The Birth of Democracy
There is so much to say about Socrates that might have made a full exploration of
his teachings prohibitively long…before our digital age. But we live in magical times,
and so we can get around the difficulty of linear expression that books have always
present, because most stories go much deeper. And as Socrates is, by all accounts, the
father of philosophy, I’d like to offer here as much as possible to help illuminate his
purposes, his method of teaching, and how this process improves the mind, which is why
it is still so important for anyone living in a democracy to understand. But in order to
truly understand Socrates, it is essential to understand the social and political context into
which he was born and in which he found himself challenged to do his part. As it turned
out, his was a big part to play because with the birth of democracy came freedom of
speech, and with this came the rise of much BS. To this point, before around 450 B.C.E.,
ones’ parents or ‘society’ had been the teachers of traditional wisdom and values
(nomos), and the young learned, as they had in primal or folk cultures, as one generation
passed the collected wisdom down to the next around the fire on a daily basis. But a
revolution of sorts had occurred in Athenian education when, due in part to a
multicultural infusion into Athens, nomos had come to appear merely relative, and so the
old ways of teaching faced widespread skepticism.
A class of professional teachers, called 'Sophists,' had grown out of this
uncertainty, and their teachings were suspected by many (including Socrates, though for
reasons other than most) to subvert the fabric of society. (Socrates worries, not because of
the loss of tradition, per se (because injustice, for example, has a long tradition that ought
to go out with the bathwater), but because the Sophists ways of teaching focused on
rhetoric, which is a skill that is readily used to play on people's insecurities, fears, and
emotions, making it a powerful tool of deceit and control. The Sophists, for their part,
mix well with the oligarchs, the cities wealthy elite, who themselves cling heartily to
nomos—if only because it preserves their privilege.
It’s easy to overlook the power of empty rhetoric to persuade the demos (many)
that untruth is true, and to underestimate the damage that was and is still done to truth and
democracy by this popular means of deceit. But this is what the sophist teachers of
Socrates’ day were so good at, that is, showing those who could afford large sums how to
spin logic with emotion in such a way as to manipulate the opinions of the assembly and
so win their cases in court. (In many respects, they were the early predecessors of today’s
masters of advertising and public relations as we know them today.)
It’s also important to remember that what was unique about democracy, and the
real value of free speech, was precisely this jury system, in which one could make his
case before large assemblies (which consisted of as much of the population as showed up
on any given day), who then voted to decide the fate of defendants based on the
perceived right or wrong of a particular case, just as they voted to elect officials to lead
them based on the case they make for their suitability to lead. This system is what made
democracy participatory, and this decision-making process was far superior to the notion
of justice that had proceeded it, which too often resulted in unending blood feuds as
powerful kings sought’ justice’ as an eye for an eye. You might remember from Homer’s
Illiad that what the goddess Athena brought to the Greeks was the idea and process by
which conflict might be resolved by way of impartial adjudicators, for when people put
their heads together to make decisions, they are likely to come to better decisions than
any given individual would, especially if that individual is acting only on self interest,
and so unlikely to care for the common good. To this point, such decisions had been
made by one or a few powerful and usually purely self-interested men (yes, men, for even
in Athens, women were not considered citizens, though ‘free women’, that is, unmarried
women, often had great influence as teachers, as we’ll see). But while the jury system
was a vast improvement over the rule of sometimes tyrannical kings, it was nonetheless
vulnerable to the power of empty rhetoric that played on the emotions of the assembly
and persuaded them by way of fallacy and bad reasoning to act sometimes against their
own better interests. So Sophists and tyrants worked well together to manipulate all
manner of men to undertake all manner of unwise decisions and actions, based on what
amounted to the power of BS. Then, as now, many elected officials got their power by
means of such empty rhetoric that plays on the emotions of those who don’t know any
better than to simply vote their gut feelings, which can be very easy to manipulate.
So Socrates took it as his challenge to help educate the many to use their minds
well enough so as not to be so easily manipulated by untruths of the few. This included
all those who were unable to afford the Sophists high fees, so were largely defenseless
against the wiles of twisted logic. One might hope this would still be the purpose of
education in democracy today, but given that we don’t get an hour’s education in good
reasoning skills, this is sadly not the case. All the more reason that we need what Socrates
was trying to help us develop – for reason is an innate skill, but like any muscle, needs
exercise to grow strong. Without skills in good reasoning, words can as easily lead to evil
as to good. So it behooves us to understand the so-called Socratic method better than we
do or have for almost 2500 years now, at least if we hope to save our democracy from the
fate that befell the first democracy in Athena’s golden city.
So let us begin with the parallel development of those Greeks who used their new
found freedom of speech to search for truth, rather than to persuade with deceit. Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle are those we remember as the fathers of philosophy, but they
themselves gave credit to many others for their wisdom, including women, slaves,
foreigners, children, their ancestors, and the sages of the east, from whom they
themselves learned. (*anchor this to eastern philosophy)
It was, as we’ve said, the so-called golden age of Greece, at the very height of its
glory -- a time when many still aspired to the highest of their potentials, and the ideal of
talking things out reasonably was held dear by men and women of honor and justice. The
dialogues they undertook during those days gave birth to our science, education, politics,
economy, art, theatre, and medicine—many of which have gone awry in our time,
making this is a tale well worth remembering. Indeed, there is arguably nothing we need
more these days than the kind of moral pep talk for which Socrates was so well known.
Still, for reasons that become apparent only in the telling, Socrates’ story is,
arguably, the best kept secret of all time, told only, if at all these days, by those who have
an interest in keeping it quiet. Why? Because Socrates would be the first to teach the
young to question authority so to keep them honest, and sadly, even those who call
themselves Socratic scholars do not wish to have their expertise questioned. Which helps
explain why Socrates is, at once, the greatest and most misunderstood thinker the world
has ever known, and why his qualifies as the greatest story never told.
There are other reasons why a man could be remembered
as ‘the father of western Philosophy,’ and yet remain cloaked in
such mystery – like so much buried and reburied treasure? The
answer is at least partly because most students make it all the
way to college having learned nothing about philosophy, let
alone Socrates (except perhaps what they learned from watching
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – which leaves most of them
wanting to call him So-crates.)
Unfortunately, probably the deeper reason has to do with the intellectual demand
of ancient literature, which was written for an under-stimulated audience -- something
that those of us who grew up in an attention deficient age are clearly not. The consequent
being that many settle for taking the word of their teachers about what Socrates and Plato
had to say, insuring students only a surface understanding of what Socrates tried to teach.
Indeed, Plato’s dialogues (which are one of only two surviving sources of the
historical Socrates) are very possibly the most difficult works in the western tradition, in
large part because Plato, like Socrates, deliberately does not say exactly what he is
thinking. We might surmise this is because his outspoken mentor has recently been put to
death for saying too much, but Plato insists that the reason goes much deeper than this,
and it is one that primal peoples would understand better than we do today.
