In Simon’s otherwise meticulous and delightful accounting of the ancient agora, he gives us an unfortunately sanitized description of the Cynics. He doesn’t even indicate why they were derisively called dogs: because they were exhibitionists who were shameless in their rejection of traditional manners. They strove to destroy social conventions (including family life) as a way of returning to a “natural” life.
Epithets like kynikos (dog-like) and kyon (dog) were hurled at Cynics like Diogenes of Sinope every time he, for example, begged for food (Cynics were vagabond paupers), relieved himself in public, and, most notoriously, masturbated in public, all to demonstrate how easy it was to live a “natural” life. Indeed, Diogenes advocated shamelessness as a way of life, albeit with the proviso that the actions don’t harm anyone.
7
THE STONE
DJT tweets unpleasant messages most of the time.
Many times, he tweets his governmental decisions. If he were to use the spoken word in a civilised manner he would be considered an ideal leader.
Great essay.
1
The breakfast image is the best condensation of this supposedly historical philosophical excursion. A big stack of American style pan cakes.One can imagine a restaurant for tourists and the pancakes ( for me ) are probably the worst breakfast meal ever to order and I would certainly not be able to gobble that nor digest it.
Not speaking of the doughy taste .Specially in front of the Agora.
That is a good metaphor of American free speech to be stuffed in the mouth with the most undifferentiated mass of gooey maukish paste.
2
Wonderful evocative writing from Simon the Cobbler's namesake. It's Plato who first utilized the power of the written word as a means of expressing magnificent thoughts and of squelching the errant thoughts of others. Democracy was a bit of a hot-house flower in those days, not fated to survive long; and Plato, because of what Athenian democracy did to Socrates, did his best to give it a bum rap. It's obvious that modern Authoritarian states, such as Russia and China, can use the internet as a most efficient means of sowing confusion and conflict amongst political opponents, and as a powerful tool for suppressing and censoring free opinion. it was probably the case that the ancient states were using the written word for similar purposes in the olden days, but with much less effectiveness. The modern experiment in Democracy is backed by more knowledge and social support, but it's now up to the global economy to sort out its fate. There is a direct correlation between economic collapse and the rise of fascism. Athen's democracy was built on an empire of trade, and modern democracy is similarly dependent on economic health.
4
Oh Mr. Critchley! Don't be too hard on the written word!
I am remembering a conversation between an eminent German writer--Wieland was it?--
--and the Emperor Napoleon.
Tacitus! the Emperor exclaimed. Roman historian--and so unfair! Ever ready to question the motives of a monarch! To besmirch his morals or his character!
And Herr Wieland responded. With vigor.
No, Sire, he rejoined. What animated Tacitus was a love of freedom. Of human dignity. Tyrants may quell dissent while they live.
But NOT when they're dead.
Then it's the historian's turn. And he writes what he thinks--sine odio aut gratia. Without fear or favor.
"And nothing is more is more terrible than the pencil of Tacitus!"
"Ah Monsieur Wieland," replied Napoleon. "You neglect none of your advantages. We must resume this conversation sometime."
But they never did.
As for Carneades:
What on earth did the man BELIEVE?
"That," declared a disciple, "I never found out."
Addressing the Roman Senate, he delivered a encomium on VIRTUE. Long and lusty applause.
They were nonplussed when (the next day) he delivered another oration--
--AGAINST virtue.
(Some folks are too clever by half.)
And a last thought:
Parrhasia--"confidence in approaching someone, saying something."
Occurs in the New Testament. Apropos of a Christian approaching the Almighty. With prayers and supplications.
Always--ALWAYS!--
--a good thing. Something commended.
(Thank you, Lord.)
2
Do modern cynics exist? Doubtful in this hostile partisan environment where Emotion out duels Reason.
However, in the 1950's two forward thinking comedians articulated a reasoned approach liberally sprinkled with cynicism - similar in thought to Diogenes: Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.
