Death Speaks

 

Stoic Snippets 114

How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.6

Michael Leunig 28

Seneca, Moral Letters 18.2

I am sure that, if I know you aright, playing the part of an umpire you would have wished that we should be neither like the liberty-capped throng in all ways, nor in all ways unlike them; unless, perhaps, this is just the season when we ought to lay down the law to the soul, and bid it be alone in refraining from pleasures just when the whole mob has let itself go in pleasures; for this is the surest proof which a man can get of his own constancy, if he neither seeks the things which are seductive and allure him to luxury, nor is led into them.

 

It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way—thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd. For one may keep holiday without extravagance.

 

It is encouraging to see how Seneca thinks the young Lucilius will try to seek a middle ground, because I was hardly competent at pursuing the mean in my earlier years. While I had been properly taught about moderation and balance, I would still too often let my frantic passions lead me astray. It was usually all or nothing for me, eagerly running along with a crowd or desperately running away from it. 

 

But let me not confuse the mean with mediocrity, or let compromise become a form of cowardice. In that a temperate attitude will meet with opposition from both extremes, it can do me a world of good to put up a decent fight for the sake of character. After all, there is a time to draw the line, and the occasion of a holy season can be a fitting opportunity to improve through a worthy struggle. In the end, I am really just fighting my own worst inclinations, and no one else. 

 

Surely, what better moment is there to increase piety, gratitude, and self-mastery, when most everyone around me is busy with profit, gratification, and self-abandon? As Chesterton put it, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” Just as a muscle does not become stronger without meeting a resistance, so the soul does not become better without facing an obstacle. 

 

To find that pesky mean, therefore, first requires the fortitude not to quiver in fear and hide myself from temptations, and then further calls for the restraint to be surrounded by vices while remaining secure in my own virtues. Be in the world, but not of it. It is not always an easy thing, but it is a necessary thing. 

 

In trying not to become the drunken and lecherous Santa at the office party, I need to be careful not to end up like a resentful and joyless Ebenezer Scrooge. A celebration is a wonderful thing, and is always most satisfying in company, so there is no reason not to join the festivities; there is a very good reason, however, to do so in a way that does not make me a beast or a slave. 

 

Does my neighbor wish to celebrate his Christmas like a boisterous and gluttonous lout? I should raise a glass or two with him, yet I should keep my temper and consumption at my own proper measure. It would be just as harmful for me to make a prudish fuss, arrogantly snubbing him to satisfy my bitter self-righteousness, as it would for me to pass out with him in the gutter. 

Written in 8/2012

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 2

But Socrates's mode of dealing with his intimates has another aspect. As regards the ordinary necessities of life, his advice was, "Act as you believe these things may best be done." 

But in the case of those darker problems, the issues of which are incalculable, he directed his friends to consult the oracle, whether the business should be undertaken or not. "No one," he would say, "who wishes to manage a house or city with success: no one aspiring to guide the helm of state aright, can afford to dispense with aid from above." 

Doubtless, skill in carpentering, building, smithying, farming, of the art of governing men, together with the theory of these processes, and the sciences of arithmetic, economy, strategy, are affairs of study, and within the grasp of human intelligence. Yet there is a side even of these, and that not the least important, which the gods reserve to themselves, the bearing of which is hidden from mortal vision. 

Thus, let a man sow a field or plant a farm never so well, yet he cannot foretell who will gather in the fruits: another may build him a house of fairest proportion, yet he knows not who will inhabit it. 

Neither can a general foresee whether it will profit him to conduct a campaign, nor a politician be certain whether his leadership will turn to evil or good. 

Nor can the man who weds a fair wife, looking forward to joy, know whether through her he shall not reap sorrow. Neither can he who has built up a powerful connection in the state know whether he shall not by means of it be cast out of his city. 

To suppose that all these matters lay within the scope of human judgment, to the exclusion of the preternatural, was preternatural folly. Nor was it less extravagant to go and consult the will of Heaven on any questions which it is given to us to decide by dint of learning. 

