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High today, here: 26. Dewpoint then: 14. High dewpoint: 14.
High today in TO: 25. Dewpoint then: 11. High dewpoint: 12.
Low today on the balcony: 14.5. High: 28.5. Currently: 23.
The question, I think, is not "where does the hate come from?" The question is "why does the hate go where it goes?" Everyone wants to fight. There is a drive to fight. But you can turn it inward, or you can turn it outward. And you can fight for a resolution, or you can fight for domination--or annihilation. (Socrates says in the Republic: when Greeks fight each other, they should fight for a resolution; when they fight foreigners, they should fight to win.) When Cal Ripken was going to break Lou Gehrig's record, I became slightly obsessed with the idea that someone would kill him. It's a wonder, I think, that nobody killed him. There are many such wonders. The wonder is not why it happens when it happens; the wonder is why it doesn't happen all the time. (A lot of people, the ones who think you can't walk the streets at night, can't comprehend that it doesn't happen all the time. It seems like it must.)
Today, back to WLU. Became increasingly fretful as the hours showered by. There just is not time to do everything I want to do. There is not time to do everything that it seems important to do. Of course, some things, when you stop doing them, stop seeming important--but I really hate that, too. And some things, when you stop doing them, stop seeming important, until something happens to remind you of their importance. Like, last week, while the Congress was going on, I stopped paying attention to the newspapers, and all of a sudden there was a public transit strike, and I had no idea. And then I was arguing with a guy about Iraq, and he told me that it was not bankrupting the American economy, that Vietnam was a bigger drain on the American economy, and I had nothing to say to that, because I just don't know, because I haven't read every bit of every current affairs magazine that might tell me something about it. (He'd said it was all about the money, to which I'd said, but they're bankrupting themselves! As far as he's concerned, the "it's bankrupting the country" argument is a Democrat cop-out.)
Anyway. What I mostly did at the library today was read an article by Spiro Panagiotou--who was the first prof I ever TAed for, at McMaster, and who deeply impressed on me the idea, which comes back to haunt me frequently, that the city, in the Republic, is not an anaologue for the soul, but is rather a consequence of collecting the three different kinds of souls (but, I say, it's both! why isn't it both?)--called "Civil Disobedience in the Crito?", which brings in some interesting stuff about the Athenian legal system at the time. The basic idea is that if Socrates escapes, he's, in effect, repealing the law that "the final verdict of the court is authoritative" and replacing it with the law that "the final verdict of the court is authoritative if and only if it's correct"--but, of course, the latter law defeats the purpose of law. So, it's much the same idea as Stokes's about civil disobedience, except that Panagiotou's last word is that, on the basis of the Laws' argument, it's never OK to break the law; I'm not sure why he doesn't make Stokes's move--I guess maybe he just didn't see it.
And then I decided that, really, what it's extremely important to do next is to read up on the political history of Athens around the time of Socrates. I discovered that it's surprisingly difficult to find a potted political history of ancient Athens in the WLU library. What there is is a lot of histories of "everyday life" and such. One general history of ancient Greece starts its introduction by saying, most histories are about politics and war and stuff, so this one's going to be different. Well.... What I want to know is a) to what extent is it the case that the laws under which Socrates was raised are discontinous with the laws at the time of his death?, and b) what were the political effects, if any, of Socrates's death? From what I got poking around today, I'm increasingly confident that there's a pretty sharp discontinuity between Cimon's oligarchic/proto-democratic regime and Pericles's populist-democratic one (never minding the more complicated question of the tyrants and the democratic restoration; a question that's starting to nag at me is, what is it about the regime after the restoration that makes it go after Socrates?). But on the second question, I have the feeling that there's really probably not much to be said; whatever effects there were are probably confined to the effects on Socrates's own disciples, and there probably wasn't any particular impact on the short-term political history of Athens.
Here's something I learned today: the story, or at least some story, goes that after Plato went to Sicily and got himself in trouble with Dionysius the tyrant and Dionysius shipped him off into slavery, a rival philosopher bought his freedom, and when Plato raised the money to pay him back, he wouldn't take it--and so Plato used the money to buy the land for the Academy.
I also learned today that Iris Murdoch published a couple of dialogues in which she has Socrates talk with Plato. It had occurred to me last week that that might be something I ought to do--but, particularly, to have Socrates ask Plato why he never says anything. (Murdoch's dialogues are, apparently, both about art. She also published a book of lectures about Plato and art.) I mean, clearly, he's hanging around all the time, but he never says anything. Why not? And then he doesn't show up for Socrates's death--because, he says, he was sick! What's up with that?
