Saturday, May 1, 2010

Socrates Continues to Surprise

I left off finishing Plato's Apology.  The book is not about Sacrate's apologizing for his actions :-) but defending them.  Apologetics

This will be a short post, due to life and time ... but here are some things that stood out to me in the last part of the book:

I admire Socrates because when asked to do something "unrighteous" or "unholy" he would not -- even at the risk of his life.  He also claimed he was always the same person in Public or in Private. 

I had put Greek democracy on some sort of pedestal, but it sounds like they had the same problems with special interests, corruption, and power that we have today.  Socrates mentioned, "Judges (should) have sworn to judge according to the laws and not according to their own good pleasure."

After Socrates is sentenced to die, he ponders his death.  First, he tells the accusers they should be thanking him for his service rather than condemning him.  Then, he tells them what a "gift" they have given him!  For, he reasoned, death is either a peaceful sleep of nothingness or a journey to another place -- where he can discuss his ideas with "true" judges in the sons of the gods, the (G)od (s), and the heros of old.

And finally, another interesting quote: "... the unexamined life is not worth living"

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The next book I read was Crito.  This is a dialogue between Socrates and Crito in the prison.  Crito comes to visit Socrates and give him options for escape.  Apparently, he could "buy" his freedom and excape to another country.  Socrates hears Crito's plans, but, as usual, stops to consider if these actions would be consistent with his life.

Being a citizen of Athens by choice, he determines that he has placed himself under the authority of its laws and it would be inconsistent to disregard them.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the laws and people of our government are there by our own choice.  Did we dedicate the resources to make the changes we thought were important?  Did we vote in the elections?  Do we benefit from a government that we do not like, but not willing to sacrifice to change it?  Do we only obey the laws that we think are correct?  How much authority do we give the state in controlling our lives?

In this dialogue, the State claims that IT brought Socrates into existence, provided for him, educated him -- and IT could take him out of existence.  And I thought that was a new idea!

Socrates had a lot of reasons to live:  a wife, children to raise, his blog followers ...  But he chose the good of the State, his family and followers above his own.  Even though he was falsely accused and unfairly sentenced -- he thought of others:

"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."

This is the "voice" that Socrates could not get out of his head.  Apparently, he heard voices regularly ... oh well.

Socrates rocks!

On to ARISTOPHANES: Clouds, Lysistrata
Vol. 5, pp. 488-506, 583-599