Discourses and Selected Writings (21 page)

‘I will prove that it’s a good thing, if you like.’

‘Yes, prove it, so that our citizens may turn and honor the divine, and put an end to their ambivalence about matters that are most important.’

‘Well, are you armed with the appropriate proofs?’

‘I am, thankfully.’

[23] ‘Well, then, since you’re satisfied with them, here come the refutations:
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The gods do not exist, and even if they exist they do not trouble themselves about people, and we have
nothing in common with them. The piety and devotion to the gods that the majority of people invoke is a lie devised by swindlers and con men and, if you can believe it, by legislators, to keep criminals in line by putting the fear of God into them.’

[24] Nice job, philosopher, you have rendered the citizenry a valuable service by rescuing youth already dangerously liable to hold the gods in contempt.

[25] ‘What, you mean you don’t care for those particular ideas? Just wait: now I’ll prove that justice is nothing, that honesty is stupidity, that being a father means nothing, that being a son means nothing.’

[26] That’s good, philosopher, keep it up, and win over the young people so that we’ll have more with the same feelings and beliefs as you. It’s these opinions that produced our well-regulated cities. Sparta owes its existence to such ideas. And through his laws and system of training Lycurgus instilled his people with the following convictions: slavery is no more bad than good, and being free is no more good than it is bad. The fallen of Thermopylae died for these doctrines; and what other opinions but these motivated the Athenians to quit their city?
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[27] And advocates of such ideas proceed to marry, have children, become leaders in their community, priests or prophets -of gods who don’t exist, of course. And they consult the priest of Apollo in order to be told lies in the form of false oracles that we then impose on others.

What a travesty! [28] What are you doing? You prove yourself wrong on a daily basis and still you won’t give up these idle efforts. When you eat, where do you bring your hand – to your mouth, or to your eye? What do you step into when you bathe? When did you ever mistake your saucepan for a dish, or your serving spoon for a skewer?

[29] If I were slave to one of these philosophers I would taunt him constantly, even if I got a beating every day in consequence. If he said, ‘Put some oil in the bath, boy,’ I’d go grab the fish sauce and pour it over his head.

‘What the… ?’

‘Pardon me, I received an impression – identical, indistinguishable, I swear to you – of olive oil.’

‘Bring me the cereal.’

[30] I’d bring him a cruet full of vinegar.

‘Didn’t I ask for the cereal?’

‘Yes, sir. This is cereal.’

‘It’s not vinegar?’

‘Why vinegar any more than cereal?’

‘Well, here, smell it and taste it.’

‘How do you know if the senses don’t deceive us too?’

[31] Give me three or four fellow slaves in on the game, and I would make him either renounce his way of thinking – or hang himself in exasperation. But in fact it is they who are making fun of us, by enjoying all the resources that nature provides while trying to discredit them in their philosophy. [32] What they lack in gratitude they make up for in gall. To cite just one example; although every day they eat bread, they have the nerve to say, ‘We do not know if there is a Demeter, a Persephone, or a Pluto.’
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[33] I hardly need add that they enjoy night as well as day, the cycle of seasons, the stars, sea and land, and the assistance of their fellow human beings, without giving any of them a thought; they only want to cough up their little argument and head off to the bath after thereby giving their stomach a workout. [34] Nor are they particular about what they say, or with whom; or stop to consider how their opinions could influence others. I wonder what the effect of hearing them might have on a youth who shows promise; his potential might be completely undermined. [35] We could give adulterers grounds for rationalizing their behaviour; such arguments could provide pretexts to misappropriate state funds; a rebellious young man could be emboldened further to rebel against his parents. So what, according to you, is good or bad, virtuous or vicious – this or that? [36] What point is there in trying to refute one of these philosophers, arguing with them, or trying to alter their opinion? [37] You’d have a better chance persuading someone to change their sexual orientation than reaching people who have rendered themselves so deaf and blind.

