In one of Plato’s famous dialogues called Crito, Crito visits Socrates’ prison cell before daybreak to persuade him to escape. Socrates is in prison and is condemned to death, but when Crito tells him they could bribe people to bring him out of prison, he refuses. In fact, almost comically, even in prison, Socrates finds the time to use his signature “Socratic method” to decide whether he ought to escape or not. The answer, of course, turns out to be no because, even when one is wronged, one must not wrong the other in return. And the laws must be obeyed even when one is unjustly found guilty.
According to Socrates, the Law is like a father (or a master); the individual is like a child (or a slave). The individual belongs to the State and must do what the state orders him to do. Why? Because, from the day he is born, the individual is nurtured and educated by the State, protected by the State, given his rights by the State, etc. And if he does like what he is given, he can always pack his stuff and leave. (Where to? That’s not the State’s problem.) By staying in the State, the individual enters “into an implied contract that he will do as we [the State] command him.”
This is, in short, why Socrates chooses not to escape and, therefore, die.
Socrates, Jesus, and the opinions of others
Reading Crito now, on a cool Wednesday morning in September, I am reminded of that story in the Bible in which Peter draws his sword and cuts off the high priest’s servant’s ear who, among others, had come to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus. “Put your sword into the sheath,” Jesus says to Peter. “Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” (John 18:11) We see here that, like Socrates, Jesus also chooses not to escape. The cup which His Father has given Him is His hemlock.
Moreover, Crito is not (only) Peter. He is also an inverted Judas. Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but Crito is ready to do the opposite for Socrates. “But, oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape,” Crito says. “For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care.”
When Socrates hears these words, he says that one shouldn’t care about the opinion of the many. Crito disagrees because the opinion of the many has the power to ruin a man’s life. (Remember when Pilate offered to release Jesus, but the crowd persisted, demanding his crucifixion?) Yet Socrates manages to show Crito that the opinions of the unwise don’t matter. Only the opinions of the wise matter. And if there’s only one wise man among many, it’s only his opinion that matters.
In this sense, neither Socrates nor Jesus cared about the opinions of the masses. We can even say that they died because they didn’t care about their opinions.
From the POV of authorities (and the masses), they may have been lawbreakers; from the POV of their followers, however, they were either law-abiding citizens or “fulfillers” of the law. Most importantly, they themselves knew they were doing the right thing.
What can we learn from this?
Socrates did what Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.” He died defending what killed him…
References
Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Dover Publications, 1992.
There are three main reasons why people read Plato’s Phaedrus: love, rhetoric, and metempsychosis.
Most, I’d say, read it as an endeavor to uncover the meaning of love, to study the differences between the lover and the beloved, and to compare the non-lover to the lover. Then, there are the literature and philosophy students who are often required to read it while studying rhetoric. And, finally, there are those —like an old Druze friend of mine — who go to it to learn more about Plato’s idea of metempsychosis.
I was a curious (bored) student once, so I’ve naturally read Phaedrus multiple times for the above reasons. But today, as I find myself suffering from a mild hangover, I’m reading Phaedrus for entirely different reasons.
Toth and the King
In the dialogue, there’s this part where Socrates tells Phaedrus a story about Toth, the ancient Egyptian deity with the head of an ibis who, among other things, was the god of writing and knowledge.
After discovering the use of letters, Toth goes to the king of Upper Egypt and says that writing will make people smarter and improve their memories. Writing is the cure of forgetfulness, he says.
But the king responds to him by arguing that the opposite is true. He says that inventors are not always the best judges when it comes to the utility or inutility of their inventions. He argues that writing will create forgetfulness rather than cure it because learners will stop using their memories. Written characters will be used as reminders, not as enhancers of memory.
What the world will get isn’t wisdom but the pretense of wisdom.
Reading the story of Toth and the king was like riding a magic carpet. It took me to places I’ve been but forgotten, and then it took me to places I’ve never been but wished to forget.
Nursing a glass of ouzo on the rooftop of a 5-star hotel overlooking the Acropolis of Athens, I came to realize that the thoughts the story triggered were worth saving, i.e., remembering. So, as soon as I was back in my room, I recorded them by writing them down.
The plan was to develop them the next day, which is today (December 28, 2023). But “today” can also mean the time I’m editing the work, which is January 3, 2024. It can also mean the day you are reading this. So, let’s forget I used the word “today.”
The important thing is for you to know that I started reading Phaedrus a couple of days before Christmas, and I’ve been drinking heavily since December 24, 2023.
Merry Christmas.
Why We Write
We write something down so that someone (including ourselves) can read it later. Otherwise, why write? This essay — if we can call it an essay — that I’m generating right now, what is its purpose? I can say that I don’t care what happens to it, but whether or not I care if anybody reads it matters very little. Every word we write is meant to be read, even the words we write in our secret diaries.
We read what we wrote to replicate the thought sometime after we’ve first had it. If someone else reads what we wrote, they are also replicating our thoughts. In this case, the thought is duplicated in someone else’s mind. Because the duplicate came to be without the effort that gave birth to the original, it can be said that the duplicate might not be of the same essence as the original. But that doesn’t matter to us right now.
