The charge of heresy against Socrates was largely due to his claim that he, for lack of a better word, had a hotline to the gods. Socrates asserted that he had a voice that he heard, that he called his daimon, which is an entity similar to an angel (which originally means messenger in Greek), that is something between humans and the Gods, quite like Hermes and the hermetic messages that he brought to mortals from atop Mt. Olympus.
In Plato's Apology, Socrates refers to this daimon quite a bit, and he likewise has to calm the madding crowd with his heretical remarks that this daimon is actually relating the will of God, most probably Apollo, as it was his oracle at Delphi who made the prophecy that no man was wiser than Socrates. However, as is often with Socrates, there is an ironic twist. Irony, for Socrates was not meaning what one says, (according to most scholarship on the subject, specifically Vlastos).
His daimon did not tell him what to do, but rather only told him when not to do something. So, for Socrates, the reason that he did not pursue a public political life is because his daimon never dissuaded him from not doing soon instead of urging him on to pursue one. A bit of reverse daimonology if you will.
For his closing statement, Socrates says that his daimon never stopped him from saying the things that he said during his trial, meaning that he had no regrets for what he said, nor that he felt he had given up his life without realizing the consequences. He needed to goad Athens and to annoy them and to irk them. For, as he correctly predicted, there would not be another one like him to follow. In fact, soon after his his sentencing was revealed and justice had been served cold to the Athenian population, they did in fact heavily regret their actions for putting him to death.
However, did his "curse" live on?
Demons have become a cliche in the past decade of self-help and recovery, and usually refer to something bad, a character defect, a fault, a sin.
A daimon was originally neither good, nor evil, but merely an intermediate essence or being that existed between the world of man and the world of the god/s. Daimons, soon to be demons started to become quite popular during King James I/VI of England/Scotland with his tome on Daemonologie around the time of Shakespeare. Now King James was a bit of a drama case, much like the current King James of basketball, and is more known for his Bible that his demons, but his legacy there is no less interesting.
Demons became quite a popular motif in the Flemish school of Painting around the same time, most notably with Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" where you get some pretty psychedelic rendering of demons, mostly ghastly and ghoulish, definitely not neutral.
Socrates felt compelled to listen to his daimon which helped to exorcise his demons and to help others to work on their own demons, though that work had to be done by themselves. You cannot exorcise another person's demons.
Over the years, I have been trying to take Socrates' charge to heart and to exorcise my own demons, which I have done. Many of them show up in Indra's Net, often mockingly (because nothing pisses off a demon more than being mocked) or when necessary, with all earnestness and seriousness if my demons have caused emotional duress or pain to others.
More important, for me at least, has been learning how to exercise my own daimon, and to be guided by that voice, which is beyond good and evil, and to learn to Know My-self.
Showing posts with label Apology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apology. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Γνωθι Σεαυτον, Know Thyself
Socrates was sentenced to death for being accused of: 1) Corrupting the youth; 2) profiting monetarily for his teaching; and 3) not believing in the gods of the State.
In his apo-logos, his defense, he clearly shows that not one of these accusations is true. However, he receives the death penalty, something he does not dispute, but embraces. Why then was he convicted?
Reading the Apology, it is also patently clear why. In short, because he irked people.
Should we then condemn a man to death because he irks us by asking us one seemingly (operative word, seemingly) simple task: Γνωθι Σεαυτον, to Know Thyself.
Socrates claims that his mission began when a friend asked the Oracle at Delphi as to who was the wisest man, to which the answer was that no-one was wiser than Socrates. Socrates then set out to disprove this, not believing the prophecy. He began to question people who claimed to know something that would appear that they did not. He then proceeded to irk people with his goading.
He concluded in his search that he, himself, knew "nothing," but that is what made him wiser, the fact that he knew that the one thing that he did know, was that he knew nothing.
When my students first read the Apology in the eponymous course that I taught ten years ago, upon which this blog is based, we took a vote as to whether or not to likewise condemn Socrates to death. I believe there was only one “no” in the group. Along with the disgruntled and irked Athenians, Socrates was put to death, on the spot, no questions asked.
I asked them, “was he then guilty of the charges?” To that, there was not a single confident “yes,” though five minutes ago, they were quite certain that, there will be blood.
They just didn’t like him, and that was enough to condemn him to death. They didn’t like the questions he asked, so he must die.
Defenses and apologies are often made because of a reason. Socrates had a reason. He was brought to the high court of Athens to defend his life.
How did he defend it?
Not by weeping. Not by beseeching. Not by suddenly finding God and converting to an established religion.
He defended it because he believed that, to borrow a Sanskrit term, it was his dharma, his duty, to ask these questions. Right or wrong, he had heard a supernatural voice, a daimon, all his life that guided him away from doing certain things. It was literally, the voice of his conscience. Agenbite of inwit.
Was he hallucinating? Was he mad, or manic? Or, was he mantic. In the Phaedrus, that one, seemingly innocent “t” between manic or man(t)ic that is the distinction between a madman or a genius, is the focus.
So, maybe he did ask the “wrong” questions.
The question that thus begins the Curse of Socrates, however, is rather, “Did Athens sentence a man to death because he was guilty of the charges, or because he irked them because he asked the "wrong" questions?”
In his apo-logos, his defense, he clearly shows that not one of these accusations is true. However, he receives the death penalty, something he does not dispute, but embraces. Why then was he convicted?
Reading the Apology, it is also patently clear why. In short, because he irked people.
Should we then condemn a man to death because he irks us by asking us one seemingly (operative word, seemingly) simple task: Γνωθι Σεαυτον, to Know Thyself.
Socrates claims that his mission began when a friend asked the Oracle at Delphi as to who was the wisest man, to which the answer was that no-one was wiser than Socrates. Socrates then set out to disprove this, not believing the prophecy. He began to question people who claimed to know something that would appear that they did not. He then proceeded to irk people with his goading.
He concluded in his search that he, himself, knew "nothing," but that is what made him wiser, the fact that he knew that the one thing that he did know, was that he knew nothing.
When my students first read the Apology in the eponymous course that I taught ten years ago, upon which this blog is based, we took a vote as to whether or not to likewise condemn Socrates to death. I believe there was only one “no” in the group. Along with the disgruntled and irked Athenians, Socrates was put to death, on the spot, no questions asked.
I asked them, “was he then guilty of the charges?” To that, there was not a single confident “yes,” though five minutes ago, they were quite certain that, there will be blood.
They just didn’t like him, and that was enough to condemn him to death. They didn’t like the questions he asked, so he must die.
Defenses and apologies are often made because of a reason. Socrates had a reason. He was brought to the high court of Athens to defend his life.
How did he defend it?
Not by weeping. Not by beseeching. Not by suddenly finding God and converting to an established religion.
He defended it because he believed that, to borrow a Sanskrit term, it was his dharma, his duty, to ask these questions. Right or wrong, he had heard a supernatural voice, a daimon, all his life that guided him away from doing certain things. It was literally, the voice of his conscience. Agenbite of inwit.
Was he hallucinating? Was he mad, or manic? Or, was he mantic. In the Phaedrus, that one, seemingly innocent “t” between manic or man(t)ic that is the distinction between a madman or a genius, is the focus.
So, maybe he did ask the “wrong” questions.
The question that thus begins the Curse of Socrates, however, is rather, “Did Athens sentence a man to death because he was guilty of the charges, or because he irked them because he asked the "wrong" questions?”
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