From: jclark@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (John Clark)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Socratic silliness (was Re: Multiple Orientations?)
Date: 1 Oct 92 05:12:57 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Sep29.224714.26396@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tweaver@nyx.cs.du.edu (T.C.Weaver) writes:
+In the persona of:
+Gideon (still a guest on Tanaqui's account) replies:
+
+Yes indeedy, only more so: Athens was just as much a "provincial town" as
+most other Greek cities.  Also, S. wasn't up against the ammassed might of 
+an institutionalised State; as a citizen, he was as much a part of the city 
+govt. as was any member of the conservative clique who were pressing charges

In the times of Socrates, a citizen was more than a passive
individual who lived in a city or it's environs. The granting of
citizenship was only via birth or extraordinary measures. Some one
posted 'why didn't Socrates leave like Aristotle?'. Well, Socrates
was a citizen of Athens which is why it took so long for the
'proscution' to mount and conclude an attack. Were he a non-citizen
he would have been show the exit gate quite quickly. Which brings up
Aristotle. He was a Macedonian and hence had vertually no rights
that couldn't be easily done away with, hence his flight from Athens
when the going got rought (Being a Macedonian at the time was about
the same as being from Arkansas in the US), then came Alexander.

Further a citizen at the time exercised his rights and
responsibilities because it was his duty and a point of honour. Were
Socrates to take up residence elsewhere he would become an 'idiot'
or a person who did not take part in the activities of a citizen.

Whether Socrates thought that his 'martyrship' would prove the
yapping pack of little dogs (cynics) wrong and his methods correct
can not be deterimed by the record from Plato (but then there may be
some doubt as to the authenticity or at least fidelity of Plato's
record, i.e. Socrates was a drunken bum given to confrontation for
the sake of public display and only rehabilitated by Plato's own
proweress of philosophy).

On another issue, I've often felt that 'platonic love' was a
sanitizing construct created by the Christians to rehabilitate
Plato, which as 'Neo Platonism' was in vogue during the
developmental period of the Christian Church. It would seem that the
'non-sexual' love of 'equals' would be a pagan antecedent of the
'agape' of Christianity and hence Plato could be classed as one of
the 'just pagans' which were not condemned outright by the church,
and later 'received'.

Also as Plato aged his writings became more 'conservative' as
compared in the 'Replic' (early), and the 'laws' (late, and
sometimes contested). However, I really don't think that Plato was
ever as prudish as many moderns, as given by the fact that he does
allow Socrates at least 'lecherous' glances if not acts.

On the issue of homosexuality and the Athenian mind set of the 4-5
BCE era, the classification of 'gay married' really doesn't make
sense. The arranged marriages of the time and the lack of 'love'
requirement, the marriage for production of children and their
support, is very different than what we would call 'marriage' even
in the 'worst' of concepts.

The idea of 'man' and 'woman' was more of 'man' and 'less than man',
i.e. woman. So Socrates was exhibiting a 'love' for the 'highest' of
the human species, i.e. he had a 'choice' another man or a slightly
factured 'man'. In Aristophanes one sees the Greek horror of what
would happen if these 'fractured men' took over, as in the
Eclesiasticae. But even though women were cloistered, the Greek
woman could in many cases control her own property, independent of
the husband or brothers, in contrast to the Roman woman who was
considered a minor throughout her life, who would eventual come
under the gardianship of the Emperor if all the males in her family
died.
-- 

John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edu