In his Seventh Epistle, Plato explains that he has never put his deepest thought
into words because written words cannot answer for themselves, and without the dialogic
process that is necessary to dialectic understanding, they cannot take a reader all the way
to deep understanding. As Zen scholar Alan Watts puts it, words are useful between
people who already share an understanding of the experience, but words alone cannot
teach one who does not, in a certain sense, already know. They are, again, like pointing
tools, and just as a finger can point at the moon, it would be a great error to confuse the
finger with the moon. Therefore, knowing the words is not the same as understanding the
meaning of those words. So the consequent of saying too much straight out is that people
who don’t truly understand will simply memorize the words, call them their own, and
thus pretend to understanding they themselves don’t possess. Those who consider this to
be the full extent of learning are likely to use such words to ends that are not good – as
wolves might use sheep’s clothing.
This is arguably the same reason that Aristotle’s ethics (these days called ‘virtue
ethics’) would have us worry that ‘codes’ or ‘rules’ of ethics allow people to fake it,
essentially, by simply going through the motions of being a good person…without ever
having to think through to the point of understanding what the right thing to do actually
is. Because rules and codes and principles are just general rules of thumb that need to be
applied to particular circumstances, a truly virtuous person will be continuously and
deliberately thinking through what the right thing to do is in any given circumstance. So
these ancient writings, especially Plato’s, are deliberately difficult because a virtuous
person does not want or need to be given direct answers, but rather to be provoked to
think for themselves. For this reason, Plato’s dialogues do not give us direct answers, but
rather challenge us to go through the process of reason that leads us to concluded for
ourselves -- what do we think about the questions they are discussing and the myriad
issues that arise in the process of searching for the truth together?
Is it any wonder then, given the dearth of dialogue in our modern schools, that
young people make it all the way to college learning virtually nothing about Socrates but
what they could glean from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Still, it’s become
abundantly clear to me through so many hundreds of hours of teaching these remarkable
dialogues that, once inspired by this ancient idealist to undertake these dialogues for
themselves, young and old alike cannot help but take deliberate aim at our better selves an effect one cannot help but want to encourage on a much broader scale.
So perhaps you can see why 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 been committed for almost two decades. It is, at heart, an adaptation of Plato’s
Socratic dialogues to film. This is what moved me to spend my years in graduate school
(Philosophy-Madison) completing a thorough exegesis of the works of Plato, as well 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.” 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 this story its 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
faithful, albeit lean, 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.
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.
So allow me to provide a relatively brief introduction to his story, which cannot, I
think, be well understood apart from the lives of Pericles and those others who were
principle in the Socratic dialogues, sometimes more by being the topic of discussion than
participants.
We come to know this notorious colonizer of dreams, as mentioned earlier, only
from the Dialogues of Plato (32-34 of them, depending on how you count), as well as
those of Xenophon (about 4 or 5). It is said that there were twenty some who wrote
Socratic dialogues after his death, but these twp are the only dialogues that survive.
If we were to read all the Socratic dialogues, we would meet him first as a young
man, assisting his mother to midwife a birth, or perhaps visiting the Oracle of Delphi, or
talking with the sophists who passed through Athens in their travels. But as most people
initially read the dialogue called Plato’s Apology, we tend to meet Socrates first as a
seventy-year-old father of toddlers, on trial for his
life and presenting his own defense against charges
of corrupting the youth of Athens by teaching them
to question the gods of the state — charges brought
against him by right-wing defenders of traditional
piety (some of whom are Plato's closest relatives).
Socrates begins his unapologetic defense by
appeal to the jury - 'You be the judge,' he implores
them. He's not much of a speaker, he says humbly,
as he begins his astonishing oration, recounting the
legendary mission that brought him to this destiny.
He had been challenged to the life of inquiry, he
explains, by the Sacred Oracle at Delphi who had
declared him at a very young age to be the wisest man in Greece. In fact, 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.
Socrates never wrote a word himself nor took a single drachma for his trade,
though he spent his entire life engaging the greatest minds of his day 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? By the seeds of such poignant questions, Socrates implanted himself in the hearts
and memories of those who would follow him throughout his life – rulers and slaves, men
and women, young and old, citizens and foreigners (a cast of characters so familiar that
one can almost put contemporary names to them).
Despite his quirky weirdness, and by way of his penetrating wit, Socrates proves
to all who will listen that philosophy is indeed a power for the good. With his unwavering
faith in human nature and his endearing way of treating everyone with equal respect,
Socrates teaches good teaching, good politics, and even good medicine, by example—
which is to say, by simple friendship. He shows by the way he lives that self-knowledge
is self-mastery — and in mastering himself, he feels no need to master others.
Through these conversations, we see how the light of reason sparked a fire in
Plato and his friends that gave the age her golden glow. Encouraging the youth and the
elders of his city alike to question what they casually assume and attend to the injustice
they too comfortably ignore, Socrates reveals their conceits and deceits in a way that is
most amusing to the listener, and yet likely to leave the most lasting best impression upon
the person himself — a gentle method that was both humbling and empowering to the
young men who grow up listening at his feet.
Plato is one of those young men, and was, we learn at length, descended from
great wealth and power. Indeed, he had been expected to take his place in the upper
echelon of Athenian politics—before being challenged by a higher purpose by his
esteemed friend and teacher, Socrates.
We see through Plato’s dialogues that, even in keeping with his humble way of
teaching, Socrates did not hesitate to humiliate arrogance where ever he found it. And he
found it practically everywhere (as he, no doubt, would today). Enlightened by humility
itself, Socrates endeavors to find the wise, but inadvertently discovers the ignorant—and
in the process, comes to be thought of as a stinging gadfly to the lazy horse that is
Athens. Yet he never fails to credit wisdom wherever he finds it—and the refreshing
twist is that this unassuming old philosopher, turns out to be especially fond of citing
Eastern visionaries, slaves, women and children—from whom he claims to have learned
the most.
Hardly the heartless intellectual he is so often misconstrued to be, Socrates
examines himself for the sake of his listeners. He takes us by the conscience and compels
us to look into our own eyes—to judge ourselves, rather than others—that we might see
what is possible and take aim to actualize what is still and always our higher human
potential. And what develops is truly a love story, in the very deepest sense of the word,
for Socrates is committed to the good of each individual as an end in their own right, with
the consequent that, by the end of the story, nearly everyone is, in a sense, ‘in love’ with
Socrates—even, and perhaps most especially, those who author his death.
We see through these talks the depth of Socrates' personal and untiring devotion
to his many friends. Among them are Crito, his boyhood and lifelong companion;
Phaedo, once prince of Ellis, made a slave to his Spartan captors, and ultimately freed by
Pericles; Aspasia, mistress of the brothel and lifelong companion to Pericles, to whom
Socrates introduced her. Socrates is also mentor to several of Plato's closest relatives,
including his older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, his cousin, Charmides, and his
blood-thirsty oligarchic uncle, Critias.
Pericles and Socrates had shared many teachers when they were young, including
Aeschylus, Anaxagoras, and Damon - all of whom held both young men in high esteem.
