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Chomsky vs Foucault: On Peace & Justice

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Chomsky and Foucault are two foundational modern and postmodern figures in the critique of “structures” of our society – from language to government to institutions – and analyzing whose has the “agency” to maintain or change these structures.

This is a debate between the two thinkers, who have very different ideas about structure and agency, and about the ideas of peace, justice, and oppression.

Part 1

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WveI_vgmPz8[/youtube]

Part 2

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0SaqrxgJvw[/youtube]

Chomsky has what is thought of as a “Modernist” or “Structuralist” perspective, holding that there is some common human objective and absolute definition of justice, goodness, and kindness.

Foucault on the other hand is thought of as more “Postmodernist” or “Poststructuralist”, believing that these definitions are always and entirely relative.

Knowledge from a postmodernist point of view is completely (might we cheekily say, “absolutely”) inseparable from the oppressive structures so that our definitions of peace and justice are in fact part of the oppressive structure and play a role in maintaining them.

Who is right, who is wrong?

Is, as Foucault argues, the “very notion of justice itself functions within a society of classes as a claim made by the oppressed class and as a justification for it”?

Or is there, as Chomsky defends, some kind of inner absolute notion that we may not be able to properly define, and yet that we all somehow share?

It’s a debate that has been going for millennium. Most of us have a modern or postmodern worldview – or some kind of mix of the two.

It’s a question of one Truth or many truths.

Some of us are likely to be on one end of the continuum upholding the idea of an objective truth (and hence some kind of objective definitions of peace and justice), while others might hold that all truth is relative (and hence our definitions of peace and justice are also relative).

I personally think the middle ground isn’t navigated enough, although I feel Chomsky in this clip is trying to get to it.

On one hand, like Foucault has emphasised, our entire way of thinking is based on our education and societal experiences. All our ideas, including that of peace and justice, are completely inseparable from these structures. Science, Philosophy, Religion and Culture – all our ideas and stories can be traced back to the beginnings of our recorded history, back to the “Ancient” cultures of Sumer, Egypt, Babylon and Greece. Everything that we know or think has a long  “ancient” history of their own.

Our experience of reality is entirely socially constructed, and entirely relative.

And as Foucault points out, most of this construction has been designed by power-hungry beings, greedy, hierarchical, and tailoring “knowledge” and definitions of “justice” or what is “normal” and “good” for their own benefit.

But does that mean we should throw our hands in the air and forget about peace and justice? On this point I agree with Chomsky.

I think after we acknowledge our definitions are relative and based on partial knowledge, we can’t escape our own embodiment to this structure and hence we need to work within it toward some kind of vision of future.

There seems to be some common and objective Reality that we all share, and experienced via our own unique reality. We will never share the same experience of that Reality, so we can only ever know a relative version of it.

The more capacity we have to critically reflect on our views, and their historical and cultural context, the more likely we can learn from the past and create a better future.

So, in conclusion, I think Chomsky and Foucault make points that work together like yin and yang: we need to hold some definition of peace and justice as tentative, acknowledging its relative limitations. We need to strive toward our ideals while never stopping to question, discuss and revise their meanings.

Truth

A small group of people can change the world

Written by Juliet Bennett
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“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that has.” Margaret Mead.

This quote came from the RSA clip below: The Enlightenment in the 21st Century.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo[/youtube]

The two questions I took from this are:

Where are we NOW, how’d we GET HERE, and where do we wanna GO next?

and

Who ARE we, who do we NEED to be, and who might we ASPIRE to be?

As the current ruling species on this planet that, in my opinion, are not such a bad bunch most of the time, or at least some of the time we’re not so bad… I think these are important questions to ask.

Truth

The Pleasure of the Text: Sites of Bliss

Written by Juliet Bennett
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“If I read this sentence, this story, or this word with pleasure, it is because they were written in pleasure.” If anyone has written with pleasure, creating sentences that are near-orgasmic for the reader, it is Roland Barthes. The first time I picked up one of his books, called The Pleasure of the Text, I was encapsulated in it, aroused by a dead guy talking about words:

“In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psycholanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater,), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance as disappearance.”

