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"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."
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23d ago
It’s pretty characteristic of Plato’s style in general.
There is a lot of back-and-forth debate in the Platonic dialogues, no doubt. But also there are a lot of times where Socrates is just monologuing while the other person interjects with “yes, quite, it is as you say, Socrates”.
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24d ago
Sure.
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24d ago
Name whoever you want, I doubt it will change anything.
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24d ago
Not on my watch.
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24d ago
Were I in a position to do so, would I vote to acquiesce to the left's request to honor one of their slain heroes? A George Floyd or a Joseph Rosenbaum, or perhaps a historical figure like Lenin or Mao? It seems that two distinct answers are in order.
The first answer is: yes, of course, "by default". I would be happy to vote yes "by default", with a taciturn attitude, as an expression of my own amiable and magnanimous nature, and out of a want of avoiding the appearance of pettiness. I can't deny that such a gesture would be a matter of pride, an attempt to introduce my own form of "unruliness" into the proceedings...
But supposing we wanted something more than a "default" course of action, something we could fully assent to in good conscience? Supposing then?
I admit to possessing a certain degree of permeability; there is hardly a passion amongst my enemies that cannot inspire a concomitant passion within me, if it is expressed and held rightly (allowing that "rightly" for me is "wrongly" for a great many others). I want to know that it means something to you. I want to know that anything at all means anything to you. Then we can walk together, if only for a time. It is not the expression of raw untrammeled sentiment, nor is it the expression of a rational program of means and ends, but rather it is something that threads the needle of navigating the Scylla and Charybdis and excavates the unnameable space between them. (Don't take this as an invitation to pen your own panegyrics; I have not the talent to evaluate them, I'm in no state to hear confessions, not me... the most I can do for anyone is to remind them of the proper standards of decorum, to gesture insistently that the question must be treated with an appropriate amount of respect...)
The primary distinction for me is not between good and evil, or purity and corruption, but between the ensouled and the soulless. The indifference with which this concept is often treated is simply more proof to me that the distinction has, in fact, latched onto something real. Undoubtedly, many of my enemies and I walk the same path; and conversely, anyone on my "side" who lacks the requisite sense of aesthetics is an ally of convenience only, and not someone who could be counted on to genuinely relieve me of my loneliness.
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24d ago
The dialogue I quoted from was written by Plato...
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24d ago
People have been complaining that normies are dumb for at least 2,400 years:
STRANGER: Should we not say that the division according to classes, which neither makes the same other, nor makes other the same, is the business of the dialectical science?
THEAETETUS: That is what we should say.
STRANGER: Then, surely, he who can divide rightly is able to see clearly one form pervading a scattered multitude, and many different forms contained under one higher form; and again, one form knit together into a single whole and pervading many such wholes, and many forms, existing only in separation and isolation. This is the knowledge of classes which determines where they can have communion with one another and where not.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And the art of dialectic would be attributed by you only to the philosopher pure and true?
THEAETETUS: Who but he can be worthy?
STRANGER: In this region we shall always discover the philosopher, if we look for him; like the Sophist, he is not easily discovered, but for a different reason.
THEAETETUS: For what reason?
STRANGER: Because the Sophist runs away into the darkness of not-being, in which he has learned by habit to feel about, and cannot be discovered because of the darkness of the place. Is not that true?
THEAETETUS: It seems to be so.
STRANGER: And the philosopher, always holding converse through reason with the idea of being, is also dark from excess of light; for the souls of the many have no eye which can endure the vision of the divine.
THEAETETUS: Yes; that seems to be quite as true as the other.
STRANGER: Well, the philosopher may hereafter be more fully considered by us, if we are disposed; but the Sophist must clearly not be allowed to escape until we have had a good look at him.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
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25d ago
No, it really is much closer to 50%. That’s the only way to explain the absolute deluge of support among leftists for Kirk’s murder. It’s a statistical argument. The only reason you’re hearing this many people who support it is because there are even more who don’t. Otherwise you’d have to believe that almost every person who supports Kirk murder has been vocal about it on the internet, which is implausible.
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25d ago
10 steps forward 2 steps back, Moloch always swims left, ineluctable Brazilianization, etc.