[1] People are ready to acknowledge some of their faults, but will admit to others only with reluctance. No one, at any rate,
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will admit to being stupid or obtuse. On the contrary, you hear people on every side saying, ‘If only I had as much luck as I have sense.’ [2] Shyness they will concede, saying, ‘I’m a bit timid, I know; but I’m nobody’s fool for all that.’ [3] Hardly anyone admits to a lack of self-control, no one at all will admit to being unjust, few will say that they are nosy or envious, but most will allow that they are liable to feel pity.
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[4] What’s the cause of all this? Mainly it’s inconsistency and confusion with regard to what is good and bad. But though values differ, as a rule people will admit to practically nothing that they regard as dishonourable. [5] Timidity they take to be the sign of a sensitive nature, pity too; but stupidity they look on as the mark of a slave. Nor are they quick to confess to selfish or asocial behaviour.

[6] In general, where people are led to acknowledge a fault it is because they imagine there is something involuntary about it. So it is with shyness and pity. [7] Even if they confess to a lack of self-control, love is usually blamed, to gain sympathy for something supposedly beyond our control. Injustice, on the other hand, they don’t consider involuntary in any sense. But jealousy, in their view, has an instinctive air about it, so they will own up to that too.

[8] Surrounded as we are by such people – so confused, so ignorant of what they’re saying and of whatever faults they may or may not have, where those faults came from and how to get rid of them – I think we too should make a habit of asking ourselves, ‘Could it be that I’m one of them too? [9] What illusion about myself do I entertain? How do I regard myself – as another wise man, as someone with perfect self-control? Do I, too, ever make that boast about being prepared
for whatever may happen? [10] If I don’t know something, am I properly aware that I don’t know it? Do I come to a teacher as ready to submit to his instruction as if it issued from an oracle? Or am I one of those little snots who attends school for the sole purpose of memorizing its doctrines and becoming familiar with books previously unknown to me, so that – God willing – I can lecture on them to others?’

[11] Look, back home you and your slave have come to blows, your whole household is in disarray, and you’re practically at war with your neighbours. Now you come to me all dignified and scholarly and take your seat to give a critique of my commentary on the text, or, shall I say, of whatever nonsense came into my head to say on that score. [12] You arrived full of envy and embarrassment because you’re not getting an allowance from home and sit through the round of lectures and discussion thinking about nothing except how things stand between you and your father or brother: [13] ‘How are the people back home talking about me? Even now they imagine that I’m making progress in my studies and are saying, “He’ll come back knowing everything.” [14] Well, I guess at one time I had hoped that I
would
know everything by the time I got back – but it requires a lot of work, and I never get any help from home, and the public baths here in Nicopolis are filthy… Things are no better here than home.’

[15] So next they start saying, ‘No one is better off for attending school.’ Yes, well, who is it that goes to school anyway? Who goes to become a better person? Who goes prepared to have their opinions overhauled, and to learn which ones need to be? [16] So don’t be disappointed if you return home with the very same set of ideas you arrived with. Because you had no intention of changing, correcting or adopting others in their place. [17] Come, you weren’t close to holding that intention. So at least consider this – are you getting what you
did
come for? You want to be able to hold forth on speculative topics. Well, aren’t you becoming more facile every day? And these topics, don’t they furnish you with enough material to make an impression in public? You’re analysing syllogisms and changing arguments. You’re exploring the premises of the Liar
Argument, and hypotheticals. So what’s left to complain about if you have what you’re here for?

[18] ‘Yes, but what good will all this do me when a child of mine dies, or if my brother, or I myself, have to die or be tortured?’

[19] Nothing. Because that’s not why you came, not why you took your seat in front of me, not the reason you sometimes sacrificed sleep to study by lamplight.