He captures the little truths we rarely admit aloud:

“We do not read everything with the same intensity of reading; a rhythm is established, casual, unconcerned with the integrity of the text; our very avidity for knowledge impels us to skim or to skip certain passages (anticipated as “boring”) in order to get more quickly to the warmer parts of the anecdote… we boldly skip (no one is watching) descriptions, explanations, analyses, conversations … the author can not predict tmesis: he cannot choose to write what will not be read. And yet, it is the rhythm of what is read and what is not read that creates the pleasure of great narratives: has anyone ever read Proust, Balzac, War and Peace, word for word? (Proust’s good fortune: from one reading to the next we never skip the same passages).”

I think maybe that’s why I bold the most important stuff in my blog. Put your hand anyone who reads every word?

Yesterday I stumbled across another couple of Barthes’ books. This one from 1977, A Lover’s Discourse, unmasks the words lovers say, and the feelings that live behind them.

He describes the ‘socially irresponsible’ words “I-love-you” that ‘does not transmit a meaning, but fastens onto a limit situation’ and which most of the time one says in hope of hearing the words returned.

He talks about the suspense incurred during the ‘absence of the loved object’ which ‘tends to transform to an ordeal of abandonment’ and ‘the sigh for bodily presence’.

He talks about jealousy, saying it is ‘ugly, is bourgeois: it is an unworthy fuss, a zeal’.

He talks about contact, ‘when my finger accidentally…’ how one in love ‘creates meaning, always and everywhere, out of nothing, and it is meaning which thrills him: he is in the crucible of meaning. Every contact, for the lover, raises the question of an answer: the skin is asked to reply.’

He talks about being ‘in love with love‘.

He talks about the desire to be engulfed, be it in ‘woe or well-being’ – a craving for the intensity of the ‘outburst of annihilation which affects the amorous subject in despair or fulfillment.’

Agree with his opinions or  not, they are written in a way one can’t help be wooed into reading just a little more.

And so, as I edit the book I wrote long ago, I will try to follow Barthes’ advice and ‘seek out this reader (must cruise him) without knowing where he is…’ and from there try to create with words ‘a site of bliss.’

Truth

Critical Discourse Analysis

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Critical Discourse Analysis is a study of LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, POWER and SOCIAL CHANGE. ‘Discourse analysis is not a “level” of analysis as, say, phonology or lexico-grammar, but an exploration of how “texts” at all levels work within sociocultural practices,’ says Candlin in the Preface to Fairclough. If you didn’t already gauge from the title then take this as your warning: this entry contains high levels of academic language. It is also disjointed and includes a lot of quotes (because I’m lazy).

‘One crucial condition for social interaction in general and talk in particular is that people understand each other. This is possible only if we assume that social members have socially shared interpretation procedures for social actions, for example, categories, rules and strategies.’ (Dijk, 1985:2)

Critical Discourse Analysis is one of the “tools” I mentioned a few entries ago that can be useful for understanding the “taken for granted” systems of knowledge that we use in order to communicate. As such it helps us view the world in a more reflexive way – which not only makes people watching more interesting, it empowers us to interact with our reality in new and wonderful ways…

Critical Discourse Analysis involves looking at the “texts” that make up our realities, questioning their assumptions, identifying underlying ideologies, the connection between language and social-institutional practices, and how these connect to formation and maintenance of power structures (like The Pyramid).

These so-called “texts” range from books to movies, TV commercials, news stories, dinner conversations, education, parent-child relations, business meetings, and jokes. A “text” in this context is anything involving a communicative language – verbal and non-verbal.

Learning about this tool illuminates the ginormous impact that “texts” that surround us have on our lived experiences; how they operate as the key forces behind both maintaining status quo structures, and the initiation of social change.

Critical Discourse Analysis is intended to ‘critique some of the premises and the constructs underlying mainstream studies in sociolinguistics, conversational analysis and pragmatics, to demonstrate the need of these sub-disciplines to engage with social and political issues of power and hegemony in a dynamic and historically informed manner… to re-engage with central constructs of power and knowledge, and above all, ideology, to question what is this “real world” of social relations in institutional practices that is represented linguistically.’ (Fairclough, 1995:viii)

Critical Discourse Analysis might look at labels like “terrorist” and “counter-terrorist”, or “ally” and “enemy”… and examine not only the term, but how it is used by different people in different ways. The definition and use of terms such as these are clearly dependent upon which side you are on.

Take for example this funny clip:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZNbfIPrrCQ[/youtube]

What might this tell us about the propaganda techniques of Neo-Conservatives? Or could this clip itself be propaganda against them?

