“I hate Socrates”

I hate Socrates. And to preempt the banal critic, these are the Platonic dialogues I have read: Charmides, Critias, Crito, Ion, Laches, Lysis, Meno, Phaedra, Phaedrus, Republic, Symposium, and perhaps more (Apology too.) When I first read them, I said to myself, "What a neat technique for proving that people are stupid and don't know what they're talking about." And then I realized "oh, this is a sacred figure to you?" And "I bet this doesn't work, though." And in point of fact, asking "Why?" Barely works in all cases. I also implore society not to ask me to do this same close reading to Jesus, because I do fear it will result in the same lambasting I have given for years to Socrates. In point of fact the ideal it's of the Socratic environment was in his placement at the heart and center of the medieval monastery system, as if to say "resist that, Socrates." The overall intent of Socrates and Jesus seems to be to make as many people as possible pull out their hair in frustration, and see who is left. As one refuses to acknowledge knowledge itself, even his own, in an intransigent fit as if desiring to die a real-life heroes' death, the other maintains and intransigent focus on spirituality even as the circumstances of his time make those actions useless, and his ignoring of how people see him make him negligent to his political duty. But I'll spare the tender sensitivities of white people from at least these very legitimate criticisms of (white people's thoughts about) Jesus to focus on the more cogent point at hand. I hate Socrates. He is no ideal for a literate man, and his persistence in Western culture is bad for a society that aspires as ours does, to be literate. There are better ideals, especially for literate societies. At the very best, both these men represent techniques that no longer work. But they overstep a line when they exert an influence on (literature) literate culture. Both now represent a conservative limitation on the best of modernity. It is a fact that times change and no technique known to or possible by man can last forever. The memory of Jesus and the interlocutors of Socrates both represent linchpins for their techniques that no longer work. They are cornerstones that have long since crumbled into dust. An explanation is the complete chauvinism of the Western ignorant tradition where the subject or reader is assumed in all cases to be ignorant of words themselves; of bing, that is, stupid and barely able to understand words; ideas are sublimated to Socratic fantasy. To reconstruct Socratism in prose is a fool's errand; what we need is a "beyond" of that. There are no magic words to a fully literate population, and Socratism is about magic words. It's not we reaffirm Socratism by building atop its ruins, but it is that we have ascended to higher heights than finding magic words, that we have in the very least example, gone from magic words to the magic of words. In fact the peculiarities of a certain clinic for judging writings often so turn on the particularities of a locality that they result in a simple pandering to local power, which itself turns on a pandering to the abilities of its lowest elements toward literacy. This is the essential pandering inherent in local power and it's essential to its functioning. But it's the only one that I will accept. This is my chauvinism: the chauvinism in favor of only the original chauvinism. The pandering to ask if one lout had garnered one mote of dust from the ruined foundations of Socratism or civilization because he happens to be in the room; this is the chauvinism I prefer to the exclusion of all others. In point of fact, this is the Asian "thing": I hate Socrates. In point of fact, if you are only to have one mote of dust you keep or can keep, why not have it be the Taoist one: "道可道，非常道" - "The Way that can be named is not the Eternal Way" - because then you can at least be around people that are talking about what you're into, and not make a fuss when they're talking ahead of you. This is a chauvinism too, but it qualifies to be called a preference. It is my preference. I have been that lout, able to gather naught but dust from the intellectual foundations of the Chinese language, but at least my scrap of information was 道可道，非常道， so I didn't obstruct, the workings, of that which could benefit me. The Socratic fantasy is alive and well in any thinker alive and it is the fantasy of "getting someone real good," in a surprise attack of logic. Beyond just obstructionism, it belies an inability to do the long work of proving yourself. It's a consolation prize. But no one is going to "get got" all at once, except a fool, of which the Socratic method, assumes that the user is. The exponent of Socratism always obstructs also that, which makes him happy - justice, or love, and so forth - and this was Socrates' own floundering mistake in The Republic, possibly The Symposium, and likely any time he opened his mouth. I do appreciate the Meno, as an act of projection, where he demonstrates where he himself can be taught, but his intransigence in all other cases, especially in his overall desire to deny that he knew things, belies that he got that others were trying to do just that. Approach the possibility that someone might share your interests with a child-like peculiarity, that is what I say. I get so angry when someone approaches my interests with an elderly, crank of Socratism and all my logic can't preclude that. Part of the rationality for that is that everyone knows the strategy, and therefore, it has also become a tool of oppression that is not only radically transformative anymore, and for me is not at all that. Part of the reason for that is that Socratism never comes out of absolute ignorance anymore. Literacy has cured society of Socratism, except when it is put on as a bad-faith show. Another way of putting this is that desire to learn is no evidence of knowledge anymore; you have to display evidence of your knowledge. And the reason for that is that we humanity are better off than we were then. Mourn not for the darkness of where we have been, for what's the use of that? Not much, except that we survived and put it behind us by way of progress. Celebrate for a moment the light of where are now in comparison, and get on with the work, that is what I say. Part of the reason I hate Socratism is that what Socrates did is not normative, nor should it be. This is also part of my chauvinism in favor of the original prerogative. At the end of the day, what extensive reading(s) of the Dialogues of Socrates only revealed was "that is a cool technique. Does it work anymore? No." Because? Because we are better.