As though a man should inquire, "Am I to choose an expert driver as my coachman, or one who has never handled the reins?" "Shall I appoint a mariner to be skipper of my vessel, or a landsman?" And so with respect to all we may know by numbering, weighing, and measuring. 

To seek advice from Heaven on such points was a sort of profanity. "Our duty is plain," he would observe; "where we are permitted to work through our natural faculties, there let us by all means apply them. But in things which are hidden, let us seek to gain knowledge from above, by divination; for the gods," he added, "grant signs to those to whom they will be gracious."

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1

IMAGES: 

Claude Lorrain, View of Delphi with a Procession (1673)

John Collier, Priestess of Delphi (1891)

Dhammapada 168

Rouse yourself! 

Do not be idle! 

Follow the law of virtue! 

The virtuous rests in bliss in this world and in the next.

Seneca, Moral Letters 18.1

Letter 18: On festivals and fasting

It is the month of December, and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat. License is given to the general merrymaking. Everything resounds with mighty preparations—as if the Saturnalia differed at all from the usual business day! So true it is that the difference is nil, that I regard as correct the remark of the man who said: "Once December was a month; now it is a year." 

 

If I had you with me, I should be glad to consult you and find out what you think should be done—whether we ought to make no change in our daily routine, or whether, in order not to be out of sympathy with the ways of the public, we should dine in gayer fashion and doff the toga. 

 

As it is now, we Romans have changed our dress for the sake of pleasure and holidaymaking, though in former times that was only customary when the State was disturbed and had fallen on evil days.

 

Long before there was a movement to put Christ back into Christmas, there must have been calls to put Saturn back into the Saturnalia. 

 

I know some who assume that human society must inevitably advance to becoming better, and others who take it for granted that every generation can only get worse. These folks over here treat their parents like barbaric fools, while those folks over there elevate them to the status of saints. 

 

I can understand both tendencies, because I have seen people grow stronger as well and wither away, and yet there need be no historical destiny here, simply the fact that each individual will be guided by his own judgments, for benefit or for harm. How I choose to go is a fate that I make. 

 

I can simultaneously cringe at the platitudes of progress and also be saddened by the delusions of nostalgia. Things do fall apart, and then they come right back again, for while the circumstances are always undergoing change, the essence of human nature remains much the same. 

 

I will have to come to terms, in my own way, with the Christmas of modern America, just as Seneca and Lucilius had to come to terms, in their own ways, with the Saturnalia of ancient Rome. 

 

I am a creature of reason and of will, and so I must attend, first and foremost, to the clarity of my estimation and the integrity of my character. Sometimes I may be in line with the fashion, and sometimes I may wildly diverge from it, but I suspect that any conformity or rebellion to what goes on outside of me take a distant second place to working on the wisdom and the virtue that are needed on the inside of me. 

 

Is it better if I stand apart or if I play along? Neither option should be chosen only for its own sake, and whether I join the party or stay at home is a matter of prudence, not to be determined by pressure. 

Written in 8/2012

IMAGE: Antoine Callet, Saturnalia (1783)

 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 29

The plainer the table, the more wholesome the food. 

The Wisdom of Solomon 11:15-20

[15] In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts,
which led them astray to worship irrational
serpents and worthless animals,
you did send upon them a multitude of irrational
creatures to punish them,
[16] that they might learn that one is punished
by the very things by which he sins.
[17] For your all-powerful hand,
which created the world out of formless matter,
did not lack the means to send upon them a
multitude of bears, or bold lions,
[18] or newly created unknown beasts full of rage,
or such as breathe out fiery breath,
or belch forth a thick pall of smoke,
or flash terrible sparks from their eyes;
[19] not only could their damage exterminate men,
but the mere sight of them could kill by fright.
[20] Even apart from these, men could fall at a single breath
when pursued by justice
and scattered by the breath of your power.
But you have arranged all things by measure
and number and weight.