So… what does Critical Discourse Analysis involve?

Dijk explains that ‘a typical ethnographical analysis of speech events features, for example, a description of the discourse genre, the overall delimination, social function, or label of the whole speech event, the topic (theme or reference), the setting (time and physical environment), the different categories for participants, the purpose of the interaction, the type of code (spoken, written, etc.), the lexicon and the semantics, the grammar (also at the discourse level), the sequences of acts (both verbal and nonverbal), and the underlying rules, norms or strategies for the actions or the whole event… And even this enumeration is not complete.’ (Dijk, 1985:9)

‘The method of discourse analysis includes linguistic description of the language text, interpretation of the relationship between the (productive and interpretative) discursive processes and the social processes.’ (Fairclough, 1995:97)

Fairclough refers to Mandel (1978) to describe the “postmodernist” features of “late capitalist” discourse that includes “post-traditional relationships” with relationships based upon authority in decline, both in the public and personal domain, for example, when it comes to kinship and self-identity ‘rather than being a feature of given positions and roles’ they are ‘reflexively build up through a process of negotiation’. Also the development of a “promotional” and “consumer” culture – with our strong emphasis on market and consumption rather than production. It is difficult not to be involved oneself in promoting because it’s part of so many people’s jobs and because it self-promotion is now part of our personal identity. (Fairclough, 1995:137-8).

Fairclough is calling for a critical social and historical turn. ‘It would seem vital that people should become more aware and more self-aware about language and discourse. Yet levels of awareness are very low. Few people have even an elementary metalanguage for talking about and thinking about such issues. A critical awareness of language and discursive practices is, I suggest, becoming a prerequiste for democratic citizenship, and an urgent priority for language education in than the majority of the population (certainly of Britain) are so far form having achieved it.’ (Fairclough, 1995:140).

Textual analysis involves two complementary types of analysis: linguistic and intertextual – that are a ‘necessary complement’ to each other.

‘Whereas linguistic analysis shows how texts selectively draw upon linguistic systems (again, in an extended sense), intertextual analysis shows how texts selectively draw upon orders of discourse – the particular configurations of conventionalised practices (genres, discourses, narratives, etc.) which are available to text producers and interpreters in particular circumstances…’ (Fairclough, 1995:188)

Texts are dependent on society and history in the form of the resources available but intertextual analysis is dynamic and dialectical in that the texts themselves can ‘transform these social and historical resources,’ “re-accentuate” genres and mix genres in texts. ‘Language is always simultaneously constitutive of (i) social identities, (ii) social relations and (iii) systems of knowledge and belief – though with different degrees of salience in different cases.’ (Fairclough, 1995:131)

Fairclough suggests developing “Critical Language Awareness” (CLA). It is important to try to increase the reflexive capacity of individuals.

Fairclough describes education as not only ‘a key domain of linguistically mediated power’ but is also a ‘site for reflection upon and analysis of the sociolinguistic order and the order of discourse’ by equipping learners with a critical language awareness as a ‘resource for intervention in and the reshaping of discursive practices and the power relations that ground them, both in other domains and within education itself.’ (1995:217)

With mass media generally acknowledged as the ‘single most important social institution in bringing off these processes in contemporary societies’ Fairclough recognises that ‘we also live in an age of great change and instability in which the forms of power and domination are being radically reshaped, in which changing cultural practices are a major constituent of social change which in many cases means to a significant degree changing discursive practices, changing practices of language use.’ (1995:219)

I think its encouraging to remember that society and culture are ALWAYS changing, language is ALWAYS evolving, and power structures are ALWAYS shifting. And I suppose we should be thankful that developed capitalist countries exercise their power typically through ‘consent rather than coercion’, ‘ideology rather than through physical force’ and through ‘the inculcation of self-disciplining principles rather than through the breaking of skulls’. If I’m going to be controlled, I definitely prefer it to be in this way.

References:

Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis : The Critical Study of Language (London ; New York: Longman, 1995).

Dijk, Teun Adrianus van, Handbook of Discourse Analysis Book 3, (London ; Orlando: Academic Press, 1985).

Picture:

Taken from Fairclough (1995) p. 135.

Academic, Truth,

You, the Anthropologist, tuning your skills

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Do you ever sit there, on a park bench, at the beach, or even out of your car window, and simply observe the people that walk by? What are they wearing? What do their facial expressions and body language tell you? Do you ever put words in other peoples mouths? Guessing what they are talking about.