Mort would take the stage with the NY Times in hand and
proceed to riff from the headlines - like hip Jazz musician.
Bruce, a bastion of Free Speech, and extreme cynicism, paid the ultimate price to his career for his approach: Taking the stage the evening of JFK's assassination , Bruce blurted out: "Vaughn Meader is screwed!" Meader whose career ended that day in Dallas was well known at the time for his comedy album The First Family where he did skits impersonated the Kennedy's . Many found, and still do,,Bruce's comments humorless and offensive- possibly the mark of an extreme Cynic?
Diogenes when asked one night while wondering aimlessly around and carrying a bright torch 'What are you looking for Diogenes?" " For an honest Man!" he answered.
Both Sahl and Bruce did not have Socrates and Plato to Kibbutz around with, however, for the two latter day Cynics that had Nixon to kick around and other cultural taboos.
3
Great picture of the people taking selfies. Gives a whole new meaning to: know thyself.
1
Where o where is the Times' iconoclast cobbler of comments, Socrates of Verona, NJ.
3
Simon the Cobbler sounds a little like Theophrastus's "The Babbler", who once he's exhausted individuals with his yapping is "apt to go up to whole groups of people and put them to flight though they're in the midst of conducting business....And when, in the course of relating these matters, he gets around to denouncing the masses, his hearers either interrupt, nod off, or walk away while he's still talking....[W]henever he wants to go to bed, [his children tease and] prevent him by saying,'Prattle to us a little, daddy, so we can get to sleep.'"
I suspect that Socrates too, if his speaking resembled that attributed to him in Plato's works, was probably viewed by many Athenians as a similar babbler. The advantage that writing has over speaking is that it allows those who might be confused or uncomprehending of spoken words and ideas to study and analyze what is being conveyed. But for Plato and Xenophon's writing down what Socrates said in his lifetime, his words would have disappeared into the dustbin of history.
Similarly, I daresay more freedom and democracy have been inspired and otherwise advanced by written than by spoken words, which are simply too ephemeral. Where speaking is superior to writing or best serves the causes of freedom and democracy is through the words of leaders and military or other commanders to the citizenry, troops and other fighters immediately preceding their wars and battles--so they can act upon their senses and emotions more than intellect.
2
@Jamie Nichols
Socrates was never a bubbler. He asked very brief questions making others re-examine their statements and positions. He had the ability to engage others and helping them to achieve self knowledge.
1
I've always agreed that a written constitution was a sham. It first occurred to me when my father, during the Russian communist era, introduced his preteen children to the Russian Constitution. The chasm between the high-minded ideals of this written document and the harsh political reality that had become daily life over there made a lasting impression.
So, let's look, for another example at that noble document, the United States Constitution. Its words have been perverted to allow for, among many other things,callous abuse of the second amendment and the bizarre notion that corporations are people. And just wait until this current Supreme Court gets to "religious rights" questions. Words only mean what we want them to. A culture, a society is driven much more by collective emotion than any words,written or otherwise can possibly encompass.
6
Speech was the hallmark of local (!!) democracy. As it spread, the transmission of ideas, putting the oral arguments and discussions of democracy to writing became imperative.
Was this the end of democracy? Of a particular kind perhaps. Was this a bad thing? Not necessarily.
Writing can be forever; words are fleeting and dissipate, unless of course they are put to writing.
3
One thing on behalf of speech: Today's crop of American leaders have likely never attempted oratory, because it sure shows in their idea of informed speech. The one exception is the former President, Barack Obama.
3
In this post-truth, “alternative facts,” era, and, in defense, if one is needed, of the written word, I submit one of my favorite lines from the late, great James Salter, the epigraph from his last novel, “All That Is”: “There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any chance of being real.”
We find ourselves in our current political and philosophical mess not because of laws and decrees “written in stone,” but rather, because the current occupant of the Oval Office doesn’t/can’t read everything from books and briefings to the Constitution. The result? The tyranny of reckless, lawless, unconstitutional chaos. Give me the written word any day lest we be enslaved by the phony bluster and blather of faux language being spewed out into the ether of the twittersphere.