The Yew Tree

My Oma, a true lady of the old Austrian school, raised on a reverence for God and Emperor, visited us in Boston when I was a cynical teenager. I recall being cold to her during that visit, and I will deeply regret it to my dying day. I was being a pathetic jerk, constantly worrying about some petty crisis of my existence. 

I do, however, have a fond memory of the family taking her to a concert by the Battlefield Band. She was enamored of the fiddles and the bagpipes, and she jumped up and down in her seat like the teenager I really should have been. 

On the drive home, in our back seat together, she asked me what all the words had meant. I made a weak attempt, in my feeble German, to explain the lyrics from "The Yew Tree."

As soon as I spoke of a timeless tree that had seen the whole history of a nation, she cut me off, in her usually wonderful way. She could put you right in your place, and yet you were quite happy for it. That was family love, molded by hard respect, at its best. 

"Yes, Yes, We had stories like that too. All people have stories like that. You don't remember, but our house had stood for many years, many generations. By the time we moved into it, it was already very old. I think it was built somewhere in the 1700's. It's an old house, and many lives came and went in it. Just think of what that house has seen! Just like that tree in the song!

"When the Nazis came, they at least let us keep our home. When the Americans dropped their bombs on us, though we had done them no wrong, that house still stood, with every other house around it a pile of rubble. When the Russians came, they stole everything of value, and they were about to shoot your grandfather in the garden, until a gentleman officer stopped them. Still, the house stood.

"I'll die soon, Schandi, and that house will still stand. And even when the developers find a way to tear it down, like they always do, there will be no way, absolutely no way, for anyone to destroy how we lived in it, how so many families lived in it. Their bombs or their politics can't kill that."

And you wonder how I turned out to be the fellow that I am. That woman was a moral anchor, and I never gave her a proper goodbye. 

My Uncle Alois gave me the best goodbye ever: "Perhaps, one day, we will meet as refugees."  His dark humor was a family trait, but he was telling me, in his own way. how much he loved me.

I love you too, Onkel Loisi, and Onkel Gotti, and Oma. We will meet again, in whatever way God sees fit. The old yew tree is still there, and the old house is still there. One day the tree may be cut down, and the house may be torn down, but the love behind them will be eternal. 

Battlefield Band, "The Yew Tree" from Anthem for the Common Man (1984)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8nIFwpb3NQ

A mile frae Pentcaitland, on the road to the sea Stands a yew tree a thousand years old And the old women swear by the grey o' their hair That it knows what the future will hold For the shadows of Scotland stand round it 'Mid the kail and the corn and the kye All the hopes and the fears of a thousand long years Under the Lothian sky My bonnie yew tree Tell me what did you see Did you look through the haze o' the lang summer days Tae the South and the far English border A' the bonnets o' steel on Flodden's far field Did they march by your side in good order Did you ask them the price o' their glory When you heard the great slaughter begin For the dust o' their bones would rise up from the stones To bring tears to the eyes o' the wind My bonnie yew tree Tell me what did you see Not once did you speak for the poor and the weak When the moss-troopers lay in your shade To count out the plunder and hide frae the thunder And share out the spoils o' their raid But you saw the smiles o' the gentry And the laughter of lords at their gains When the poor hunt the poor across mountain and moor The rich man can keep them in chains My bonnie yew tree Tell me what did you see Did you no' think tae tell when John Knox himsel' Preached under your branches sae black To the poor common folk who would lift up the yoke O' the bishops and priests wi' their backs But you knew the bargain he sold them And freedom was only one part For the price o' their souls was a gospel sae cold It would freeze up the joy in their hearts My bonnie yew tree Tell me what did you see And I thought as I stood and laid hands on your wood That it might be a kindness to fell you One kiss o' the axe and you're freed frae th' likes O' the sad bloody tales that men tell you But a wee bird flew out from your branches And sang out as never before And the words o' the song were a thousand years long And to learn them's a long thousand more

My bonnie yew tree Tell me what can you see

Sayings of Ramakrishna 125

A worldly man may be endowed with intellect as great as that of Ganaka, may take as much pains and trouble as a Yogin, and make as great sacrifices as an ascetic; but all these he makes and does, not for God, but for worldliness, honor, and wealth. 