It was clear from the start that Pericles, son of Xanthippus, who had died in the battle of
Marathon, had all the tools of greatness, and yet all he really seemed to want was to be an
artist, a writer, an actor, and to produce plays that would retell history the way it actually
happened - rather than as the oligarchs would have it be told. Pericles’ mother was
Agariste, who had come from a fabled family. Her uncle was the so-called father of
democracy, Cleisthenes, and Pericles understood the responsibility that came with this
legacy.
Socrates, for his part, was never sure what to make of the well-educated,
ambitious and sweet voiced son of a military hero. Pericles was somewhat older than
Socrates, and though he seldom engaged him in dialogue, he did seem to listen closely to
Socrates’ discussions with
others and even sometimes to
hang on his every word.
Neither was competitive, and
yet both seemed challenged by
the others’ intelligence.
And they both shared
the friendship of Xantippe, an
artist and musician in her own
right. She was the outspoken
daughter of one of the
wealthiest oligarchs in the
city, and was respected by many of the young men for her candor and intelligence.
As it turned out, however, the artistic life was not to be an option for either the
daughter of an oligarch or the son of a war hero. Pericles, who had all the talents required
of a statesman, found he had little choice but to go into politics when his city called him
to lead. Following the dictum, ‘Of those to whom much is given, much is required,’
Pericles stepped up to the power he was born into.
Whereas Socrates, the son of a stone mason, was much freer in this regard to
follow the lead of his own inner voice and the calling of the sacred Oracle.
Xantippe did not have the freedoms or choices of either Socrates or Pericles, and
found herself—despite her friend’s best efforts—married off in an arrangement that suit
her father’s business interests, as well as his interests in keeping her away from the young
free thinkers whose company she so enjoyed.
And yet all spent their days in the Agora whenever possible, talking and listening
with anyone else who happened to be there. And together, their complimentarity
brilliance had all of the city in awe, for each in their own right seemed capable of
drawing out the brilliance in others.
When Pericles and Socrates are both called out to battle, the city of Athens begins
a swift decline in their absence. And upon their return, they find that the social and
political conditions to which they have returned are overwhelming. The fifth century BC
has seen a fervent return to democracy, at least in name, but society as a whole is in a
period of transition, flux, and insecurity, and clings for safety to convention. There is
considerable fear of intellectualism, and playwrights and orators play to this fear.
And so, while Pericles answers the call of his own responsibilities, Socrates takes
up the challenge of uplifting the democratic soul to its higher potentials. For the
difference in good and bad men, he knew, is not whether they want what is good for
them—for all do. It is rather how well they understand what that is.
(*put Plato on soul?)
Alcibiades, who became ward of Pericles when the boy’s father died in battle, did
not understand this distinction, and became the lifelong worry of Socrates. Exalted by
birth, elated by wealth, puffed up by his power, and spoiled by the people, Alcibiades
suffered from his early miseducation, as well as his own inability to master his want of
pleasure, especially of a sexual nature. He represented a great many Athenians, to whom
the line between freedom and license was unclear.
All, in their way, were worried about the bigger-than-life Alcibiades, who least of
all deserved anyone’s love. But Socrates, above all, was uniquely committed to him. And
though he was known for his intemperance, Alcibiades was nonetheless able to constrain
his ignoble desires as long as he kept company with Socrates. However, a longing
distance sets in between them when Alcibiades, still a boy, is seduced by the powerful
democrat, Anytus, thereby alienating Socrates from his trust.
And so we begin to understand why Socrates thereafter agonizes over the
ubiquitous exploitation and corruption of the young. For the same oligarchs who are
willing to pay the sophists large sums to be told what they want to hear, such as how to
win favor in the law courts and generally keep their wealth by bending the public ear, are
also those who use the same tricks in seducing the young. And the sophists who pander to
the wealthy by teaching them to use words as weapons and tools of power, rather than as
instruments of understanding, find the minds of the young most easy to play in this way.
By subtly manipulating the appearance of what is real, true, good, and right, sophisticated
rhetoricians are able to spin the minds of even careful listeners, and so the most trusting
of young minds are particularly vulnerable to their wiles. So while these powers-that-be
are able to stir up public insecurity, hate, and confusion by the mere suggestion of
impropriety and scandal, they are also masters of the skill of making the truly scandalous
seem perfectly acceptable, for they lived in an environment - not unlike our own - where
empty rhetoric and ‘double-speak’ had become the order of the day.
It is important to note that, while sexuality was treated by the Greeks as a
marvelous fact of life and is a favorite topic of discussion among them, this had taken a
tragic turn in Socrates day. For the sexual desires of the oligarchs too often became the
very purpose of the ‘education’
they offered the young, who were
seduced into this and other
mutually exploitive attitudes.
Because their own history was
filled with stories of young men
who fell in love with their
somewhat older mentors, giving
rise to same-sex relationships
between honorable men (and
women) who carried on life-long
friendships with their partners,
the Greeks were what we would
call gay-friendly. But what was developing during the 5th century was a pattern of older,
wealthy and powerful men seducing younger boys into sexual relationships that lacked
the honor that ancient heroes had lived by. And while this was quickly becoming the
norm, Socrates knew that these seemingly small missteps took on tragic dimensions in
the character of the boys who were being used as means to the end of older men’s
pleasure. So you will hear in Plato’s dialogues discussions in which Socrates and his
friends assert the fine line between healthy and unhealthy relationships, that being the
difference in caring for the beloved as an end in themselves, as opposed to caring for the
beloved as a means to the lovers own pleasures. This is a distinction we would all do well
to observe today, for what matters, they argue, is not the gender of who we love, but how
well we truly love them. It is exploitive sexuality (whether homo- or hetero-) that is
recognized to be immoral. Indeed, for all their talking about sexuality, the topic of
‘homosexuality’ (which might seem most controversial to some modern frames of
reference) is never much of an issue for the Greeks – indeed, they do not even have a
word to distinguish one from the other.
And so it became clear that what was corroding values in Athens was the conceits
and deceits of these wolves in sheep's clothing - the powerful few who lust after, prey
upon, and corrupt the young of Athens with words, pleasure, power, and wealth, rather
than treating them as true teachers ought. By their purposeful use of rhetoric, they were
able to fan the flames of appetite and ambition in young minds, enraging their lusts,
bigotry, and greed, catching them up in partisan bickering, all of which ensured that
democracy would be poisoned from within.
