioned, Socrates’ story – like those of many other dissident voices – tend to be told by those who have an interest in keeping him quiet. Which renders many of the sages of the ages, at once, the greatest and most misunderstood thinkers of all time.
It has been said that there are no two characters in history more alike than Socrates and Jesus. Except perhaps that Socrates never claimed to be the ‘son of God’...unless, that is, we all are. However, if recently discovered documents (apparently hidden to prevent their destruction in the years following the death of Jesus) tell the true story, then it appears that Jesus shared this egalitarian view. For * I’ll leave that for you to decide, as this book does not intend to replace the ancient texts, but rather to encourage you to read them for yourselves.
Perhaps another difference between Jesus and Socrates is that, while the former taught us that we should love, the latter taught us how to. For this, the case can be made that what we call the Socratic method is simply the way we should talk to those we love. For love is not mere how we feel about others, but how we treat them, and words are indeed actions. But this is not how we think of popular teaching method, and if this is true, it’s quite possible we’re doing it badly. For more often than not, some might say, the Socratic method is used in a way that humiliates vulnerable students in an attempt to induce perplexity where overconfidence might otherwise be. While there is an element of this in Socrates purposes, his intention was to dissuade conceit, and thus bring out the best in his partners in dialogue.
On the day he died, John F. Kennedy offered up this hopeful ideal for we, the people. We are, he said:
"watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask...that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility--that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint--and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of peace on earth, good will toward men. That must always be our goal--and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength." [ii]
We might rightly wonder whether idealism itself died that day in Dallas. However, touring Greece, one has occasion to appraise how favorably we moderns compare to Kennedy’s ideal, and those of the ancient Greeks from which our ideals of truth, justice, and freedom come. And to my surprise, I found it quite reasonable to conclude that the state of such courageous idealism as that to which JFK once gave such eloquent voice is appreciably healthy in our time, as it has been in all times of great change since the golden age of Athens.
Looking around our modern world with all its considerable conflict and formidable challenges, it is sometimes easy to discount the efforts of the apparently few who are, often unwittingly, dedicated to these ancient ideals and the revival of that spirit which once animated Greece, and thus, to jump to the conclusion of hopelessness about the human condition, what we tend to call human nature. But this is not, I think, because of an actual lack of idealists in our time, nor a matter of the lack of the power of ideals, but rather, a matter of perceptual illusion. Given the "profound human tendency to idealize the past, 'the myth of the golden age,'"[iii] can easily outshine sources of light that are right before our very eyes. Sheer volume of fanatic realism can bring us to wrongly reason that the loudest must be right and to forget that it only takes a few inspired and courageous individuals, even very humble ones, to make all the difference to the rest of us.
Faced with the question what do we in the late twentieth century have in common, if anything, with those ancient Greeks we have long revered? I am prepared to argue that it is this, bright and courageous individuals who, through their conviction and dedication to ideals of truth, justice, goodness and freedom, advance knowledge for its own sake, even when that knowledge may be at odds with their own advantage.
Philosophy and the Birth of Democracy
I should note that my coming to teach this material and my passion to offer a fresh appreciation of Socrates’ dialectic > method grew out of a larger project to which I’ve committed almost two > decades of my life. It is, at heart, an adaptation of Plato’s Socratic dialogues to film. This purpose > moved me to spend my years in graduate school (Philosophy-Madison) > completing a thorough exegesis of the works of Plato, including all > the relevant material from Aristotle, Xenophon, Thudycides, > Plutarch, as well as many other ancient voices we have yet to > truly hear. Only to discover in the process that it is as if Plato > himself anticipated just such an integration - “as if all lines of > discourse converge on a common center.”
Indeed, this subtle image > presented on the first page of his Republic turns out to be the > heart of his dialectic method. And the sheer beauty of the > cumulative integration that emerged as these voices fell together > compelled me to spend the next four years tuning these voices to > our modern ear and finishing the extensive background research > necessary to present this story accurately. For all that Plato did > well, he did not give us the social and political context that > gives his Socratic dialogues their rich meaning, which accounts in large part > for how his mentor could be so widely misunderstood, even (I was > dismayed to discover) among Socratic scholars.