High today in TO: 25. Dewpoint then: 11. High dewpoint: 12.
Low today on the balcony: 14.5. High: 28.5. Currently: 23.
The question, I think, is not "where does the hate come from?" The question is "why does the hate go where it goes?" Everyone wants to fight. There is a drive to fight. But you can turn it inward, or you can turn it outward. And you can fight for a resolution, or you can fight for domination--or annihilation. (Socrates says in the Republic: when Greeks fight each other, they should fight for a resolution; when they fight foreigners, they should fight to win.) When Cal Ripken was going to break Lou Gehrig's record, I became slightly obsessed with the idea that someone would kill him. It's a wonder, I think, that nobody killed him. There are many such wonders. The wonder is not why it happens when it happens; the wonder is why it doesn't happen all the time. (A lot of people, the ones who think you can't walk the streets at night, can't comprehend that it doesn't happen all the time. It seems like it must.)
Today, back to WLU. Became increasingly fretful as the hours showered by. There just is not time to do everything I want to do. There is not time to do everything that it seems important to do. Of course, some things, when you stop doing them, stop seeming important--but I really hate that, too. And some things, when you stop doing them, stop seeming important, until something happens to remind you of their importance. Like, last week, while the Congress was going on, I stopped paying attention to the newspapers, and all of a sudden there was a public transit strike, and I had no idea. And then I was arguing with a guy about Iraq, and he told me that it was not bankrupting the American economy, that Vietnam was a bigger drain on the American economy, and I had nothing to say to that, because I just don't know, because I haven't read every bit of every current affairs magazine that might tell me something about it. (He'd said it was all about the money, to which I'd said, but they're bankrupting themselves! As far as he's concerned, the "it's bankrupting the country" argument is a Democrat cop-out.)
Anyway. What I mostly did at the library today was read an article by Spiro Panagiotou--who was the first prof I ever TAed for, at McMaster, and who deeply impressed on me the idea, which comes back to haunt me frequently, that the city, in the Republic, is not an anaologue for the soul, but is rather a consequence of collecting the three different kinds of souls (but, I say, it's both! why isn't it both?)--called "Civil Disobedience in the Crito?", which brings in some interesting stuff about the Athenian legal system at the time. The basic idea is that if Socrates escapes, he's, in effect, repealing the law that "the final verdict of the court is authoritative" and replacing it with the law that "the final verdict of the court is authoritative if and only if it's correct"--but, of course, the latter law defeats the purpose of law. So, it's much the same idea as Stokes's about civil disobedience, except that Panagiotou's last word is that, on the basis of the Laws' argument, it's never OK to break the law; I'm not sure why he doesn't make Stokes's move--I guess maybe he just didn't see it.
And then I decided that, really, what it's extremely important to do next is to read up on the political history of Athens around the time of Socrates. I discovered that it's surprisingly difficult to find a potted political history of ancient Athens in the WLU library. What there is is a lot of histories of "everyday life" and such. One general history of ancient Greece starts its introduction by saying, most histories are about politics and war and stuff, so this one's going to be different. Well.... What I want to know is a) to what extent is it the case that the laws under which Socrates was raised are discontinous with the laws at the time of his death?, and b) what were the political effects, if any, of Socrates's death? From what I got poking around today, I'm increasingly confident that there's a pretty sharp discontinuity between Cimon's oligarchic/proto-democratic regime and Pericles's populist-democratic one (never minding the more complicated question of the tyrants and the democratic restoration; a question that's starting to nag at me is, what is it about the regime after the restoration that makes it go after Socrates?). But on the second question, I have the feeling that there's really probably not much to be said; whatever effects there were are probably confined to the effects on Socrates's own disciples, and there probably wasn't any particular impact on the short-term political history of Athens.
Here's something I learned today: the story, or at least some story, goes that after Plato went to Sicily and got himself in trouble with Dionysius the tyrant and Dionysius shipped him off into slavery, a rival philosopher bought his freedom, and when Plato raised the money to pay him back, he wouldn't take it--and so Plato used the money to buy the land for the Academy.
I also learned today that Iris Murdoch published a couple of dialogues in which she has Socrates talk with Plato. It had occurred to me last week that that might be something I ought to do--but, particularly, to have Socrates ask Plato why he never says anything. (Murdoch's dialogues are, apparently, both about art. She also published a book of lectures about Plato and art.) I mean, clearly, he's hanging around all the time, but he never says anything. Why not? And then he doesn't show up for Socrates's death--because, he says, he was sick! What's up with that?