The only antidote to this, Socrates knew, was philosophy – that is, encouraging
the better use of the mind in the young, so that they would be less vulnerable to the
seductions of those who would exploit them. And this would require a better
understanding of the proper function of words and the better use of reason. Receiving
their education in this sophist sense, the young were being turned away from the good of
the psyche altogether. As mentioned earlier, when the young are educated by way of
words used in less than their true senses (e.g. love as desire, friendship as mere
acquaintances, intelligence as merely smart, not wise), and when they learn to argue only
to win, rather than to reach a better understanding, they become cynical about both ideas
and people, what Socrates calls misology and misanthropy.1 Socrates cites those sophists
who fight over ideas “like puppies fight over meat,” and in the process, turn young minds
off to thinking altogether. Being miseducated about philosophy in this way “make them
hate the whole business when they get older."2 In this way, empty rhetoric is unlikely to
better anyone.3 He himself would have been turned off, Socrates says, if he had not had
"so deep a passion" as to adhere him to philosophy all his life.4
It may seem a small difference, but as they say in the east, the flight of an arrow
shows that what is far depends on what is near. Analogously, Socrates knew that children
are sensitively dependent upon initial conditions, and the adults they grow into, will
always bear the mark of their early miseducation and the effects of their teacher’s errors.
Mistaking the physically beautiful for the truly beautiful, the material for the whole of
reality, they are also likely to mistake the mere appearance of justice, knowledge, power,
and wealth for the real thing. Errors in education about such fundamental matters, made
early, can ultimately thwart human potential all together - not only in this life, Socrates
feared, but in the next.
(Plato, Pheado n.d.)
(Plato’s Theaetetus168bc)
3 (Plato’s Theaetetus168bc)
4 (Plato’s Theaetetus169c) (Plato, Theaetetus n.d.)
1
2
When, some years later, Socrates saves Alcibiades' life in battle, the two rekindle
their long silent friendship, but the damage is already done. For Socrates, this lifelong
struggle to uplift Alcibiades to his better self - which no one else would even believe that
he had - would end in deep disappointment, for the boy’s character had suffered
apparently irredeemable damage by the selfish habits he had been taught at a very early
age. And despite all Socrates’ efforts, and even Alcibiades’ deepest wish to please his
friend, his habits were so strong that apparently nothing could be done to save his spoiled
soul.
And Pericles blames himself, though he could hardly have saved Alcibiades when
he could not even save his own sons from the grip of the oligarchs, who had turned the
spoiled boys against their father for no better reason than that he would not increase their
allowance, which their oligarchic uncles had persuaded them he should. So Pericles
turned his energies to the good of the rest of the population.
Toward this end, Pericles developed a work program designed to bring the idle
energy, skills, and imagination of the many unemployed together into great public
construction projects - which would give rise to the great monuments for which Athens is
remembered to this day. All of which irks the oligarchs for many reasons, of course, for
besides diminishing the army of unemployed needed to do the work of providing for the
leisured upper class, it brakes the illusion of their dependence that is needed for the oligoi
to maintain control over the demos.
Pericles had been pitted as a youth against Cimon, the son of his own father’s
political enemies, who had gained popularity and political support by appearing to be the
most generous of benefactors, surrounding himself with anyone whose service could be
bought for land and privilege, just as the Spartans had come to control the Athenian
nobles. To encourage the illusion that the oligarchs were needed to support the poor,
Cimon occasionally opened his orchards and groves to the public, which made him
appear to be a most generous and compassionate man. In fact, he was providing just
enough to keep the Athenian people dependent, and therefore under his less-thantrustworthy control.
Pericles’ work program, on the other hand, provided opportunities for the people
to earn their own way by doing something they love, thereby freeing them from their
dependence on the whimsical benevolence of the wealthy - and making their labor
immortal in the process. No one would remember Sparta when both cities are gone,
Pericles assured them, but thanks to these grand monuments, the whole world would
remember Athens for all time.
All the great monuments of ancient Greece, including the most awesome of all,
the Parthenon, were completed within the reign of Pericles’ forty year administration. It
was a feat of divine proportion, and the people of Athena’s city were lifted to their
highest potentials by the inspiring grandeur of their creation. At the grand opening of the
Parthenon in 436 BC, Athens could see visibly the zenith and unity of the life she had
reached—her statesmanship, art, science, literature, philosophy, and morals—all woven
into one many-colored fabric by the hands and imagination of her free and equal citizens.
History credits Pericles with developing a unique and original vision of healthy
democracy and the good citizen. It was a vision of a free people who could achieve their
highest goals and capabilities as members of a free community, in which the people find
and give their best work to their city, take turns governing and being governed, and make
all the most important decisions in common.[Kagan, p.258]
By contrast with the oligarchic and Spartan authoritarianism, the Periclean vision
of democracy valued intelligence and talent, and was not embarrassed to reward both
with public honor.[Kagan, p.258] Pericles understood that the only legitimate power is in
education, and the only form of control that such a democracy needs is the kind that great
intelligence wields.[Kagan, p.189] And whereas the tyrant, the Spartan, and the oligarch
find their protection in suspicion and armed guards -- in a well-functioning democracy, it
is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the
state.[Aeschines, Against Timarchus 4-5][Kagan, p.270] Pericles controlled no army, not
even a police force. He depended entirely on the continued and freely expressed support
of the Athenian people. His only office was that of general, held for 30 years, even
though subject to yearly elections, public inspection of his accounts, and constantly open
to recall and public trial.
Perhaps the most striking proof of Pericles' greatness lay in his ability to explain
how the interests of the city and its citizens depended on each other for
fulfillment.[Kagan, p.141] For "to win the necessary devotion, the city -- or rather its
leaders, poets, and teachers – must show that its demands are compatible with the needs
of the citizen, and even better, that the city is needed to achieve his own goals."[Kagan,
p.141]
Under his influence, Athenians embraced this democratic vision, and as a
consequent, did not think of the customs and laws that govern them as a conspiracy by
which the rich and propertied rule over the exploited masses.[Kagan, p.270] Instead -right or wrong -- they believe that respect for and obedience to the law are the
fundamental safeguard of the weak and poor against the rich and powerful, and that
popular government, which alone can ensure freedom, dignity, and self-respect to the
ordinary man, depends on uncoerced adherence to the law.[Kagan, p.270] "We use the
law for honoring the good and punishing the evil," Pericles said, “rather than as the tip of
the whip.”[Lysias, Funeral Oration 17-19][Kagan, p.270]
Democracy alone, he convinced them, respects the dignity and autonomy of every
individual, and that its survival requires that each individual sees his own well-being as
inextricably interconnected to that of the community as a whole.[Kagan, p.274] Faith in
such an ideal is hard to muster in societies that have become cynical about politics thanks
to unscrupulous leaders -- but Pericles was devoted to democracy from the start because
he saw its capacity to bring out the greatness in each and every citizen – and uplifted his
people's faith in this ideal.[Kagan, p.64]
However, to succeed, democracy needs "leadership of a high order", "leaders with
the talents to persuade their impatient citizens of a vision of the future, one that is
powerful enough to sustain them through bad times as well as good, and compelling
enough to inspire the sometimes difficult sacrifices that will be required of them in the
growth of a just society.[Kagan, p.274]
In light of all this, though Socrates never publically praised Pericles, it is worth
wondering his conception of the ‘true king’ had Pericles in mind, for he clearly
distinguish leaders who had the interest of the people from those wolves in sheep’s’
clothing who better characterize most politicians of his day.