A couple bickering. “Why are you always like that?” “You never listen.” “That’s because all you do is complain…”

A dude trying to pick up a chick. “How you doin?” “Piss off!” “Come on…” “Seriously, piss off!”

In a park in Lima, Peru, there were none of such stories. Everywhere I looked I saw stories of love:

An elderly couple reminiscing the past.

A young couple planning their future.

“You know what I’m going to do for you tonight?!”

It can be fun to imagine what is going on in others’ worlds. These interpretations tend to be based on things that have gone on in our own world, either things we have experienced directly through relationships and events, or indirectly through television shows, movies, books etc.

If you do this, then you are a social scientist, an anthropologist, a studier of people. For anyone who enjoys a little people watching, the tools I will share over the next week or so will allow you to gain deeper insights to the things you observe – both in your observations of others, and in your observations of your self.

Earlier this year I was writing about some of the gaps that I have observed:

– a gap between education at school and real life

– a gap in how knowledge is distributed between rich and poor, between academia and public, between governments and their people…

– a gap between those who gain the monetary profit from corporations and those held responsible for the corporations’ non-monetary costs to people and environment

Some of my entries over the next couple of months will be looking at how these gaps might be bridged. I will be approaching challenge by looking at the materials I’ve been researching these last six months, trying to interpret the academic jargon into everyday langugae, and apply it to everyday situations, like the people-watching scenario above.

A word of warning: while endevoring to interpret the jargon, these entries still contain it. If you feel alarmed, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Words like “Hegemony” and “Heuristics” and “Foucaultian” and “Phenomenology” almost scared me away from academia altogether. It’s worth pushing through – these words are quite illuminating and worth putting the time in to understand them.

What I will try to do is define these terms the first time I use them, and refer back to that entry when I use them later. If it’s hard to follow I suggest a quick Wiki-search – grab a quick definition, and see if it makes sense. Feel free to leave your questions in the comments  section about areas I haven’t explained so well and I’ll come back to it and try. It’s really important to me to develop my communication skills so when you see them please help me by point out my owns gaps – I would really appreciate it.

The “Intellectual Toolkit” (as one of my supervisors calls it) that I will share includes a selection of methodologies, big thinker’s theories, and key debates, that are appropriate for my research in the social and political sciences.

  • “Critical Discourse Analysis”
  • “Phenomenology”
  • “Narrative Inquiry”
  • The “Agency / Structure” debate (Foucault’s views on the Power)
  • Social Construction Theories (Paulo Freire’s ideas in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”; Berger and Luckman’s ideas on “The Social Construction of Reality”; and Norman K. Denzin’s ideas on “Auto-Ethnography” )

As I have discovered each of these tools and perspectives, I have felt my eyes open to new ways understanding the people and world around me. I am coming to see how language builds stories which builds identities, culture, and worldviews, which all in all provide a context from which we come to understand the relationship between our individual realities and the Reality beyond.

I hope that by sharing this information you might enhance your people watching too!

Academic, Truth

Loving What Is

Written by Juliet Bennett
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How often do you think or say “I love that I’m sick” or “I love it that I got a parking fine.” Never. Well I don’t. But that was the message I took away my conversation with three inspiring minds I had dinner with on Wednesday tonight: Love What Is.

Now I know I’ve spoken about this before. I distinctly remember writing about the need to accept everything just as it is, when I thought I was going to die in the back of a crazy driver’s loud-honking car winding up the mountains in India. But as the busyness of life takes over, you can never have too many reminders of positive affirmations. And I think to love what is going a step further than acceptance. Loving what is, even the shitty stuff we face, really means embracing it. And when we embrace our pains, they disappear. But is that easier said than done?

As the antipasto was placed on the table, my friend made a suggestion:

“Name the one biggest thing you need to let go of.”

The first thing that came to my mind was Kombi Xee, and the overnight loss. Attached to my kombi was an image of freedom, not to mention the $5k supposed to fund a trip to Europe I want to do on my way to America later this year. I shared the story with my new friends, and the fear I have associated with my stupid spontaneous decision – I thought my intuition was telling me to buy her. Still who the heck doesn’t get a mechanical check on a 36 year old car? (Note – I will get to the full kombi story share some other day).

The question bothering me in that moment was: Should I keep her in, or should I exchange her for peanuts?