Did you ever go out into the courtyard and challenge yourself with an external impression in place of a syllogism, and work through it in public? [20] Did you ever do that? Then you say the speculative topics are useless. Useless to whom? Only to people who don’t use them as they should. I mean, salves and ointments are not useless to people who apply them when and how they’re supposed to; weights are not useless in themselves, they’re useful to some people, worthless to others. [21] Now, ask me whether syllogisms are useful, and I’ll tell you that they are, and, if you like, I’ll demonstrate why.

‘What good have they done me?’

But you didn’t ask if they were useful to you personally, but useful in general. [22] Let somebody suffering from indigestion ask me whether vinegar is useful, I will say yes.

‘So is it useful to me?’

To you, no. You need to have the discharge from your eyes stopped first, and your skin lesions healed. All of you, first attend to your wounds, stanch the bleeding, calm your mind, bring it to school when it is free of distraction. Only then will you be in a position to realize reason’s potential.

[1] Whatever you show consideration for, you are naturally inclined to love. Nowno one, of course, shows consideration for what’s bad, any more than they do for things that they have no connection with. [2] It follows that people only show consideration for what is good. [3] And if they show consideration
for it, they must also love it. So the person who knows what is good is also the person who knows how to love. But if someone is incapable of distinguishing good things from bad and neutral things from either – well, how could such a person be capable of love? The power to love, then, belongs only to the wise man.

[4] ‘Wait a minute,’ I hear someone say, ‘I’m no “wise man”, but I love my child none the less.’

[5] First of all, I am surprised, I must say, that you would admit to not being wise. After all, what’s missing? Your senses are in working order, you differentiate among impressions, and you give your body the right food, clothing and housing. [6] So how is it you say you aren’t wise?

I’ll tell you myself. It’s because you are frequently dazed or disturbed by certain sense impressions whose appearance of truth gets the better of you. Sometimes you think that some things are good, then you consider the same things bad, and later you decide that they’re indifferent. In other words, you’re subject to sorrow, fear, jealousy, anger and inconsistency. That’s the real reason you should admit that you are not wise.

[7] In love and friendship you are also inconsistent, are you not? I mean, money, pleasure and the rest you sometimes take to be good, at other times bad. Isn’t it the same with people? Don’t you regard the same ones as good and bad at varying times? Sometimes they’re your friend, later your enemy; and you sing their praises only later to run them down.

‘Yes, I admit to that too.’

[8] So, do you think that you can be the friend of someone if you hold the wrong opinion about them?

‘Naturally, no.’

What if your opinion of them is subject to change
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– can your relations be warm?

‘No again.’

And if you alternate praise of them with disparagement?

‘No, not then either.’

[9] All right, no doubt you have seen dogs playing with, and
fawning before, each other, and thought, ‘Nothing could be friendlier.’ But just throw some meat in the middle, and then you’ll know what friendship amounts to. [10] Put a piece of real estate in the centre between you and your son, and you’ll know how impatient he is to bury you, and how even you are wishing your son were dead. Then you say, ‘Some child I raised – he’s been planning my funeral for years.’ [11] Place a pretty girl in the middle, and the old man falls for her as hard as the boy. Or dangle some honour or another before the two of you. If you have to risk your life you’ll repeat the words of Admetus’ father:
‘You want to see the light, don’t you imagine your father
does too?’
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[12] Don’t you think he loved his son when the boy was small, suffered when he was sick, and could be heard saying, ‘If only I could be sick in his place’? But, faced with a genuine choice, they have only insults to exchange, as you see. [13] Eteocles and Polyneices – didn’t they share the same mother and father? They were reared together, lived, drank, slept together and often exchanged an intimate kiss. Anyone seeing them would almost certainly have mocked the philosophers with their notorious views on friendship.
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[14] Yet when the question came up between them of who would be king, it was like meat thrown before a pack of dogs. Here is what they said:

‘Where before the tower do you intend to stand?’

‘What business is that of yours?’

‘I want to be directly opposite so that I can kill you personally.’

‘And I am seized by the same desire.’
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