IMAGE: Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) in "prayer"

The Art of Peace 78

Even when called out
By a single foe,
Remain on guard,
For you are always surrounded 

By a host of enemies.

 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.25

M. Should you ask what this leads to, I think we may understand what that power is, and whence we have it. It certainly proceeds neither from the heart, nor from the blood, nor from the brain, nor from atoms; whether it be air or fire, I know not, nor am I, as those men are, ashamed, in cases where I am ignorant, to own that I am so. If in any other obscure matter I were able to assert anything positively, then I would swear that the soul, be it air or fire, is divine. 

 

Just think, I beseech you: can you imagine this wonderful power of memory to be sown in or to be a part of the composition of the earth, or of this dark and gloomy atmosphere? Though you cannot apprehend what it is, yet you see what kind of thing it is, or if you do not quite see that, yet you certainly see how great it is. 

 

What, then? Shall we imagine that there is a kind of measure in the soul, into which, as into a vessel, all that we remember is poured? That indeed is absurd; for how shall we form any idea of the bottom, or of the shape or fashion of such a soul as that? 

 

And, again, how are we to conceive how much it is able to contain? Shall we imagine the soul to receive impressions like wax, and memory to be marks of the impressions made on the soul? What are the characters of the words, what of the facts themselves? 

 

And what, again, is that prodigious greatness which can give rise to impressions of so many things? 

 

What, lastly, is that power which investigates secret things, and is called invention and contrivance? Does that man seem to be compounded of this earthly, mortal, and perishing nature who first invented names for everything; which, if you will believe Pythagoras, is the highest pitch of wisdom? Or he who collected the dispersed inhabitants of the world, and united them in the bonds of social life? Or he who confined the sounds of the voice, which used to seem infinite, to the marks of a few letters? Or he who first observed the courses of the planets, their progressive motions, their laws? 

 

These were all great men. But they were greater still who invented food, and raiment, and houses; who introduced civilization among us, and armed us against the wild beasts; by whom we were made sociable and polished, and so proceeded from the necessaries of life to its embellishments. 

 

For we have provided great entertainments for the ears by inventing and modulating the variety and nature of sounds; we have learned to survey the stars, not only those that are fixed, but also those which are improperly called wandering; and the man who has acquainted himself with all their revolutions and motions is fairly considered to have a soul resembling the soul of that Being who has created those stars in the heavens: for when Archimedes described in a sphere the motions of the moon, sun, and five planets, he did the very same thing as Plato’s God, in his Timaeus, who made the world, causing one revolution to adjust motions differing as much as possible in their slowness and velocity. 

 

Now, allowing that what we see in the world could not be effected without a God, Archimedes could not have imitated the same motions in his sphere without a divine soul.

 

I’m fairly certain I don’t have the smarts to be a biologist or a psychiatrist, though I have known a good number of them, and I do notice how often they will make quite striking philosophical claims. The most prominent of these is a general assumption of materialism, such that it is taken for granted how any act of consciousness must be completely reducible to the functions of the flesh. 

 

I am fascinated to learn about the relationship of certain regions in the brain with specific thoughts and emotions, and I have no doubt that the nervous system is the physical manifestation of such an awareness, yet I remain hesitant to say that there is nothing more involved in the whole process. 

 

My concern is not from any superstitious spiritualism, and instead arises from the very standard of what should be taken as reasonable: I will not make the unwarranted leap, from saying that we come to know what is real by means of the sensible, to the hasty conclusion that therefore only the sensible can be real. 

 

Like Cicero, I do not wish to rush to the elaborate construction of a whole new spiritual realm, somehow existing independently of the material, and I only suggest that the very nature of mind itself indicates a degree of existence that acts in a distinctly different way from the immediately sensible. 

 

Is mind more rarified, like fire or air, or is it more subtle, like a pervading essence or a binding energy? Leaving the more refined metaphysics aside for the moment, I know only that thought cannot be measured in cups and inches. 

