From: zen@death.corp.sun.com (d)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Socratic silliness (was Re: Multiple Orientations?)
Date: 29 Sep 92 00:13:49
Organization: savage hackers
	<1992Sep28.223504.4177@leland.Stanford.EDU>
	<ZEN.92Sep28165017@death.corp.sun.com>
	<1992Sep29.002123.10676@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: death.corp.sun.com
In-reply-to: orc@amber.uchicago.edu's message of 29 Sep 92 00:21:23 GMT


In article <1992Sep29.002123.10676@midway.uchicago.edu> orc@amber.uchicago.edu (David Parsons) writes:
> In article <ZEN.92Sep28165017@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:

>    To maintain some relevance to soc.bi, if the US government was to come
> to me and tell me that homosexuality was a crime and my continuing to
> practice it would result in my death, I would bow to the law, then leave
> the country, resume my practices, and with whatever means necessary
> attempt to convince the USA of the error of it's ways.

  Taking this analogy to socrates... the point was that he thought that
no matter where he went, the same persecution would follow.  There was
no place he could go to -- they were all worse than greece.  He could
either hide his true nature, or try to make a statement somehow.  He
chose a rather dramatic method.

> |... many people with wonderful ideas did die violently.  I
> |wonder what would happen if they had backed down when challenged.
>    Some did.  And then found ways to get around the challenge, and
> continue to work.  Ideas are an amazingly fluid material; unless you
> are dead, you can continue to think, and these thoughts will get out
> from under the most thorough blanket of disapproval.

  But the question is if you keep hiding, will the thoughts ever get
out?  Some will, but some would be lost forever, at least to the rest of
us... is it better an individual to live longer, or for them to try to
influence their world and society?  Do we have a responsibility, as
bisexuals, as people, to change anything, to make it a better world for
us or for others?

> |  In a sense, I can see your point -- *you* don't want to die, and
> |wouldn't, for such things.  But saying it's foolish, say, for socrates
> |to do what he did?  I don't understand.
>    Iffy.  It was, after all, his life, and his choice what to do with it.
> The danger is that acts like that become paragons of valor, and there's
> the subtle implication that _everyone_ should die for those reasons, which
> ain't necessarily so.

  Why iffy for *him*?  You seem to imply that by making an example of
himself, he might influence others to do the same, for lesser causes --
can anyone be responsible for other people's actions?  Especially, or
perhaps, if you've been dead and gone many many years when they act...
Blech.  I wouldn't die, in all likelihood, for just about anything
(well, one thing, perhaps.)  But greatness can come out of many things.
Life is so transitory -- would it have made a difference to us now if
socrates would have lived another 15 years?  Plato wouldn't have written
about him and the cell -- would he have been such an inspiration to him
and his great works?  What would have been left of socrates' teachings?
Would people have just forgotten it, when he went against what he
believed in?  I don't know.  Personally I would hope that in any case
that any given individual would do what they deem is right, not what
some book or ruler or random (oppressing or otherwise) society thought.

 -- d