4
I imagine that the ancient Greeks defined "speech" in a much narrower and simpler way than the courts do in modern times. Also, does freedom of speech depend on whether you exercise it publicly or privately? What if you cook a flag in your microwave instead of burning it in front of a crowd on a mall?
Anyway, here are a few legal interpretations over about 50 years; they include the right . . .
--Not to speak (specifically, the right not to salute the flag).
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
--Of students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”). Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).
--To use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).
--To contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
--To advertise commercial products and professional services (with some restrictions). Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977).
--To engage in symbolic speech, (e.g., burning the flag in protest). Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).
2
"We possess the understandable prejudice that literacy and democracy somehow go together, ..."
Speak for yourself. Writing is a means of communication. And Steiner says as much:
"Writing first figures in accounts of traditional signs and symbols, the 'semata' that allow individuals separated by time and space to communicate with one another and with the gods (Chapter 1)." (p. 5)
Further, the first section of Chapter 1 is titled "Two models of communication".
Source: "The Tyrant's Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece" by Deborah Tarn Steiner.
And how true the words of Rome's Tacitus ring today:
The more corrupt the state - the more numerous the laws.
I've been enjoying these. I notice one little correction having to do with English translation from Greek: HOROS EIMI TES AGORAS has no pronoun in it -- it just starts with the predicate "boundary" and the "I" subject is built into the verb EIMI. Greek does that still: if the sentence started with the pronoun it would be EGO "I (and nobody else) am the boundary, which isn't the sense.
3
@Owen Cramer: Thanks. I had the same thought reading it.
Plato’s Symposium, unlike Tolstoy’s War and Peace, was restricted to living people and so , I suppose, failed to make NPR’s Best-Loved Books list—though it was surely more significant in dealing with our ever popular “love/sex/eros” meme than anything on that list. Plato’s narrator in the Symposium, Apollodorus, tells us that his informant Aristodemus noticed that Socrates had attended Agathon’s dinner party ῾λελουμένον τε καὶ τὰς βλαύτας ὑποδεδεμένην’ (having bathed and sandalled with slippers.). We learn from a scholiast that these ‘blautas’ were σανδάλια ἰσχνά (plain sandles)—in contrast surely to what Agathon, Aristophanes and the others were wearing. Aristodemus was, of course always shoeless.( άνυπόδητος ἀεί, Symp. 173b). Unless this unforgettable image of a beshod Socrates at the elite dinner was a creation of Plato’s art, Socrates would have surely had them made for him by his friend and comrade/student Simon.
1
Thank you Simon for your exposition of your much greater knowledge of Socrates' Athens than mine and your wise wondering. Thank you NYT. A real delight.
2
As a philosopher, when reading this op-ed I kept on waiting and waiting for the moment when the author would stop his literary excursions and start philosophizing, to then unfortunately having to observe that in fact, in a section called "The Stone" and dedicated to philosophy ... that moment never happens.
Instead of developing the question in the headline, the author gives us a tourist's guide of some places in Athens, to then jump to simply formulating the exact same question as the headline already does.
This is all the more regrettable as the NYT science section often has outstanding science articles, which concentrate entirely on a scientific concept and explain it in very clear and understandable terms.
Who not doing the same thing when it comes to philosophy?
If the author wanted to explain Athens' concept of democracy, as developed by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, to then allow us to see what this would mean for contemporary democracies, why is he writing 90% of this op-ed as a guide for tourists?
Imho, as Ancient Greece knew, one of the things fundamental to a thriving democracy, is public access to high-quality philosophizing. What The Stone so often shows is that that's exactly what is lacking today ...
3
'... in a section called "The Stone" and dedicated to philosophy ...'