So while the oligarchs all attended the grand opening of the Parthenon, it made
them furious to see Pericles policies succeed. Indeed, Pericles finds himself constantly at
struggle with the conservative right wing, the oligoi (meaning 'the few'), both within his
own government as well as with those who rule over Sparta - the other Greek
superpower, which directly rivals Athens. The Spartans zealots (ephors) are especially
threatened by this intelligent form of government called democracy, and appalled by the
free speech that Pericles’ champions.
Meanwhile, the Spartans have gotten into the habit of terrorizing the Athenian
countryside, a technique designed to goad the Athenians into fighting - which is the one
thing at which the Spartans excel. But Pericles recognizes the trap, for both cities are
connected by an alliance of the rich and powerful who take their own side against the
demos ('the many') of both cities alike, and want nothing more than to destroy democracy
by any means possible. For democracy, more than any external enemy, threatens the
privilege and property rights of the few – even those who are themselves the Athenian
elite. While it helps keep order to call one’s city democratic, and to play along with
elections and juries, to a point, it seems best of all, to the oligarchs, if a city can pass as
democratic in name, without actually having to follow popular and participatory rule in
practice.
To his eternal regret, Pericles had stumbled into an oligarchic snare early in his
young administration, having been persuaded (on the grounds it would prevent Athenian
fathers from trading away their daughters to foreign merchants) to constrict the criteria
for Greek citizenship strictly to those whose parents had both been Greek. Generosity
would trickle down, he was assured by Cimon and Plato's uncle Critias, who was mainly
interested in securing the public funds for 'the few' rather than 'the many'. A kinder and
gentler attitude would grow among the people by way of his own generous treatment of
the wealthy class, he was assured. In this, Pericles had helped set a trap into which he
himself would one day step. For no sooner had Pericles passed the decree which
constricted the line between citizen/voter and metic (in effect entrusting the good of the
ever-growing many to the judgment of the ever decreasing few), when the oligarchs
embarked upon myriad abuses of their growing power, making it possible for debt to be
turned into slavery.
By custom, wealthy Athenians had long bought and sold slaves from among those
captured in war and offered this hard life as reprieve from a painful death. But this
became the first instance in Athens’ already ancient history that Athenians were now free
to buy and sell other Athenians. As political relations were severed, economic relations
came to dominate, and before long, enslavement for debt became widespread and severe,
until nearly one quarter of the Athenian population had been subsumed or sold off into
slavery.
For these and many other reasons, what would come to be called ‘Pericles’ law of
Citizenship’ turned out to be a mistake that would haunt the otherwise popular leader
throughout his forty-year administration. Most tragically, it would prevent him from
marrying his life companion, Aspasia - his only true love - which would render his only
truly worthy son illegitimate, and denying him citizenship in the process.
So even before he is elected general, Pericles has already learned who not to trust.
And though the Spartans, the oligarchs, and the most corruptible democrats never let up
in their attempts to coerce him to serve their interests, Pericles keeps himself busy with
the work of the people, engaging them in ongoing dialogue, espousing the cause of the
poor wholeheartedly in public declarations, and excelling all speakers in this regard.
So, unable to influence or bribe Pericles, the oligarchs pulled out all the stops to
stir up the population in worry about the ‘tyranny’ of his administration. Pericles'
preeminence as a speaker was made to seem suspect, as if strong leadership were
incommensurate with democracy. In curious contradistinction to this, Pericles’ having his
ear to the general will of the public was touted by his political enemies as evidence of his
having no will of his own, and thus, no leadership capabilities.
When their attempts to paint Pericles as a mere puppet of popularity prove
ineffective, they attacked his work program as misuse of public funds, and while the
people, for the most part, knew better, the oligarchs were nonetheless able to stir up
suspicion among the allies of Athens that the money they'd contributed to their own
defense was being used to glorify the city. While Pericles effectively reassured the allies
that their money was indeed protecting them, he took drastic measures to show them that
the monuments were indeed being built with the just spoils of a successful Athenian
defense. He presented them with Pheidias, the chief architect of the Parthenon, and made
display of his meticulous bookkeeping. Pheidias encouraged the assembly to weigh the
gold of the statues, which had been designed so that they could. Twisting this evidence,
the oligarchy undertook to rouse the people's jealousy, painting Pheidias as a pimp who
brought Pericles lovers under the pretext of showing them the monuments.
Next, Pericles is accused of sexual indiscretion of every kind, including an affair
with his own sons’ wife. Though nothing could be further from the truth (his daughter-inlaw had come to him for council and out of trust, as women often did), the public was by
this time thoroughly confused by the sheer number of accusations brought against their
leader, unable to believe that at least some of them were not true. It was ironic indeed that
the harder the oligarchs tried to prove Pericles rotten, the more they actually succeeded in
proving his goodness.
In a crowning blow, the oligarchs took up a more severe tactic. They begin
arresting his friends, First among them is Pheidias, who had long been considered among
the cities greatest jewels. The assembly indicts Pheidias for embezzlement, and removes
him from the public eye to detention.
Pericles, in his anger and frustration, takes his case directly to the people,
offering to pay for the monuments out of his own pocket. In light of this noble gesture,
the Athenian people are ashamed and begin to backpedal - so perhaps they don't mind
paying for the monuments after all, they say.
To counter this ambivalence of public opinion, the oligarchs start up a smear
campaign against Pericles’ true love, the foreign born and politically astute Aspasia. And
in a final blow, they succeed in so corrupting his older sons to the point that they actually
publically deny him.
Pericles is deeply anguished, and just when he is about to lose all faith, a worker
is severely injured in a fall from one of the monuments, and as it turns out, no one but
Pericles (who learns the cure from a goddess in a dream) is able to save him.
And so the people's faith in their leader is temporarily restored - though not before
Pheidias - Pericles’ friend and the greatest architect Athens had ever produced – is put to
death in prison while the population is too distracted to notice.
The oligarchs begin to encourage the Athenians to ask Pericles to sign an
agreement that he would not make himself tyrant over them, Pericles loses his well
known temperance. Righteously insulted, he tells his people that they will simply have to
trust him and take it at his word that he would not abuse the power they have given him,
or let him go. He didn’t want this job to begin with, he reminds them, and only took it
because no one else stepped up to do it well.
Partly out of regret, out of fear of losing him, and as a gesture of restitution for
having taken the life of his friend, the assembly complies, and Pericles is restored to the
pinnacle of power – albeit too briefly, for the fates would have other challenges in store
for Athens. And it would have taken longer than his short life to undo the damage that
had been done to the young democracy by the right wings efforts to turn the demos
against the democracy itself, so ensure their government’s effort would fail. (*read about
good leadership and why it’s so rare*)
All this Athenian renown has worked up the insecurity of the Spartans, and there
is a growing foreboding of war. The Spartan step up efforts to terrorize the Attic
countryside, destroy Athenian crops and food storages, and threaten trade routes which
are essential to Athenian survival, though a mere means to Athenian domination from the
Spartans’ perspective.