 

The mere presence of matter does not suffice to account either for life or for consciousness, and so I will find no signs of vitality in a stone, or no signs of judgment in a blade of grass. That I cannot see or touch the types of “souls” directly does not mean that I cannot understand something about their behaviors indirectly. 

 

Once again, analogies, as helpful as they are for a general visualizing, will fail to define as precisely as we would wish. To speak of receiving knowledge like the pouring of a liquid into a jar, or the process of learning like the imprint of a seal on hot wax, does not explain anything about the remarkable way an idea contains within itself the formal identity of an object known, while also not taking on the materiality of an object known. 

 

When I conceive of a dog, apprehending the whatness of it, my head does not physically become a dog. 

 

When I consider the deeper nature of the mind, a sort of reflection which is itself a profound act, I will discern how such awareness uncovers unchanging and absolute principles out of a changing and relative experience. 

 

From this we have acquired a sense of noble duty to social bonds, a refined mastery over the abstractions of language, and an awe-inspiring grasp of the laws of the natural world. 

 

If this seems too lofty, I can also think of the invention of cooking, the making of clothing, or the building of houses. It all highlights the transformative power of the intellect. 

 

The example of Archimedes points to the how understanding reveals the inner order and purpose in things. In observing the positions of the stars and the planets, the ancient astronomers mapped their patterns, and Cicero tells of how Archimedes used this knowledge to construct a sort of mechanical planetarium, which duplicated the motions of the heavens. 

 

Now by finding structure and meaning in Nature, and creating a smaller model of the Cosmos, can it not be said that the human mind of Archimedes was participating in the Divine Mind of the Creator? 

 

Man imitates God, so to speak, whenever he arranges according to design; wherever there is a direction toward an end, there is always consciousness providing such direction. 

Written in 4/1996

Stoic Snippets 113

The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into fishponds, laborings of ants and burden-carrying, runnings about of frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings—all alike. 

It is your duty then in the midst of such things to show good humor and not a proud air; to understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.3

Simple

My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is

"My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"

Edward Dyer (d. 1607)

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall;
For why? my mind doth serve for all.

I see how plenty surfeits oft,
And hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those which are aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all:
They get with toil, they keep with fear:
Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store;
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another’s loss,
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain:
I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will;
Their treasure is their only trust,
A cloaked craft their store of skill;
But all the pleasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease,
My conscience clear my chief defense;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offence:
Thus do I live; thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!

IMAGE: Edward Hicks, Peaceable Kingdom (c. 1834)

Sayings of Heraclitus 52

Hesiod is most men's teacher. 

Men are sure he knew very many things, a man who did not know day or night! 

They are one.

Dhammapada 167

Do not follow the evil law! 

Do not live on in thoughtlessness! 

Do not follow false doctrine! 

Be not a friend of the world.

IMAGE: Mara's Assault and the Buddha's Enlightenment (c. 200 AD)

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.24

M. Well, then, I appeal to you, if the arguments which prove that there is something divine in the souls of men are not equally strong? But if I could account for the origin of these divine properties, then I might also be able to explain how they might cease to exist; for I think I can account for the manner in which the blood, and bile, and phlegm, and bones, and nerves, and veins, and all the limbs, and the shape of the whole body, were put together and made; yes, and even as to the soul itself, were there nothing more in it than a principle of life, then the life of a man might be put upon the same footing as that of a vine or any other tree, and accounted for as caused by nature; for these things, as we say, live. 

 

Besides, if desires and aversions were all that belonged to the soul, it would have them only in common with the beasts; but it has, in the first place, memory, and that, too, so infinite as to recollect an absolute countless number of circumstances, which Plato will have to be a recollection of a former life; for in that book which is inscribed Meno, Socrates asks a child some questions in geometry, with reference to measuring a square; his answers are such as a child would make, and yet the questions are so easy, that while answering them, one by one, he comes to the same point as if he had learned geometry. 