This piece is part of a *series* called "Athens in Pieces". You should judge it by the aims stated in Part 1:
"This is the first in a series of dispatches by the author for The Stone, tracing the past of Athens. Each post will focus on a specific object or site from Greek antiquity for insight into contemporary life and politics."
Athens in Pieces: The Art of Memory
The ancient city is also a living one. And it still has plenty to tell us, if we care to listen.
By Simon Critchley.
Jan. 30, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/opinion/athens-memory.html
Thank you to Dr. Critchley and the NYT for this wonderful series. The insights Dr. Critchley provides on ancient Greece and philosophy are a joy to read, as well as a welcome respite from our daily political news.
9
Without comparing myself to Socrates, your school, the New School did to me what Athens did to him. For the same thing: irreverent and honest speech. Many rose to my defense. 100 or more students, 25 or so faculty. Many in philosophy. Where were you?
It is good that you care about the issue though, as long as it is far in the past.
2
How sad that an op-ed proposing to address Plato's philosophy and the concepts of democracy, speech and writing, ends up not doing so at all.
So let's give it a try ourselves.
Socrates famously never wrote anything, and Plato opposed writing down his "dialogues".
Why?
Because Plato, the inventor of the very concept of "philosophy", defined it as an ACTIVITY, not a theory. And that activity, he said, is a "dialogue from soul to soul", where the main objective is to manage to make thought "move".
Philosophy is a technique that allows you to learn how to do so.
IF you start writing down those dialogues, however, there's a huge risk that people who read them start imagining that somehow philosophy is not an activity but a doctrine, an certain number of "opinions" ("doxa", in ancient Greek), of fixed beliefs. And it's precisely to contrast philosophy with this kind of "doxaphilia" ("love" or "philia" of "opinion" or "doxa") that Plato invented this new concept in the first place.
Of course, he had nothing at all against writing in general, let alone against the writing down of the laws of a republic.
He also strongly rejected the idea that no matter what form of speech would be "philosophical". "Sophist" speech, for instance, is the exact opposite: it means using "rhetoric" (= the art of moving people's souls through words) in order to make them believe no matter what, independently of what is true. Trump's tweets for instance are a perfect example of such "sophistry".
11
@Ana Luisa I would think that the risk would be mitigated by the ease and accuracy of the dispersal of the code. I don't see our processors as being immutably fixed.
Having only verbal dialogues only enhances the employability of the philosopher. And disperses the accuracy of the subsequent transmission.
If it is any good, mutability would be inherent in the coding.
@Ana Luisa
Where exactly does Professor Critchley propose “to address Plato's philosophy and the concepts of democracy, speech and writing”? He does of course discuss these things—ever so cursorily—but only as sub-themes in a discussion centering on the ancient Agora. You make valid points regarding Plato’s philosophy, but your initial criticism of the essay seems most unfair.
@Ana Luisa Yes, sophistry is the language of ALL politicians. Left, Center or Right.
Unlike America, Ancient Athens was a democracy.
Like America, Ancient Athens was only a democracy for some.
Unlike America, Ancient Athens was not a divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states with the supreme military-industrial complex.
4
Great article. As to the perfect(ability) of democracy, as Plato, the idealist, taught us, nothing sublunary, is perfect, ideal. Further, however horrible Trump may be, with humanity’s inevitable embrace of dust and ashes, his time/our time is momentary. The question of how to express our existence (written, spoken, holographically narrated) and where we are heading millennia from now—intentionally or otherwise—stimulates the mind, transforms the body, and makes these brief moments of sentience bearable if not pleasant. This article has given me that pleasure.
4
I just loved reading this. Thank you so much for a great piece that was inspiring.
Yes, we know Socrates fate--and we also know from this paper that "Socrates" comments have kept millions of readers of this paper sane in a totally insane time! So much wisdom and humanity daily and we still don't know "our fate" but I know that reading both of them daily is truly inspiring and nourishes the soul.
Thanks, Socrates of The New York Times. You are a true blessing!
