Socrates is a great example July 8, 2006
Posted by grhomeboy in Culture History & Mythology.trackback
Socrates is a great example. When he was told to shut up or face the consequences, he refused to stop philosophizing. His fellow citizens decided to put him to death. When his friend Crito asked why he did not simply leave Athens, he replied:
“Or is your wisdom such that you do not see
that more than mother and father and all other ancestors
the country is honorable and revered and holy
and in greater esteem both among the gods
and among humans who have intelligence,
also she must be revered and more yielded to and humored”“and suffer whatever she directs be suffered,
keeping quiet, and if beaten or imprisoned
or brought to war to be wounded or killed,
these are to be done,
and justice is like this,
and not yielding nor retreating nor leaving the post,
not only in war and in court but everywhere
one must do what the state and the country may order”
Socrates might have gotten away from everything. He could have run off to Rome, for example, as was the custom. In fact, 300 years later, there were so many Greeks in Rome that Juvenal complained that they were ruining the city. “I cannot abide…a Rome of Greeks…there is no room for any Roman here.” Nothing about the Greeks appealed to him.
Ovid, by contrast, didn’t have to worry about any Greeks crowding into Rome since he was exiled to the Black Sea for writing what was either naughty or critical, historians are not sure which. He couldn’t bear being away from Rome – even if it was filling up with low-life Greeks.
From his exile, he kvetched about the weather (too cold), the people (barbarians), the language (incomprehensible) – everything.
And to the poetry he continued sending back to Rome, he added plaintively, “I wish to be with you in any way I can”. He even concocted a few lies about the climate – complaining about the snow lying on the ground all year round and wine freezing in the bottle – to get Augustus to let him go back.
Of course, not all the ancients were homebodies like Socrates and Ovid. When the Cynic Diogenes, for instance, was asked where he came from, he replied: “I am a citizen of the world”. He meant he was not ruled by local concerns and customs but by a more universal code, what the Stoics elaborated as a “kosmou polites” – or worldwide citizenry.
Marcus Aurelius extolled the virtues of the kosmous polites. “One must first learn many things before one can judge another’s action with understanding” he said.
But we have noticed that the more we learn, the less we know. Hardly have we got one idea down then another comes along to challenge it.
In Socrates’ view, the masses need shared values to make the city-state work.
Are we ready to follow Socrates’ example?
Your comments are welcomed!
grhomeboy
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