So my goal has been to produce a lean, but faithful, > adaptation of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues to screenplay format. I > certainly don’t pretend to be able to improve upon Plato’s > eloquent words, mind you, but only hope to inspire renewed > interest in them, and perhaps encourage reevaluation of our > traditional interpretations of this amazing story at that critical moment in time.
Why film? Because, for all its limitations, film has the potential to uplift the > human spirit in the time that it takes to sit through a single > college power lecture. Teaching the works of Plato – who wrote for an under-stimulated > audience – to 21st century Americans – who are anything but! – one cannot > help but feel compelled to try to find a way to deliver the > oft’ maligned teachings of this misunderstood thinker in such a > way that Socrates might actually get a fair trial, once and for > all. What’s more, it may be the best means by which the parallels between that so-> called ‘golden age’ and our own can be dramatized (without being > fictionalized or trivialized). Indeed, it may well be that film alone has > what it takes to finally reach the diverse audience to whom > Socrates actually spoke - which is to say, anyone who can suspend > their disbelief in humanity for just a few short hours.
On Socratic Idealism
Wandering through Plaka at the foot of the Acropolis in old Athens,, one finds what seems at first an unfavorable contrast between what was, once upon a time during the birth of democracy in the 5th century B.C., and what democracy has become in our own sometimes glorious age. Here, in the city where Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom, brought law and justice to the world (by way of a jury system that replace the feuds of power hungry and sometimes bloodthirsty kings and oligarchs, thereby establishing reason’s control over raw force),[iv] it is sometimes difficult to see much connection between what is and what was the polis of antiquity. Did Socrates once sit here...here on these carelessly strewn ruins of what was surely once works of true art? It is not easy to reconcile the many tensions here in Athens, where Greece interfaces with the rest of the world, east with west, tradition with modernity, excellence with decadence. But it is not impossible either, for garbage, smog, and noise cannot obscure the ageless meaning of this place, these people, and the dynamic and dramatic contrasts that one finds here in layers of time on space.
It is, in large part, thanks to these proud sad ruins that we remember at all. Watching here over the changes of twenty-five centuries, now threatened by rust, acid rain, and the combination of ignorance and good intentions, the Parthenon resists the forces of time and nature almost as well as the Athenians resist invasion and sleep.
As a student of ancient ethics, one cannot help but note that the condition of this once glorious land, like the world in which it is nested, is no less than Socrates prophesized would befall whoever "expect[s] to stop denunciation of [their] wrong way of life by putting people to death."[v] In his last public oration, what is called his "Apology" (which, coming from a man who had nothing to be sorry for, is no apology at all, or even defense, but truly a justification) Socrates warned of such a fate:
"When I leave this court I shall go away condemned by you to death, but [my accusers] will go away convicted by truth herself of depravity and wickedness. And they accept their sentence even as I accept mine. No doubt it was bound to be so, and I think that the result is fair enough."[vi]
"Having said so much, I feel moved to prophesy to you...for I am now at that point where the gift of prophecy comes most readily to men--at the point of death. I tell you, my executioners, that as soon as I am dead, vengeance shall fall upon you with a punishment far more painful than your killing of me. You have brought about my death in the belief that through it you will be delivered from submitting your conduct to criticism, but I say that the result will be just the opposite. You will have more critics, whom up till now I have restrained without your knowing it, and being younger they will be harsher to you and will cause you more annoyance. If you expect to stop denunciation of your wrong way of life [this way], there is something amiss with your reasoning. This way of escape is neither possible nor creditable. The best and easiest way is not to stop the mouths of others, but to make yourselves as good men as you can. This is my last message to you who voted for my condemnation."[vii]
None of this is to suggest that Athena's ancient city, or indeed, western culture, has in any meaningful sense deserved its less-than-ideal destiny. Only that the consequences of some causes are especially pervasive throughout time, and that some lessons are very hard--and very important--to learn. Socrates seemed to know that both harm and good would come from his death--harm to those who did not learn to follow the ideal of their own goodness, truth, justice, and freedom, an ideal to which he had dedicated his life--and good in the form of other inspired idealists who would rise up in his defense: "[Y]ou are going to earn the reputation--and the blame...--of having put Socrates to death, 'that wise man'--because they will say I am wise even if I am not..."[viii]
With characteristic irony, he reproved those who think they can simply put moral idealism to death, and cited several individuals, prophetically including Plato, whom he is sure will carry on his work when he is gone: "[Y]ou will find that they are all prepared to help me--the corrupter and evil genius of their nearest and dearest relatives..."[ix]
Socrates exemplified the courageous idealism we associate with the golden age of Athens. Like John Kennedy, he gave powerful voice to a disposition which has been shared (to varying degrees) by idealists ever since, many of whom also gave their lives 'for our sins,' but most who simply gave their lives to the ideal of their own good, truth, justice and freedom--which have single universal forms, Plato knew, but with an infinite variety of particular contents.