In what turns out to be a fateful move, Pericles also begins bringing those who
live outside the walls of Athens back within the city for protection - unwittingly setting
up conditions favorable to plague in the process.
Pericles, who knows the choice is to protect those routes from the Spartan wolves
or watch his city starve, also calls a council of all the cities of the Hellas. When the
Megarians (once allies who had gone over to the Spartans) are reported to have killed the
messenger who came to invite them to the council, Pericles puts out a decree of sanctions
ordering economic embargo until arbitration brings them to peaceful terms. And when
the oligarchies of both Megara and Sparta resist arbitration, Pericles refuses to rescind the
decree, and tensions between the two cities explode.
Though he too is furious, Pericles can barely restrain the hotheaded young
Athenians from taking their revenge. He is famous for his ability to communicate a
calming caution though, and he dissuades the angry troops from going prematurely into
battle, saying -- "If you will not listen to me, you would do well to wait for that wisest of
all counselors, Time." When many good citizens who would not wait end up dead, these
words ring loud in the memory of the city, and bring Pericles great repute.
Meanwhile, feeling war swooping down upon Athens and observing the growing
signs of plague in the overcrowded city, Pericles consults the seer, Lampon, and the
natural philosopher, Anaxagoras, on the wisdom of going to war - a war the sacred
Oracle at Delphi had warned the Athenians would lose.
The seer brings forth from Pericles country-home a one-horned goat, claiming this
to be a sign that all the people of Greece would come together under one power.
Whereupon Anaxagoras quickly beheads the goat and cuts open the head to show the
natural cause to be that the brain of the animal had grown in an abnormal way.
Pericles, properly appalled at the display, nonetheless duly considers the advice of
both, and concludes just because there is a cause does not indicate that there is not also a
meaning. And so with this he proceeds to prepare for war, which is beginning to appear
inevitable.
Soon thereafter, Anaxagoras is arrested. As the natural philosopher and teacher
who was known to be responsible for Pericles' fearlessness in a time of widespread
superstition, the oligarchs know Pericles would do almost anything to save him. Indeed, it
takes the efforts of both Pericles and Socrates to even find him in exile, where he has
been starved and is near death. Pericles blames himself, lamenting that ‘one who needs a
lamp ought at least provide it with fuel.’
Before long, Pericles' sons come down with plague, his sister dies from it, as do
some of his advisors, one by one.
And as the oligarchs’ campaign to corrupt the voice of the people grows ever
more effective, Aspasia herself is put on trial for impiety. In his sorrow and anger,
Pericles takes on the assembly full force, where it is his tears that manage to free his lover
and cherished advisor.
And when the opportunity comes for him to revenge the myriad indignities that
the Spartans had visited upon the Athenians,
Pericles proves himself to be above it - for it
was not a war between cities, after all, but a war
of the rich and powerful few against the many
poor to whom democracy would give voice and
power. It may have been in their class interest
that the oligarchs behaved, but they did not
represent the whole class. Not all those who are
rich are unjustly so! There are right ways to
become and be wealthy too.
And finally, his anger at the oligarchy for their role in deceiving and confusing
the public—particularly his own sons—could be restrained no longer, which brings him
at last to take up arms against the enemies of democracy.
Thus, after thirty years of peace, the Athenians are flung into the Peloponnesian
War - a campaign that would last twenty-seven years and would keep the city too
preoccupied ever after to realize her full potentials again.
And despite a lunar eclipse, which spooks his superstitious troops, Pericles is able
to restore their confidence and move them to defend themselves, their city, and their
rightful freedoms. And though Pericles himself is stricken with plague by now, he is said
to have fought best of all.
And at the funeral of his last 'legitimate' son, Pericles breaks down and cries for
the loss of his city. The people of Athens, ashamed and filled with sympathy, are so
moved that they vote to exempt his only truly worthy child, young Pericles, the son of his
beloved Aspasia, from the law of citizenship that Pericles himself had decreed - thereby
conferring upon Young Pericles his father's name and succession, and effectively
forgiving the elder Pericles for his tragic humanness in the process. (read Funeral
Oration*)
Pericles, like all humans, could only do his best, which was, after all, never
perfect. He made up for what he could not do by doing what he could. And to the best of
his ability, Pericles kept an ideal of participatory democracy before the eyes of his
people, knowing they could not hit a target they did not aim at!
Pericles died soon thereafter, but not before all the great monuments had been
completed in the course of his administration, all while the public treasury had steadily
increased, and the people themselves had been fed and well kept.
Though the plague had carried off a full quarter of her population, Athens herself
has survived and ultimately prospered. And when it was discovered that in all his forty
years at the pinnacle of power, Pericles had not increased his own estate by a single
drachma, his true character came to light, and his loss was swiftly appreciated – for
another like him was nowhere to be found. Athens had only wolves left to protect her,
but who would protect her from the wolves?
Pericles would be remembered as having achieved the balance of courage and
temperance in his rule that Socrates so idealized – a goal that is seldom achieved in any
human life, least of all one given to politics. But this success was not without cost to
those he cared most about, including his sons and his ward, Alcibiades, whose proper
rearing he was charged in hindsight with having neglected, as if anything more could
have been done. This proved especially tragic considering that Alcibiades - despite
Socrates best efforts - goes on to single-handedly become the ruin of Athens.
After Pericles' death, the great general Nicias (Socrates' friend, student, and
comrade in arms) was able to secure the peace for some time. Like Pericles, Nicias
pledged to protect the city above all else, but his best efforts prove inadequate in the task,
and his tenure as elder statesman proved ineffective.
So when Alcibiades got the misguided notion into his head to invade Syracuse,
the richest port in the sea, he is able to prey on the widespread discontent, using the
power of the mob to put down his political rivals, including the well-respected Nicias.
Nicias, who resisted Alcibiades ill-advised plan, was picked up bodily by the crowd on
Alcibiades' urging, and set onto the boat that was to take him to his death. He was
remembered by all who witnessed it to have wept like a sad child as the shores of his
beloved Athens receded from his sight for the last time.
When a messenger reported back to the Athenians that this once-great general,
who had never lost a battle in his life and was well-loved by the people for it, had been
taken prisoner and died in the custody of the Spartans, the story seemed so unbelievable
that the messenger was stretched on the rack until word came that his story was actually
true. At this, the mob was stupefied - for how could such a terrible end come to such a
good man?
And if this wasn’t bad enough, Socrates' dear friend and Plato's elder cousin,
Charmides, is slain in the process as the so-called democracy expunges Athens of all her
dissident voices. Plato himself is witness as Charmides is coerced by their own uncle
Critias into the hopeless and ill-fated battle where he was certain to meet his death. (*read
Socrates and Glaucon on how outward misfortunes do not measure a person’s happiness,
for there is struggle in every life, and it is the ability to respond with strength and
intelligence, or not, that makes good or harm come of it. Can Socrates show Nicias to
have been happy in the truest sense of the word?*)
Capable of such treachery as this, it is no surprise to anyone when Alcibiades was
the first to come to mind when the sacred statues of Hermes were separated from their
penises (though it may well have been Critias behind the plot). The assembly was quick
to charge him with this most offensive impiety, and was about to arrest him, when
Alcibiades fled to the enemy camp. Once there, Alcibiades took readily to Spartan ways,
and quickly made friends with the king. It wasn’t long before he was giving away
Athens’ war strategies, impregnating the king’s wife, and ultimately fleeing for his life to
Persia, of all places, where he proceeded to trade both Athenian and Spartan military
secrets for his protection.