“Now I suggest this to you… you have to let go of your attachment to stories. Freedom is found inside you, not in the kombi. You need to let it go. Let go of any fears. Accept you’ve lost the money, and do whatever feels right to you.”

It’s not easy to let go of things you love. And while I understand the need to let go of stories, and my kombi, I just don’t know if I’m ready to. I’m trying to listen to my intuition, to be open to the signs of the universe, but sometimes those signs are simply unclear.

“I love that my kombi broke down a few days after I bought it.” I’m saying it, but I don’t mean it. I really wish I got at least a few months of fun out of it, didn’t lose my money, and didn’t have to borrow my sister’s old car that I’ll have to get registered in less than a month.

“I love that this kombi experience taught me a lesson to be careful in the future.” I’m saying it but I don’t mean it. While I’ll definitely get a mechanical check next time I buy a second hand car, I’m sure this experience won’t stop my tendency to make spontaneous crazy decisions when I feel so inclined.

Let’s try again. “I love that my kombi broke down a few days after I bought it.”

The only way I might mean it, is if at some point, some future point of hindsight, I see a purpose for it. Maybe I should put it at my grandmas house in storage for a year until I can have time and money to get it back on the road.

Let’s try again: let it go. Whatever happens doesn’t matter. The money is gone. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Kombi or no kombi, everything will work out.

If you let go of the stories that you are attached to, if you let go of fear, if you let go of expectations, and if you live every moment with acceptance and love for all that is, you will lead a happy life.

I still don’t know what I’m going to do with this kombi. Should I keep it or should I sell it? Can I sell it, or is Xee now a worthless piece of junk? I suppose if I ask the universe, the answer will soon become clear… Either way I have to try, to love this situation just as it is.

Random Life Stuff, Truth,

Is “God” a Fractal?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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When I inside and outside my “self”, I see one thing: fractals. Fractals explain to me the microcosm and the macrocosm that our cells, bodies, societies, galaxies, and possibly universes and beyond, are a part of.

Have you seen the “Power of Ten” clip? This is a MUST. It zooms out at the power of 10 every second out to the edge of our universe and then zooms into through to the quantum quark inside your hand. Out of every youtube clip I’ve ever posted on this blog, this is my favourite:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0[/youtube]

Compare this adventure in our universe to the Mandelbrot Fractal Adventure I last week and tell me what you think … are we fractals?

This is one more clip worth watching that explores this question:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE2EiI-UfsE[/youtube]

Fractal patterns seem to surround us as far out into the universe and as deep into our cells as far as our technology allows us to see.

From relationships within cells to between cells, within people to between people, within societies to between societies, within nations to between nations, within our planet, solar system, galaxy, universe – there are clear patterns: patterns of complexity and nothingness, of ones and zeros, of peace and conflict, patterns of a dance between polar opposites that are two sides to one coin.

In bridging finite (area) with infinite (perimeter), does the fractal pattern provide a metaphor of how what seems impossible, actually be possible? What implications might this have for philosophical discussions about good and evil, determinism vs in-determinism, individualism vs in-separateness?

Is what some people call “God”, a personification of the fractal?

Is it just me or is the idea of fractals an incredible way to think about the connection between our cells, our universe, and our “selves”!!!

Image taken from http://bidhanr.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/fractals/

 

Truth, ,

The Koch Snowflake: Fractals

Written by Juliet Bennett
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A fractal is a shape that you can split into parts, zoom in, and discover the same or similar shape, times infinity. It’s almost magic, this pattern which extends outward and inward, seemingly to infinity. I’ll use the Koch Snowflake among others examples of fractals to introduce what I find a very exciting concept it to you.

If this is the first you’ve heard of fractals, the best introduction is the Mandelbrot Fractal Adventure:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYYQuspB8j4[/youtube]

Let’s look at a few in nature:

Lungs [1]

Trees [2]

Ferns [3]

Cauliflower [4]

Blood vessels [5]

Lightning [6]

Closer look at lightning

And closer still

Oceanwaves [7]

The pattern of of and inside the wave:

Coastlines [8]

How does a fractal work?

Let’s look at a snowflake:

[9]

Each line is divided into three and an additional line to the same length added. This is then done to the next set of lines, and the next set, and so on to infinity. The last youtube clip in this entry gives a more detailed description of this process.