12
@C T
And what exactly is the "wisdom" offered by this op-ed, more concretely, if I may ask?
Do you know, by the way, that Socrates and Plato invented philo-sophy in contrast to wisdom, at the time?
"Wisdom" in Greek is "sophia". What Socrates has basically done is interrogating all wise men in town, and showing that what they thought they knew, they actually didn't know at all.
So instead of being "sages", they decided, society needed "philosophers", people who adore or love ("philein") wisdom ("sophia"), in the sense that they want to get closer to wisdom, without imagining that they already possessed any wisdom.
That means that in order to ask to which extent/degree this op-ed is philosophical, in the ancient sense of the word, we have to ask ourselves in what way it brings us closer to wisdom.
Any ideas ... ?
3
@Ana Luisa
Actually Protagoras was the first to call himself "philosopher."
@Joel Solonche
That may be possible, but I didn't see proof of that statement yet. Did you?
What is certain, however, is that the term "philosophia" hasn't been used before Plato started using it (in other words, before he invented it).
I'm afraid that habits of speech like speech itself is like a face drawn in the sand at the beach, only to be washed away when the tide comes it. Such is the ephemeral nature of speech in stark contrast with writing.
Foucault concludes his masterful work into the archaeology of knowledge, The Order of Things, with the figure of Man inscribed in the sand swept away in the tidies of time and
history. nr
Trump has exposed the vulnerability of relying on uncodified norms and conventions not set down in writing. Although the norm of submitting your tax returns to the public forum had become an unwritten rule for our modern presidents, since it was not set down as a written requirement, our current office holder has not done it. Without the force of legal compulsion the anti-social and despotic seek to exploit every gap, every lacunae in the written net cast over human conduct. Had we had these tax returns been published this pernicious threat to our freedom might have already been removed.
Congress has much legislation to write to plug these gaps, making these actions like publishing tax returns legal necessities not matters of normative social expectation. Those behavioral expectations not codified in writing create the unmapped spaces that despots seek to exploit. I'm afraid the habits of free speech will be washed away.
Since time immemorial failure to sustain an authentic dialogue results in an exercise of power, and writing must document it.
4
"Such is the ephemeral nature of speech in stark contrast with writing."
That's modern thinking prejudiced by the prevalence of writing and other means of information storage.
Ancients used oral recitation to communicate across time. For example, the works of Homer are believed to originate in oral traditions. However, the transition from oral to written communication is difficult to document. See the discussion by Bernard Knox in his Introduction to "The Iliad" translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin, 1990).
@PND Please read one of the most important books in modern philosophy, the magisterial OF GRAMMATOLOGY by Jacques Derrida, quite possibly the most important philosopher in 50 years. You are thinking way too empirically and not nearly enough structurally.
See if you feel the same way after you've done that. Get back to me.
Oh, Simon Critchley, if you had been my philosophy professor, I'd have stuck with it.
There is much in this piece, which takes us down a delightful path (minus pancakes and honey) while being shown several side paths that one wants to pursue all at once. Plus great treats along the way. A favorite:
"Legend has it that Diogenes was the philosopher most admired by Alexander the Great. When Alexander met Diogenes, he asked him what he wanted. Diogenes famously replied, “I want you to get out of my light.”
3
The author tries to draw parallels between the Greek democracy of antiquity and American democracy of today.
Socrates was accused of "impiety toward the gods and corruption of the youth," which we might regard as politically incorrect speech.
It is amazing that the trappings of democracy did not prevent a political trial which contradicted the very principles that made democracy possible.
Democracy did not last for long in Athens. In the US we have enjoyed democracy for a little over 200 years. One of the foundations of our democracy was the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed freedom of speech along with other freedoms.
This freedom was upheld for a while. But nowadays it is under siege, not by Vladimir Putin, but by liberals in the US, who hold up the governor of Virginia for public shaming for having used blackface decades ago when at the university.
Nobody asked: Is blackface protected as freedom of speech?
