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Killing Socrates (On Phaedo)

Killing Socrates (On Phaedo)

Last updated on: June 11, 2016 at 1:06 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Killing Socrates (On Phaedo) 2016-06-11T01:06:55-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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David_-_The_Death_of_Socrates_opt Athens had quite a few people who wanted Socrates dead.

He went around asking tough questions about the democracy in Athens. His questions would have been acceptable, Athens was pretty tolerant of weird ideas, but they kept challenging the very basis of the city.

Athens was built on an educational system that exploited students. It was worse than modern America where the worst thing that can happen to you is debt. Athenian teachers would charge you ruinous amounts of money, but also ruin you morally.

It was the system.

Add to that a toxic secularism where the official state paganism was honored in words, but undermined in private. You could sacrifice your animal to Athena if you wished as long as you understood that traditional religion was for the poor and stupid.

Traditional morality was honored because it kept simple folks in line. Education often taught the Athenian youth how to manipulate the system with words so that the false could be made to seem true.

Socrates did not just ask questions in private, he asked the wrong questions to the wrong people. He kept showing that people charging large amounts of money for education did not know anything.

Socrates kept asking questions, not just follow ups, but follow ups on follow ups. He did not want money or power. Socrates wanted to know the truth and the truth was something Athens did not want the whole city, built on slave labor, to know. Everybody likes a curmudgeon, or a “revolutionary” that stays in the lines . . . the equivalent of HBO’s attacks on Christianity, but not on secularism in order to be edgy. This is edgy no place where HBO executives live.

You could not buy Socrates. You could not distract Socrates. He wanted the truth.

So what to do? Athens decided to put a scare in Socrates. They put him on trial. I assume they thought that he would back down, not be convicted, but straighten up. Socrates refused to admit guilt or tone down his questions about the rich (and getting richer) educational establishment that was using students to build an empire. When he could have placated the sophists, he kept looking for the truth.

They voted to convict.

Of course, they knew that in the punishment phase his opponents would propose death and he (as was his right) would propose something like a giant fine. Rich disciples like Plato would pay the fine and Socrates would be put in his place. He proposed that the city reward him (the way they did Olympians). This irritated the establishment. Socrates refused to play the game. He kept questioning the fundamentals.

They voted to kill him.

No harm, though. They would delay the execution and rich friends like Crito would save him. They kept him “chained up,” but escape would have been easy. Socrates refused to go. He kept asking questions and confronting false education with real discipleship. He was so effective that the educators’ term for themselves (“sophist”) is not an insult.

A sophist is an educator who builds a career on the economic and moral ruin of his students. He claims to know what he does not.

Socrates refused to flee and he forced Athens to carry through with her threats and kill him. He condemned the whole rotten academic structure by his death. The day he died he was still asking questions . . . even challenging the comfortable idea that his own soul was immortal. He kept refusing easy answers, covert escapes, and pretend solutions.

All he did was teach, educate, and ask questions, so he had to die.

What came of it? His students kept asking questions, because when death came, Socrates faced it (check the text!) with his eyes wide open. He looked death in the eyes and was unafraid. You cannot kill a martyr and you cannot defeat a teacher whose students say:

Such was the end . . . of our friend, who was, as we may say, of all those of his time whom we have known, the best and wisest and most righteous man.

His death damned an academic establishment that tried to hide exploitation and ignorance. His death liberated every man or woman who will follow his example and pursue the Logos wherever He leads.

God help us.

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