By this time, the so-called democracy, long since poisoned by the rhetoric of
those who would profit by her demise, bears little resemblance to the real thing. Under
the influence of Cleon, who corrupts the people's respect for the minority voice by
breaking down the decorum of listening in assembly, public deliberation degenerates into
partisan argument, and we see why democracy is vulnerable to manipulation and socalled ‘mob rule’ – which, ironically. Is a tactic used by the oligarchy to infiltrate and
sabotage the demos with campaigns of misinformation…people using words they don’t
understand (‘democracy’ and ‘republic’) to confuse others who don’t understand either.
When the loudest and most solicitous voice can carry the day, participatory democracy is
perverted into mere 'representative' - which it hardly
ever is - and people then must face the problem of
who to trust, having little choice but to believe the best
liar. And what is left is democracy in name only.
Indeed, it is just such a mob which, acting on
Cleon's urging, rashly puts Young Pericles to death.
And so we see what happens when reason fails and
lies assert themselves as truth, for when honesty, selfknowledge, and dialogue - all essential to a healthy
democracy - are lost, Athens quickly declines into a
series of bloody massacres, including the brief
'Tyranny of the Thirty Oligarchs', in which Plato's
uncle Critias is the prime and most bloodthirsty
mover.
And so, without a shepherd, the sheep come to
be ruled by the wolves, and it is not long before all
dissident voices come to be eaten alive. Socrates knew
it was just a matter of time.
Refusing to be made complicit in this or any
tyranny, Socrates defies the wrath of the oligarchs by denying their order for him to assist
in putting his friends to death. Critias cautions Socrates to desist from asking questions,
or else—at which point Socrates seizes the opportunity to step it up, and inquires of
Critias himself, ‘What is happiness made of, after all?’ and ‘What good is a tyrant, to
himself, or to the state?’ This discussion (which comes down to us as ‘The Republic’ and
other dialogues of the so-called middle period) spanned the reaches of human knowledge
– in may ways, further advanced then than now. And in it, they sort what is from what
could be, holding up the authoritarian pretext that passes for an ideal state to ask, ‘What
is wrong with this picture?’ And in the process they discern the difference between the
mere appearance of democracy and the real thing - a lesson we need desperately to
remember!
The Ancient Athenians learned the hard way that democracy, like everything else
that is alive, is always changing - always either getting better or getting worse, either
toward justice or away from it. As we have said, democracy is more than a form of
government, it is a way of life based on the golden rule. If polity were understood better,
we’d see that even in a system of representative democracy, we each and all have a part
to play – especially when we do our part to teach the young well about how to participate
at whatever level they work. This is why Socrates emphasizes doing one’s part, minding
one’s business sounds, to us, to connote keeping out of politics, but understood properly,
it’s more likely to represent seeing all our actions as political, that is, an exercise of
power. This meant doing well in all that is a person’s proper sphere of response-ability.
So a person was understood to have a moral obligation to do what they had the ability to
do – not merely to appear good, but to actually be good. And that challenge is different
for all – every hero’s journey is different. Yours is yours to make of what you will,
recognizing that, being inextricably interconnected with others, those who fail to become
hero let down more than themselves. So (whether you chose or merely would have
chosen this life, it is everyone’s obligation to find the good that can be learned from all
the challenges one faces on any given path. Learn from them, and pass them on. That’s
what you are good for. :-)
The critical variable, it turns out, is (as Aristotle later argues…read here*) is not
how many rule, but how well -- which is to say, how justly. For democracy is as open to
corruption as any other form of government, if it forgets to properly deliberate. For true
ideals are easy to lose sight of, for what comes to light in our dialogue can disappear in
our silence…especially when what is called ideal aims only at a low standard (such as
they discuss in the form of the guardian state, that appears ideal, but doesn’t prevent
injustice from arising: read here*). But ideals can be remembered with the help of an
inspired voice – and Socrates is certainly this - the ultimate coach giving the supreme pep
talk to the human race.
Ultimately, it is the beautiful Alcibiades, who (much to the chagrin of his many
other lovers) publicly proclaims his lifelong love for Socrates, and makes clear that it was
indeed the power of love that the old philosopher was trying to teach, by doing what was
good or the boy, not necessarily for himself. For ‘love is the only thing,’ Socrates
ultimately concludes, ‘that I ever claim to know anything about.’
Being dedicated sincerely to Alcibiades true good, rather than to his own physical
pleasures, Socrates was unlike Alcibiades’ other lovers in the temperance that he lived
by. For having resisted Alcibiades' sexual advances all these many years (a fact the
seductive Alcibiades could hardly believe possible) Socrates had proved himself capable
of almost super-human inner strength.
And with this Alcibiades ultimately proved himself both the greatest general and
the worst turncoat the Athenians had ever known. Despite Socrates’ best efforts,
Alcibiades turns out to have been a chameleon, after all. For though he managed to resist
the worst elements of the democracy, he falls prey in the end to the seduction of the worst
oligarchs, ultimately selling out the democracy and his own men for the sake of his own
safe harbor.
And in what might have been his final drunken stupor, Alcibiades confesses to his
full host of sins, including trading military secrets with the enemy, and worse, selling out
the democracy herself to the oligarchs in exchange for safe passage home.
So we are not surprised at all when all - the Spartan King, the Persian satrap, the
oligarchs and democrats alike - unleash their respective thugs to do away with
Alcibiades. And his fiery death comes, as Socrates had foreseen, because the failure of
his reason to master his appetites had ruined both him and his country.
(*read Symposium here)
And in his grief, Socrates is left wondering at the irony of it all - for saving
Alcibiades' life had seemed like the right thing to do at the time… But since he had gone
on to single-handedly ruin Athens and bring down her only hope for democracy, it was
not at all clear in the end that it was for the good after all.
Socrates did his best, but human power, like human knowledge, is limited…even
doing one’s best can backfire. And so one’s best is never perfect. It is one’s best, all the
same, and in doing it, one has done one’s part, even achieved excellence – a healthier
ideal than perfection, after all.
And with this, we return to the courtroom, where Socrates concludes his
provocative defense. And among his closing arguments are his famous claims that “the
unexamined life is not worth living,” and being afraid of death is just another way of
pretending to know what we cannot possibly in this human life. For all we know, death
might be the greatest good, for no harm can come to a good person! At least they won’t
put you to death there for asking questions! If you will do justice by me, he entreats them,
please make sure to behave toward my sons just as I have behaved toward yours.