Instead there were essays in the NY Times which seemed to declare that that particular form of expression was racist and bigoted. Even an apology did not quell the demands for a resignation.
It is by small steps that a freedom once guaranteed get replaced by censorship and demands for absolute conformity of thought.
Political life in the US has come to demand conformity to one of two increasingly strident political views, when solution often requires the admission that solutions lie outside either of the two entrenched positions.
6
@Jake Wagner
Did anyone actually demand that you conform your thinking to someone else thoughts? Since they are thoughts, how did you you what the other was thinking? Surely, to expect our leaders to behave and to speak to others and of others in ways that are not insulting and hurtful is not too much to ask.
@Jake Wagner
Socrates speech had very serious political consequences. After the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans established the dictatorship of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens. The tyrants had many Athenian democrats executed, and many other democrats fled from Athens. Each of the thirty tyrants was one of Socates' students, and the leader (Critias) was also Plato's uncle. After the democracy was re-established, Socrates continued to teach his students that democracy was a bad system.
Before they lost the Peloponesian War, the Athenians were amused by Socrates. After they had been terrorized by Socrates' followers, the Athenians were understandedly less amused by Socrates.
I.F. Stone's book, The Trial of Socrates provides a good summary. I've summarized many of these points. The following NY Times article provides many of the nuances.
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/08/archives/if-stone-breaks-the-socrates-story-an-old-muckraker-sheds-fresh.html
1
The oddest (looked on from the outside) thing about my early adulthood was that my best friend, Mike, was a philosopher and I was a cobbler. Yea a real cobbler. I fixed shoes and made some work boots and talked with my friend. Mike’s favorite phrase was; “to do philosophy is to be confused”. My friend was a genuine polymath, building boats and lutes all while becoming the leader of the alternative energy creation coalition in Washington State.
Of course we are all old now. Our children grew up and generated grandchildren. I can’t say for sure that our relationship was like the one between “Simon and Socrates” but it was a good fit.
18
I join my fellow readers in gratitude for yet another installment of this wonderful series. Couple of things.
First, the NYT op/ed pages, with the opportunity for ordinary folks like us to express our views to others all over the world, through these readers' comments, is one great way to keep alive the free speech on which popular government depends.
Second, the U.S. Constitution does not mention the word democracy. Indeed, the founders were wary of democracy, having seen the ruin to which a great culture like Athens came by, e.g., trying to conduct military strategy by popular vote during the Pelopponesian War. Yet our Constitution does mention the form of government it establishes - a republic. Like democracy, a republic is a form of popular government, except one in which power is in some ways concentrated in just a few hands for the stability of the entire community. I believe it was during Jefferson's presidency, and especially Jackson's, that we started calling ourselves a democracy.
Finally, for what it's worth, the days of modern nations getting by with an unwritten Constitution are long gone. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison, so that we don't forget or mistake what our Constitution says, "we write it down."
23
@John "...the days of modern nations getting by with an unwritten Constitution are long gone."
Yes, but that doesn't mean that modern nations are thereby, or somehow inherently, superior to those that might not be called modern. My reading of this piece directly contradicts Marshall's understanding: that a common knowledge of the sense and spirit of a Constitution may be preferable to a written version, which is subject (and subjected) to tortuous perversions and misapplications by sophists, known to us today as lawyers, most often of the corporate kind. Exhibit A: Citizens United.
9
@John
Also your stated contention in the first sentence of your last paragraph is not true and together with the second sentence of it, indicates you've not grasped the point of Simon's essay at all. As Simon wrote the UK still does not have a constitution - and neither does Israel. Okay, at the moment they each have issues, but not having a constitution is not the cause of them.
I've remarked here before that your constitution is fetishised almost to the point of being valued more than your country itself. Members of your armed forces do swear to protect it and not the USA! What's written in a constitution is granted - for good and for ill - higher status than what's written in normal law or legislation.