What matters is our first conjecture: We write to replicate a thought.
We can also say that we write to remind or remember.
The Consequences of What We Don’t Read
If every word is written to be read, the following can be said about unread texts: They are waiting to be read.
It is also true that most of the time, texts can only actualize their potential (or serve their intended or unintended purpose) when they are read or processed. However, in some cases, even unread texts can affect the world we live in. Not reading a certain text (within a certain period of time) may initiate a chain of consequences. For instance, an unread email may cause a whole project to fail.
Acquiring Collective Memory
We read our own notes and journal entries to remember things.
Letters, essays, business proposals, stories, poems, songs! All of these are molded, structured thoughts. Balance sheets, contracts, medical records, etc. All recorded data is meant to be remembered.
When we read someone else’s words, we are also “remembering.” We are evoking (or recalling) the thoughts the writer has put together. We are transferring foreign thoughts into our brains.
Reading is one way to acquire collective memory.
When Person One writes a thought down, and Person Two reads it, the thought is replicated. A new version of Person One’s thought is now in Person Two’s mind. Although, like snowflakes, two thoughts can never be exact matches, the replicated thought can still be considered a duplicate of the original thought.
Now, let us imagine the work of a historian. If a historian lies about a certain event that cannot be fact-checked, and if this historian’s work is read by millions of people, what happens then? We’ll have a collective memory of something that never happened.
Let us now imagine ourselves in a business setting. The person who prepares the meeting minutes and shares it with everyone via email, what is he doing? He’s mainly synchronizing the memories of those who have attended the meeting. (To remember something outside the bullet points shared is either not to be remembered or unnecessary.) The note taker makes sure that everyone remembers the same things the next time they meet.
Tech Entrepreneurs Giving Birth to Unicorns
The other day, at work, when we were reviewing a business, one of my colleagues said something about the business and how it had the potential to become a unicorn. The assumption was based on the business founder’s belief and was backed up by the fact that all of his partners had come from other unicorns.
I responded with the following: “All startups are born to be unicorns, but most of them end up being regular horses.”
Like Toth, when tech entrepreneurs build something new, they think that whatever they have built will be used for the purpose they have built it for. But that’s not always the case. (Google about technologies and products used for different purposes than originally intended. See how many of them there are.)
The Egyptian king is correct again: Creators are not always right about the things they create.
Even a mother (who has literally given birth to the person) does not know her own child’s destiny. The child may grow to become anything between a saint and a serial killer.
Moreover, if the old Egyptian king were here, he would have looked into the entrepreneur’s eyes and said, “A paternal love of your own child has led you to say what is not the fact.”
Love blinds the lover.
Seeking the Truth Isn’t Always Worth It, Not Even for Socrates
I’d like to move away from the story of Toth and the king a little bit to tell you why, according to Socrates, seeking the truth isn’t always worth it.
Phaedrus and Socrates are walking together outside the city, looking for a nice place to sit and talk philosophy. At one point, they pass by a place, and Phaedrus asks Socrates whether or not this place is where the story of Orithyia and Boreas takes place. Phaedrus then asks if Socrates believes in this tale. Socrates says that the wise are doubtful about it, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he were doubtful about it, too. But the best part of his answer is what follows. He says that thinking about whether the story is true or not is a waste of time. What does it matter? He concludes by saying that “the common opinion is enough for me.”
I must summon Zizek here: Acting like you believe in the things your group believes makes you a believer.
Imagine your mother is religious, and you are a talkative atheist. The Christmas dinners have little chance of ending nicely. But imagine now that instead of you giving your unneeded opinion, you make the sign of the cross and thank God for having such a blessed table in front of you. What will happen then? Will your atheism be destroyed? I doubt. But you’ll simultaneously also be a believer. And your family will have a wonderful time.
Be Ready to Hate Yourself after Arguments or Debates
“That was a dreadful speech you brought with you, and you made me utter one as bad,” Socrates tells Phaedrus.
How many of us have been in the same situation as Socrates? I find myself in that situation more often than I would like to confess. When I’m at a bar, drinking, for instance. (Oh, man…) And I suddenly start talking politics. The conversation turns into a debate, and the debate turns into an argument.
We all say things we don’t mean to say. So, what must we do when this happens?
An average person would just call it a night, thinking that “everything will be back to normal tomorrow.”
But a wise man would act like Socrates.
After Socrates acknowledges his mistake, he says, “I’m going to make a recantation.” He wants to withdraw what he said and replace it with something new. (Socrates recantation is a purgation: he explains how some get punished and remain so because they aren’t wise enough. Then there are those who are a little wiser. When they are punished, they try to fix it until they go back to their normal state. And yet, there’s him, wiser than the first two: He wants to make a recantation even before he is punished.)
But it’s over now. I’m tired. I’m done writing this. Adios.
Bored Absurdist 