 

From whence Socrates would infer that learning is nothing more than recollection; and this topic he explains more accurately in the discourse which he held the very day he died; for he there asserts that, any one, who seeming to be entirely illiterate, is yet able to answer a question well that is proposed to him, does in so doing manifestly show that he is not learning it then, but recollecting it by his memory. 

 

Nor is it to be accounted for in any other way, how children come to have notions of so many and such important things as are implanted, and, as it were, sealed up, in their minds (which the Greeks call ἔννοιαι), unless the soul, before it entered the body, had been well stored with knowledge. And as it had no existence at all (for this is the invariable doctrine of Plato, who will not admit anything to have a real existence which has a beginning and an end, and who thinks that that alone does really exist which is of such a character as what he calls εἴδεα, and we species), therefore, being shut up in the body, it could not while in the body discover what it knows; but it knew it before, and brought the knowledge with it, so that we are no longer surprised at its extensive and multifarious knowledge. 

 

Nor does the soul clearly discover its ideas at its first resort to this abode to which it is so unaccustomed, and which is in so disturbed a state; but after having refreshed and recollected itself, it then by its memory recovers them; and, therefore, to learn implies nothing more than to recollect.

 

But I am in a particular manner surprised at memory. For what is that faculty by which we remember? what is its force? what its nature? I am not inquiring how great a memory Simonides may be said to have had, or Theodectes, or that Cineas who was sent to Rome as ambassador from Pyrrhus; or, in more modern times, Charmadas;  or, very lately, Metrodorus the Scepsian, or our own contemporary Hortensius: I am speaking of ordinary memory, and especially of those men who are employed in any important study or art, the great capacity of whose minds it is hard to estimate, such numbers of things do they remember.

 

To even speak of something as “divine” can make people feel uncomfortable, though it is not necessary to get caught up in unpleasant memories of Sunday school or that creepy pastor who was always demanding more money. I choose rather to think bigger, to consider what is transcendent, ultimate, and eternal, and to move from the effects back to the causes, from the imperfect to the perfect. 

 

And when I look at my own human nature, I cannot help but wonder about whether there is a touch of something greater than the mortal placed within it, as I find it difficult to explain all that I am from only the parts of the body out of which I am composed. 

 

In so many ways I am not unlike other animals at all, with organs made for respiration, nutrition, reproduction, or sensation. I sometimes hear people say that other animals don’t feel emotions like people do, yet I must respectfully disagree, as the animals that have been close to my life were just as passionate as I was. Even my most basic functions of living are shared in common with the simplest of plant life, and I can hardly say that my soul grants me more “life” than that of an amoeba.

 

When Cicero brings up memory here, he is not referring merely to the ability of receiving and retaining sensible impressions, but to the richer and deeper power of contemplating and holding onto intelligible concepts. It is reason that makes the human soul stand out. 

 

I have come to deeply respect Plato’s Meno over the years, on multiple levels, and yet I initially had an instinctive aversion to the section where Socrates questions Meno’s young slave. I suppose that is a sign of a challenging and engaging argument, where we are struggling to know where we stand. I appreciate that Cicero here refers to this text. 

 

Meno had earlier asked Socrates whether virtue could be taught, but he quickly found that he wasn’t able to define what virtue was to begin with. Frustrated and embarrassed, he was about to give up, insisting that learning itself is impossible, because if we already know it, we don’t need to learn it, and if we don’t already know it, we won’t know what to look for. 

 

In response, Socrates tried a little experiment, where he took the slave aside to ask him about a problem in geometry, specifically on how to calculate the areas of squares. Now the boy possessed no formal education, having only his natural wits available to him, and yet by thinking about Socrates’ questions for himself, he arrived at the correct answer. Here is concrete proof that learning is indeed possible, for the slave boy now understood something of which he seemed to be ignorant before. 

 

Of course Socrates had offered pointers, but it was the boy himself who worked on his own comprehension. Where had it come from? Since nothing comes from nothing, there must have been something already there within him, only waiting to be awakened and brought forth. Here we have the Platonic doctrine of recollection, where learning is actually the act of remembering something forgotten.