Consider the reverence granted to your second amendment. Now consider the confusion and consequences understanding or misunderstanding of it has caused. Without it your gun laws would have been changed long ago and very many Americans would not have died violently and prematurely.
Without my country's, it would have become an independent republic, instead of being still tied to the UK, in recent decades. Australia's constitution also has other relatively minor issues that would be readily fixed with bi-partisan support if they were just in legislation, but require the costly exercise of referenda that would need to gain the majority of support from our voting citizens in the majority of our states, as it stands.
So do our constitutions guarantee or restrict our liberty?
2
@GRW: I've always been told that the UK does have a constitution--just not a written one. Constitutional Law is a major part of legal process and education in the UK.
Concentration of power is the natural endpoint of an organized system. Success begets success until a few successful people own all the resources.
Democracy itself is designed to be a countervailing force to power, but it needs periodic design modifications as the powerful figure out ways to subvert it. Hopefully we will improve it over the next few election cycles.
The rights to speak out and to vote ring hollow when someone else controls the things you need to live.
13
As a Philosophy Major, I have to thank you for this wonderful piece. It got me "thinking" and again afloat in the grey areas.
4
As a soldier-scientist my philosophy is to serve society until I deem it unsustainable. Of course by then, the authorities will be rounding up people like me to avoid trouble. I have decided that when they show up at my door, I will become a soldier for the revolution. Soldier or terrorists, it depends on your point of view.
8
@Rocketscientist
Nope. It depends upon whether one is acting ethically and well. Whether one is a soldier or terrorist is no more a matter of perspective than is ethics or morality. Relativism is not an answer—it’s a confusion of thinking with being tired of thinking.
1
@Rocketscientist: Chose your enemies w/care...
@Rocketscientist: Are you a member of, or work for the military? If not, by what logic do you consider yourself a soldier?
What a wonderful piece, finally at the end connecting where our democratic republic is today with where it traces its roots.
What a pity so few of our citizens will read it.
What an even greater pity that those in power have left some of the ideals of our founding in the dust.
15
@Vesuviano Needles to say, for all its blip of great accomplishments, Athenian democracy was an even shorter-lived debacle than America's is now turning out to be. In each case, Socrates' distaste for the demos and their dumb susceptibility to demagogues was richly, sadly substantiated. This is a good time to remind us of Athens and Socrates, but mainly as a mirror to our own and the Athenians' failings. Just like the Athenian masses, a huge chunk of ours would love to poison any wise man with the temerity, like Socrates', to mock their stupidity and ethical failings to their face.
1
Thought provoking column.
One cannot pretend to be a philosopher for it is all pretense.
I lived for years in a Rescue Mission around men who had the most traumatic lives, and yet had some most perceptive thoughts, but they lived and died as strangers to fame.
To be accused of "impiety toward the gods and corruption of the youth", in a time of stupidity and corrupt religion is to, in reality, be accused of being willing to stand before the heavens and say, "yes, I am a human being, and I have a mind and a will, and that is all the universe can offer and all it can need".
The Gods are just dumb fantasies of really greedy, ignorant men. And to corrupt the youth is to teach them to ignore their own freedom and wild possibility.
But then, I am an old man, and we are famous for being full of ourselves.
Hugh
31
We are reminded that Socrates trusted only speech, not writing, and yet without writing we wouldn’t know he existed. When I lived in Greece in the 70’s and early 80’s I watched Andrei Serban’s production of Medea at Herod Atticus and concurred that the immediacy of speech far outstrips the written word. Writing novels for the next fifty years, I continue to experience that certainty. Unfortunately. We are beset by Trumpisms day in day out and all the attendant transformations of consciousness they create in the American psyche. Trump’s psychotic rants stink up the plain speaking of which Emerson wrote, taking his cue from the first lecture ever delivered, by Aristotle at the library in Alexandria. Lincoln undid the Roman architecture of Washington in favor of Greek. Trump has returned to Roman barbarity, his posturing like Mussolini only one example, and hopefully the ending too that he will emulate. Greece did damage to itself by listening to German propaganda about the EU, Berlin’s last effort to control the world without losing yet another war it began, like all the wars it fought for a millennium. Germany offered cheap loans and free goods so as to rewrite Greek history, perverting both the idea and reality of life in the agora. And so in a year my Greek wife and I will return to Lesvos for good, leaving the violent hubbub of America to my daughter’s generation where we have witnessed the danger of mindless speech until it thunders. Soon internecine warfare, as Eliot said
27
@Naked In A Barrel
Diogenes!