I don’t see any reason to celebrate a couple individuals getting fucked over if it doesn’t change the calculus at a societal level. In fact I find it regrettable. I don’t actually want leftists to suffer just for being leftists.
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28d ago
If you're still largely unfamiliar with his original works, then you have a very special and unique experience waiting in store for you. For those who only know Nietzsche through reddit /r/atheism soundbites, the beautiful subtlety of his thought is reduced to caricature. Few other thinkers in history so reward careful and prolonged meditation, and few others were so thoroughly opposed to quick and easy answers. (Jung described Nietzsche as a "devious mind who laid many traps for unsuspecting intruders" in the catacombs of his soul.)
One thing that all readers of Nietzsche can agree on is that questions of nobility, of distinctions of rank, of ascendancy and degeneration, were at the forefront of his mind, so you'll find plenty to reflect on there.
Academic commentaries on Nietzsche are largely useless. Just dive in and enjoy the ride.
A reading from the scriptures:
The more a psychologist – a born, inevitable psychologist and unriddler of souls – turns to exceptional cases and people, the greater the danger that he will be choked with pity: he needs hardness and cheerfulness more than anyone else. The ruin, the destruction of higher people, of strangely constituted souls, is the rule [emphasis mine]: it is horrible always to have a rule like this in front of your eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist who discovered this destruction, who first discovered and then kept rediscovering (in almost every case) the whole inner “hopelessness” of the higher person, the eternal “too late!” in every sense, throughout the entirety of history, – this torment might make him turn bitterly against his own lot one day and try to destroy himself, – to “ruin” himself. In almost every psychologist, you find a telling inclination and preference for dealing with normal, well-ordered people. This reveals that the psychologist is in constant need of a cure, of a type of forgetting and escape from the things that make his insight and incisiveness, that make his “craft” weigh heavily on his conscience. It is characteristic of him to be afraid of his memory. He is easily silenced by other people’s judgments: he listens with an unmoved face to how they honor, admire, love, and transfigure what he has seen, – or he keeps his silence hidden by expressly agreeing with some foreground opinion.
Perhaps the paradox of his condition becomes so horrible that the masses, the educated, the enthusiasts, develop a profound admiration for the very things he has learned to regard with profound pity and contempt, – they admire the “great men” and prodigies who inspire people to bless and honor the fatherland, the earth, the dignity of humanity, and themselves, “great men” who are pointed out to young people for their edification . . . And who knows if this is not just what has happened in all great cases so far: the masses worshiped a God, – and that “God” was only a poor sacrificial animal! Success has always been the greatest liar, – and the “work” itself is a success. The great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer – each one is disguised by his creations to the point of being unrecognizable. The “work” of the artist, of the philosopher, is what invents whoever has created it, whoever was supposed to have created it. “Great men,” as they are honored, are minor pieces of bad literature, invented after the fact; in the world of historical values, counterfeit rules. These great authors, for example, this Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol, – they are, and perhaps have to be men of the moment, excited, sensual, and childish, thoughtless and sudden in trust and mistrust; with souls that generally hide some sort of crack; often taking revenge in their work for some inner corruption, often flying off in search of forgetfulness for an all-too-faithful memory, often getting lost in the mud and almost falling in love with it until they become like the will-o’-the-wisps around swamps and pretend to be stars (then people might call them idealists), often fighting a prolonged disgust, a recurring specter of unbelief that makes them cold and forces them to pine for gloria and to feed on “faith in itself” from the hands of drunken flatterers. What torture these great artists and higher people in general are for anyone who has ever guessed what they really are! [...]
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28d ago
Mars rock
If we're confining ourselves specifically to the works of Plato, then the point is to explore a particular philosophical problem, and typically, to outline a solution to it. The dialogue I quoted from, The Sophist, attempts to explore and solve a series of paradoxes related to the concept of non-existence. See here for a gloss on the dialogue's central arguments.
As for why Plato chose to present his works in dialogue form rather than a more traditional "scholarly" form, the reasons are multifaceted. I would point out, for example, that we would have never seen the beautiful drama of Callicles's accusations against Socrates (that he was wasting his life on philosophy) if Plato had not chosen the dialogue form.
You're going to look me in the eyes and tell me that this is shallow and pointless?
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