The mountain example is pretty cool too:

[10]

This guy does a great job explaining the mathematics behind it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWOngYTC-2E[/youtube]

“Fractals demonstrate an infinite perimeter with a finite area” – now that’s an idea to ponder for a while…

References & sources:

[1] Lungs http://gaiathelivingearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/fractals-in-nature.html

[2] Trees

Fractal tree, made from using a “Lindenmayer system”.This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Solkoll.

[3] Fern http://www.rogerolivella.net/insula/en/descripcio.htm

[4] Cauliflower http://www.math.toronto.edu/~drorbn/Gallery/Plants/Cauliflower-1.html

[5] Blood vessels http://www.lionden.com/fractal_body.htm

[6] Waves http://mathpaint.blogspot.com/2008/06/fractal-waves.html

[7] Lightning – the last two also by Solkoll the first from a blog site that didn’t have copyright – if anyone knows who I should attribute it to please let me know.

[8] Coastlines http://bidhanr.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/fractals/

[9] Fractal Snowflake Graphic by António Miguel de Campos (self made based in own JAVA animation) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

[10] Fractal Mountain Graphic by António Miguel de Campos (self made based in own JAVA animation) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Also good reference is: Mandelbrot, B.B. (1982). The Fractal Geometry of Nature. W.H. Freeman and Company.

Truth,

What makes a life worthy? Optimal trajectory and not fearing death.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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‘I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil,’ says Socrates in Plato’s Apology as he stands by his virtues right till the end. For Socrates, a worthy life is one lived in accordance with (what he would call it had he seen The Men Who Stare At Goats) one’s optimal trajectory.

Socrates, right through till his death, acts according to what he sees to be the “will of the divine agencies”. He is not looking to some super-powerful person in the sky, or a mythic personification of some human quality on earth, but he looks to connect to some perspective outside himself, accessed via the voice inside.

In following this path Socrates teaches us the importance of seeking the highest virtues, and placing wisdom before our our private interests. Call it the “will of God” or “the signs of the universe” or simply “intuition”, Socrates values a life that is is self-aware, self-critical, self-confident and connects action with faith.

Today I will focus on the question my philosophy mentor posed when he recommended I read Plato’s Apology: What does Socrates believe makes a life a good/worthy one?

Close to his death, when asked to recommend a penalty, Socrates says,

‘I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? Because I am afraid for the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil?…’

He ponders options of prison, and exile, and says, ‘I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would have fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely… Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue?…’

And here he tells about his values and living out his optimal trajectory, even if this trajectory leads to death:

‘Now I have a great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examine myself and others, and that the life unexamined is not worth living – that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you.’

After the jury then condemns him to death, Socrates says: ‘I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death… The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.’

Socrates talks about how to follow one’s optimal trajectory – listening to that deep intuitive feeling that warns you not to do something, and letting this guide your actions:

‘I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet i have often been stopped in the middle of a speech; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error.‘

Now he goes on to tell us why he doesn’t fear death:

‘There is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: – either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain…

if evernight is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?… Above all I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not.’

Socrates values are noble and wise. He says he ‘never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care about – wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to follow in the way and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the order which he observes all his actions.’

Although by the sound of The Symposium I think Socrates didn’t mind the occasional party 🙂

Socrates did not die in vain. Through his ideas and conviction, Socrates inspired Plato and many-a-philosophers, religious thinkers and people like you and me, to not blindly accept authorities, institutions and ideas, but to question them. Science and philosophy are Socratic legacies that allow us to examine the world around us, and distinguish truth from fallacy, while acknowledging the great limitations of our knowledge.

Socrates lived his life in sync with the energies of the universe, living out what he believed to be the will of the divine agencies (that he did not believe was some old man in the sky), right through to his death.

If you take one thing from this long list of quotes, please take away Socrates’ request. He asks the jury that if, when his sons are grown up, ‘they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, – then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing.’

Seeing as we are all (at least the majority of Western mentalities) are sons of Socrates, I think this is good advice. We should take Socrates advice, look around us, and at ourselves, see if there is anything we value more than virtue, and whether we are pretending to be something we are not… and if the answer is yes to either question then ask ourselves WHY? Is this our optimal trajectory, or is our intuition telling us there’s another path we might be better to follow?

Picture – from The Men Who Stare At Goats – it may not have received the best reviews, but I thought it was hilarious!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC2TzspJn5A[/youtube]

Truth,