@Naked In A Barrel: By fire or ice?
And yet, written in stone at Delphi, was the challenging maxim:
Σαυτὸν ἴσθι ...
Know Yourself
Wonderful essay ...
21
Bottom line classical Greece was the greatest government in the history of western civilization.
Ok let's hear it from the non believers and perfectionists, ie it had slavery, torture, only a relative small portion of the populace could vote etc. etc.
Yes the Renaissance brought it back and America codified it and improved upon it eventually but nobody beats classical Greece.
It gave us democracy and in a few hundreds yrs. minted 50-100 of the greatest leaders in every field that is important to us today.
17
@Paul
The only reason Athenian democracy worked was that they severely restricted the vote to the upper echelon of educated civilians.
Today's near-universal suffrage combined with the dramatically increased complexity of the issues facing modern government, make an effective democracy a fool's errand.
6
@asdfj-Thank you for your reply. As mentioned classical Greece was not perfect. That is one of the reasons it didn't last too long ie in a direct democracy the rabble could take over.
The Romans as least initially cured that problem with the Senate.
The Renaissance brought it all back over a long period.
America codified it and improved it.
Bottom line democracy is like marriage, a flawed institution but nobody has come up with anything better yet in 2,500 yrs.
8
@Paul
I believe that given the unprecedented complexity of modern policy issues, like monetary and fiscal policy, it's very naive to expect any significant amount of voters or their elected representatives to truly be informed on those subjects.
Democracy has given us the concept of fundamental human rights, which have been developed by consensus and is one of the few areas that just going by "mob rules" yields decent results after enough time.
But for the more complex issues, a system like a technocracy where those policies are only influenced by the consensus of experts in the relevant field would yield far better results than the capricious ignorant whims of people who are either incapable or unwilling to learn these domains.
The nominal "independence" of the Fed is an attempt in that direction, but political realities mean they end up influenced by know-nothing anyway. We would greatly benefit if that same concept were strengthened to be truly politics-proof and applied to more areas of policy.
3
Self sufficiency is the key to not only freedom of speech but freedom itself. Can anyone be truly self sufficient today? I suspect a very few.
6
I live in a small tourist town with a Greek heritage so I appreciate this travel and history series on how ancient Greece folks figured out their power structure and politics. I go back to the McGovern era as a volunteer during the Vietnam conflict and now watch the Nixon series on CNN with regret. It appears most of the Democrat candidates want little to do with that history which led to major political reforms.And John Kerry was rejected as a potential President despite his moral qualities. It is most likely we will continue with Mr.Trump who has learned little from History as he continues to criticize Mr.McCain because most folks aside from supporting the Military,want little to do with the past but like winners,regardless of their flaws.
6
Interesting - I enjoyed my philosophy course in college - but my professor, like the course, seemed mired in surrealism.
Greece, for all it's wisdom and philosophical history, is broke.
"The unprecedented tyranny of writing, of text and texting..."...the unprecedented Greek debt which stands at 180% of GDP has reduced Plato's work about justice being more important than wealth, to ashes.
Freedom of speech may not matter as much, when you're not working - 18.9% of Greeks are unemployed - or when you haven't enough food to eat - 34.8% of Greeks live in poverty.
Mr Critchley states that "Real democracy requires no written Constitution....what it needs are hard won habits of freedom.."
..and Aristotle said "Poverty is the parent of of revolution and crime."
12