 

A strict sort of Platonism will claim that this entails the pre-existence of the soul, which, before being joined to the body, once had access to the reality of Ideas, and is now recovering an awareness of that past. A more involved variation on the argument is made in the Phaedo, where it is proposed that the soul is not subject to the life and death of the body, and so exists on a higher level, a divine plane, if you will. 

 

Working all of this out would require a survey of much of the whole history of philosophy, though for the purposes of this topic I think it might be sufficient to offer that learning is far more than passively soaking up information, and instead involves the active involvement of a far greater power within us. If the mind comprehends the nature of matter, then its own nature also transcends such matter, and is somehow prior to it, whether it be a literal remembering or the priming of some innate potency.  

The greatness of human “memory” is not limited to those geniuses who can recite all of Shakespeare by heart or play back a whole piece of music from hearing it once. It is just as, if not more, impressive when any one of us can experience one little thing, and from this draw connections to countless other things, providing an awareness of the universal to the presence of particulars. Meno’s slave boy has the same brilliance, and divinity, as a Homer or an Einstein. 

Written in 4/1996

Justice and Divine Vengeance

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime (1808)

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 28

We all seek to know whether we shall be rich; but no one asks whether he shall be good.

Tidbits from Montaigne 34

The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 2.12

Epictetus, Discourses 1.13.3

“But I have bought them, and they have not bought me.”

 

Do you see where your eyes are looking? You are looking at the earth, at what is lowest and basest, at these miserable laws of the dead, and you regard not the laws of the gods.

 

Hard experience has taught me not to have too much confidence in what a man says he is going to do, and to put more weight on what he actually gets done. Perhaps he is simply being overeager, and not deliberately deceptive at all, but his words will only tell me what he wants me to think about him, while his deeds will show me who he truly is. 

 

A helpful corollary to this rule is that I can discern even more by how a man behaves when he is put in a position of authority over others. Yes, he surely has some charm, which is how so many people find their way into high places, and yet I must look beyond such appearances. Does he ultimately treat others as ends in themselves, or merely as means for himself? 

 

He may be wary of saying it out loud, but the boss who is a bully will consider you to be his property, to be used when convenient, to be discarded when inconvenient. He does indeed think he “owns” you, in the sense that the whole world exists to serve his pleasure. 

 

It shows itself in smaller ways, as when a diner berates a waiter for spilling a drop of soup, and then also in bigger ways, as when the employer abuses his workers to squeeze out the last drop of profit. There is certainly a broader social injustice here, reflecting an unnecessary conflict of class and privilege, though it all springs from an immediately personal injustice, where one man chooses to treat another as an object instead of as a brother. 

 

No, I shouldn’t brand him as a monster, because then I dehumanize him, just as he wishes to dehumanize me. Rather, I should try to understand why he has flipped his world upside down, and so try to help him get oriented. Maybe it will take some knocking about to get the job done, but I cannot become what I condemn. 

 

What is he looking at? Everything that is base in him, and nothing that is noble. As Plato put it, his gut tells his heart how to rule his head, when his head ought to be telling his heart how to rule his gut. 

 

There is nothing Godly in how he lives, even as he believes himself to be a little god. Is it any wonder if we reject God, when this is the twisted model with which we are regularly presented? 

 

To show reverence for God is impossible without also showing reverence for my neighbor, as the good of the latter is an expression of the will of the former. I am called to love all of it together, not just the bits that are expedient for getting fat and rich. 

 

I think of the words of General Robert E. Lee, now a man completely out of fashion on account of our tribal warfare, and I refuse to engage on that petty level. He certainly had his flaws, as we all do, though I deeply admire the way he was a man who could practice what he preached. His definition of a gentleman, found in his notes after his death, is something I recall when I am tempted to become the bully:

 

The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.

 

The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly—the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.

 

The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled when he cannot help humbling others.

 

Whether you happen to wear the blue or the gray, that is a good man, and that is a pious man. 

 

Written in 12/2000