Calling the god at Delphi as witness to his mission, Socrates spent his life testing the claim of the oracle, who had once told Socrates' friend that Socrates was the wisest of all men. All too aware of his ignorance, Socrates took it upon himself to find someone who knew more. Questioning anyone who could answer, including poets, craftsmen, and sophists, he found that many pretended to knowledge which they could not possibly have had, and ignored that which was right in front of their eyes. On this he concluded that, ignorant as he knew himself to be, he must indeed know more than others, for he at least knew how much he did not know, which is to say, he had humility, which others--impressed with their own superior wisdom, expertise, and certainty that they think they have nothing to learn from others--seem quite ignorant as the importance of. He noticed, as is so often the case still today, that those who proclaim the loudest how much they know about some things actually seem to know the least about how much that there is to know, how much they have left to learn about what matters.[x]
His inquiry into the nature of truth, which arose from his sincere humility regarding the oracle's claim, was the sin for which Socrates was condemned to choose between death or exile. "Corrupting the youth of Athens," they called it. And death, he said, knowing that good would come of it, was a good man's only choice:
"You are mistaken...if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider...whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one."[xi]
"The truth of the matter is this, gentlemen. Where a man has once taken up his stand...there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonor."[xii] "[T]o be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not...[death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."[xiii]
Here we see the depth and intensity of Socrates courage, once and for all, when he is asked to chose his own punishment:
"You know that I am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a hundred deaths."[xiv] "[B]ecause I do not believe that the law of god permits a better man to be harmed by a worse."[xv] "I am convinced that I never wronged anyone intentionally...so, being convinced that I do no wrong to anybody, I can hardly be expected to wrong myself by asserting that I deserve something bad...prison...a fine...banishment."[xvi]
[Again, death] for all I know, may really be a blessing."[xvii] "The difficulty is not so much to escape from death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong."[xviii] "Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death."[xix]
And so Socrates willingly accepted death as both the cause and the effect of goodness, and gave this last advice to all those, for all time, who might be listening--a beneficiary whose numbers, he knew, could only increase by his sacrifice:
"[T]o let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living..."[xx]
However much the world has changed since Socrates' or even John Kennedy's death, and we cannot be sure that it has not been for the better, for we cannot know what would otherwise have been without the sacrifices of these courageous idealists who have reminded us time and again, both in and out of those bright shining moments we call golden ages, of our lost ideals and our waiting potentials.
Notes and References
[i]Peter S. Beagle of J.R.R.Tolkien , "Introduction" to The Hobbit; or There and Back Again, (Ballantine Books; New York, 1937) [Watsonville, California, July 14, 1973]
[ii]John F. Kennedy, Speech to have been delivered before the Dallas Citizens Council, Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963, (in Vital Speeches of the Day, (Vol. XXX, #4. Dec.1, 1963) p. 107.
[iii] B.B.Powell, Classical Myth: A New Approach (a work in progress; quote taken from Classics 370 worktext), p. 45.
[iv] Powell, p. 182.
[v] Plato, "Apology," in Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p.24.