In the end, the corrupt
democracy of Athens was—like
our own—confused by the
deceits, conceits, and violence
of its age. And in 399 BC, the
assembly voted to put Socrates
to death for the crime of
honoring the worthy by
teaching the young to think for
themselves. And the irony
should not escape out notice
that it was Anytus, youthful seducer and jealous lover of Alcibiades, who brought the
charges against Socrates of ‘corrupting the youth of Athens’.
For his part, Socrates only purpose was "to give the young a respite, lest they
become disheartened by the cynicism of their age"—hope for which they have more need
today than ever. Whether or not he succeeded remains to be seen, for as he made clear in
his defense, and we’ve seen by how history has carried his example forward – you can
more easily kill the dreamer than the dream.
And so it was that, when the old philosopher was finally silenced by the so-called
democracy for being a threat to the powers-that-be…all because he taught their sons,
daughters, and importantly, their young lovers, to question their authority too intelligently
(undoubtedly the same reason his voice is still obscured today), Plato dedicated his life to
recalling Socrates’ voice for future generations to remember. Aware of the power of
words for both good and evil, he resolved to take on the task of recalling for the future
the astonishing events he has witnessed and the powerful lessons he had learned.
Only time would tell if these mournful seeds would grow into something good,
for while nothing dies that is remembered, nothing is remembered by those who die – and
like many times throughout history, many have been put to death to encourage, and even
compel, this deliberate forgetting, this active ignorance of truth, in favor of one version of
it.
Plato knew it is up to those who live on to carry the flame of truth forward. And
so Plato, like Socrates, and Confucius, and so many others before him, took up his
mission…
After and during a long life of trying to promote Socrates philosopher king ideal
(a mission that got him kidnapped and enslaved more than once, and is worthy of it’s
own chapter, at least (*read here), Plato went on to found in the garden of Hacademus a
school they would call his 'Academy', where Aristotle—arguably the most influential
thinker of all time—would study for nearly twenty years (but that’s another story).
It was at the Academy that Plato would undertake (against the will of his
oligarchic family) what would become a lifelong mission of recalling the dialogues of
Socrates for the world—which might actually be ready for them someday. One can only
hope that day is soon. Because we are unlikely to get another chance!
As we’ve seen, Plato himself shows up in these dialogues only once or twice,
most pointedly when Socrates turns to him in court that fateful day and suggests that
perhaps Plato would be the one who will remember all this for posterity. It would seem
that, despite his caution about the danger of saying too much, Plato understood true
power, the kind that would have us still learning from his writing all these many centuries
later.
And Plato was only one of many students who loved the quirky old Socrates and
so grew up listening at his feet. Under the influence of his teaching, they would go on
after his execution to change the world in a way no single generation ever had or perhaps
would again. No less than twenty-nine of the young men of Athens undertook dialogues
to commemorate Socrates voice after his death. Only Plato’s survive in their entirety, as
far as we know. Xenophon too wrote memoirs that give us another eye on some of
Plato’s account.
Plato’s Academy would carry on continuously for nine full centuries, becoming
the longest lasting educational establishment the world would ever know. But all along
the sad and supreme irony remains that 'academics' so often become, like their ancient
sophist counterparts, seduced by the political power of rhetoric as a tool of class interests,
wealth, and privilege, rendering democracy virtually incapable of the intelligent
deliberation that the ancients knew to be essential to justice. For all the effort that hard
working teachers put in, it’s possible that we’ve all learned by a teaching model that has
mislead our best intentions. For to deliberately teach what one generation of one culture
has deemed appropriate for the next generation to learn opens the door to all kinds of
inadvertent censorship, in that it assumes any generation knows best what truth is. The
dialectic ideal of education would have us get out of the way of their discovery…let
learning follow the lead of their questions. Education as the search for truth encourages
other teaching qualities than follow the leader that tends to be our habit. Think for
yourself, and let others help, is closer to the Socratic ideal of education as the mutual
search for truth.
And because of this, they knew, corrupt human nature is only a problem, unless
and until we remember those Socratic potentials that human beings still and always have
within – and how to teach them. For humans may forget, malign, and ignore it, but
the good thing about the truth is that it stays true—and the challenge to humanity is
to remember! And it remains true that anything that can be understood in one inspired
moment lives on, and waits, to be recalled in yet another.
Though Socrates' demise is held by generations since to have been the death of
the Golden Age, it was also the birth of Western Culture—for whatever that's been or
may yet be worth. Little did anyone realize then, except perhaps Socrates, that it would
take 2000 years and the lucky ‘discovery’ of a ‘new world’ – not to mention rivers of
blood - before the seeds of democracy would find fertile soil once again.
But we are left wondering if we are indeed engaged in true democracy? Or have
we misunderstood the ideal so much that we have missed the mark? What does this
mean? It means – the ancients would teach us – that the ideal of democracy is actualized
in how we live, how we talk to one another, now we contribute our work to the whole.
And what we call the Socratic method, these days, was originally understood as a way of
treating one another fairly, with due respect and good will. Sadly, thanks to the game of
telephone that sometimes occurs in education, Socrates way of teaching is seldom
remembered this way, but it can be shown that the Socratic method was both more, and in
a sense less, than we have come to think of it. It is not merely a way of teaching, as we
think of teaching, but a way of treating one another by way of the golden rule. It is the
way of teaching that habituates sincere and thoughtful reasoning and encourages the
democratic character by equal respect paid to others in our discussions with them and our
actions that effect them. Understood in this healthy form, the Socratic method is simply
the art of eye to eye dialogue, and done well, it has the power to heal human
relationships. And we are, each and all, engaged in dialogic relationships, for we are
more often than we realize both teachers and students.
This ideal of dialectic education can be shown to be essential to healthy
democracy, just as the history of the world’s first democracy can show democracy gone
wrong. Perhaps you can tell by now why I say that the story of the decline of the world’s
first democracy in Periclean Athens should ring hauntingly familiar to us. If not yet, you
will as you become increasingly familiar with how our modern democracy has evolved,
and how it too often dysfunctions today. And while this is exactly the reason we need this
story told and retold, again and again, it is also the reason it’s unlikely to get its due in the
American film industry (to which the concept of a ‘writing ethic’ is apparently
completely foreign).
So, while I continue to work on what has become a 1500 page manuscript
(twenty-five hours of film, as screenplay formatting goes), after so many years of
authenticating this story, I cannot possibly bring myself to simply ‘sell it’ and watch all
my careful research and meticulous referencing go out the window for the sake of the
bottom line. I owe it to Socrates not to let that happen. So I’ve resolved that, if I want to
see this done well, I’m going to have to either produce it myself -- or find filmmakers
whose hearts and motivations are beyond profit and politics. Wish me luck!
Meanwhile, my research has become fodder for many other good things, such as
this course, this book, and perhaps someday, a film about this, the life of Socrates, and
the greatest story never told, that could still save our democracy, if we would only learn
from it while there is time!