[vi] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 24.
[vii] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 24.
[viii] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 23.
[ix] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.19.
[x] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 9.
[xi] Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 14.
[xii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 15.
[xiii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p.15.
[xiv]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 16.
[xv]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 16.
[xvi]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 22.
[xvii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 15.
[xviii]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 24.
[xix]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 25.
[xx]Plato, Collected Dialogues, p. 23.
Remembered for his extensive wisdom, Socrates himself claimed to know nothing, or at best, very little, and gave credit to all those from whom he learned, including women and children, rulers and slaves, citizens and foreigners, and ancestors from his own and from all parts of the known world. He never fails to credit wisdom wherever he finds it – especially in the hearts and minds of those many who grew up listening at his feet.
Socrates was challenged to this life of inquiry by the Sacred Oracle at Delphi who had declared him at a very young age to be the wisest man in Greece. To the contrary, Socrates of all people knew how truly little he actually knew—which is to say, how very much he had to learn. And so, in an attempt to find someone wiser than himself, he'd set out asking questions, especially of those who had cultivated a reputation for knowledge. Enlightened by humility itself, Socrates seeks the wise, but ultimately discovers the ignorant—and so comes to be thought of as a stinging gadfly to the lazy horse that is Athens.
His search for truth was made possible by the newfound freedom of speech that came with the birth of democracy, which as it happens, was also the birth of bullshit, or what we these days call political spin. And so the search for truth became a meaningful quest for the practical wisdom needed to keep democracy honest. His life spanned the so-called golden age of Greece during the very height of its glory - a time when many aspired to the highest of their potentials, and the practice of talking things out reasonably was held dear as the only safeguard against the tyranny of deceit. But that first and only democracy, before our own, was short-lived, and ultimately Socrates himself was put to death for asking too many questions.
Socrates never wrote a word himself or took a single drachma for his trade. He simply spent his all the days of his life engaging the greatest minds of his time in a startlingly lucid discussion that encompasses the most profound questions humans in all times and places face. What is Justice? Wisdom? Courage? Temperance? Virtue? Happiness? Friendship? Love?
With his unwavering faith in human nature and his endearing way of treating everyone with equal respect, Socrates taught good teaching, good politics, and even good medicine, by the example of good friendship. He shows by the way he lives that self-knowledge is self-mastery - and that when one is able to master oneself, he feels no need to master others. He teaches them, and us, to judge our selves, rather than others, and to measure ourselves, not against others or the customs of our time, but as compared to the ideals of human excellence that are still and always possible in this world.
In this way, Socrates was the first to teach the young to question the norms and conventions, or ethos of their time, not only to keep authority honest, but because this question and answer process is necessary to fix understanding in the mind, and so essential to true education and good character.
But since experts throughout time (even Socratic scholars) tend to resist having their expertise questioned, Socrates’ story – like those of many other dissident voices – tend to be told by those who have an interest in keeping him quiet. Which renders many of the sages of the ages, at once, the greatest and most misunderstood thinkers of all time.
It has been said that there are no two characters in history more alike than Socrates and Jesus. Except perhaps that Socrates never claimed to be the ‘son of God’...unless, that is, we all are. However, if recently discovered documents (apparently hidden to prevent their destruction in the years following the death of Jesus) tell the true story, then it appears that Jesus shared this egalitarian view. For * I’ll leave that for you to decide, as this book does not intend to replace the ancient texts, but rather to encourage you to read them for yourselves.
Perhaps another difference between Jesus and Socrates is that, while the former taught us that we should love, the latter taught us how to. For this, the case can be made that what we call the Socratic method is simply the way we should talk to those we love. For love is not mere how we feel about others, but how we treat them, and words are indeed actions. But this is not how we think of popular teaching method, and if this is true, it’s quite possible we’re doing it badly. For more often than not, some might say, the Socratic method is used in a way that humiliates vulnerable students in an attempt to induce perplexity where overconfidence might otherwise be. While there is an element of this in Socrates purposes, his intention was to dissuade conceit, and thus bring out the best in his partners in dialogue.