{"id":2414,"date":"2015-07-27T08:22:01","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T08:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2018\/12\/09\/2413-revision-v1\/"},"modified":"2019-08-02T02:33:26","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T02:33:26","slug":"on-the-apology-of-socrates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2015\/07\/27\/on-the-apology-of-socrates\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Apology of Socrates"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0title<\/a>\u00a0is a quirk of etymology, having been born in the Greek courts, spread through the early Chrisitan’s spiritual and philosophical defences, and ended up meaning something like a “regretted guilt”. Not so here. I prefer the alternative title:<\/p>\n

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised<\/h3>\n

by\u00a0Socrates<\/h4>\n

voices by\u00a0Plato<\/h4>\n

On one hand, this is a\u00a0document<\/a>. On one hand, this is a\u00a0story<\/a>. On one hand, this is an\u00a0idea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0document<\/a>\u00a0dates to the time of ancient Athens and its cultural and material renaissance. It was written by Plato, a leader of an academy for seekers of wisdom, and once a student of Socrates.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0story<\/a>\u00a0is Socrates’ speech to his judges before being committed to death.<\/p>\n

There is an\u00a0idea<\/a>\u00a0that only true things matter.<\/p>\n

Paraphrased Speech:<\/h4>\n

You are angry and you don’t know why. You lash out, confused and incoherent.<\/p>\n

You say I’m an atheist when it was the god Apollo who taught me my mission.<\/p>\n

You say I corrupt the children, yet you’ve never cared for their minds and judgements before. Where should a child learn to think? You want the children to learn to read, and to write, to solve numbers, and build squares, and to reproduce. And repeat. You say it’s about the children, well I say that it’s about you.<\/p>\n

If you are afraid of me then you are afraid of the one thing that I know: I know that I know nothing.<\/p>\n

You who are afraid of me- You who dismiss me without knowing why- You who wouldn’t care if you’d heard of me-<\/p>\n

You know nothing. Not even that you know nothing.<\/p>\n

You talk about\u00a0physics<\/a>,\u00a0mathematics<\/a>,\u00a0rhetoric<\/a>,\u00a0constitutions<\/a>, and\u00a0happiness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In your life what do you truly know?<\/p>\n

If from behind the veil of legal accusations, you should find me guilty, then it shall only be because you were taught to fear questions and so find me guilty of that treason.<\/p>\n

Guilty!<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Socrates said they should reward him with a pension. Or slap him hard, once on each wrist. Or fine his friends\u00a030 pieces of gold<\/a>. Not that it mattered. He would never pretend. And they killed him.<\/p>\n

The revolution will not be televised.<\/p>\n

The revolution will deny your gods and corrupt your children. The revolution will be fought with ignorance and healed with ignorance. The revolution will shatter chains and open cave walls. The revolution will never forfeit a battle. The revolution will never be reported on CNN or Fox News or Al Jazeera. The revolution will never sleep. The revolution will transform citizens into soldiers, and every soldier shall carry a battlefield inside their head. The revolution shall not be heard.<\/p>\n

The revolution is not being televised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0title\u00a0is a quirk of etymology, having been born in the Greek courts, spread through the early Chrisitan’s spiritual and philosophical defences, and ended up meaning something like a “regretted guilt”. Not so here. I prefer the alternative title: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by\u00a0Socrates voices by\u00a0Plato On one hand, this is a\u00a0document. On one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,204,207,20,114],"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-2414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-everything2","category-history","category-philosophy","category-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1689,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/09\/30\/the-story-of-thales-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2414,"position":0},"title":"The story of Thales","author":"Pala","date":"September 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In September 2010, Shai begins the first phase of his intellectual journey with an\u00a0essay\u00a0dedicated to the Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher, Thales of Miletus. This the first of\u00a080 essays, written between September 2010 and July 2015, dedicated to analysing the thoughts and writings of the great ancient\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":977,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2017\/08\/02\/pomegranate-express\/","url_meta":{"origin":2414,"position":1},"title":"Pomegranate Express","author":"Pala","date":"August 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Socrates and Leonard Cohen sit beneath an olive tree smoking opium from a Chinese pipe. Socrates: Gestures at black tar. Is this British? It has that tangy taste. LC: You know I don\u2019t buy British. Both are silent as they mull over each other\u2019s words. LC: You know I got\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1714,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/11\/22\/a-meditation-on-platos-ion-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2414,"position":2},"title":"A meditation on Plato’s Ion","author":"Pala","date":"November 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Plato was an\u00a0Ancient Greek philosopher\u00a0who lived around 2400 years ago in\u00a0Athens. Almost all of Plato's surviving writings are dialogues (philosophical plays).\u00a0Ion\u00a0is a dialogue between Socrates (Plato's teacher) and Ion, a celebrated performer of poetry. Although Plato is always interesting, it is often hard to find a positive lesson that can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1710,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/11\/06\/ancient-greek-philosophy-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2414,"position":3},"title":"Ancient Greek Philosophy","author":"Pala","date":"November 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What is\u00a0this?\u00a0It's an index of sorts, linking to\u00a0nodes\u00a0that relate to\u00a0philosophy\u00a0in\u00a0Ancient Greece. See also the first footnote below[1]. It was written for two main reasons: (1) As an index that can be referred to when looking for something to read about Ancient Greek philosophy; (2) as an index that can be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2632,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/10\/26\/saturday-october-26-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":2414,"position":4},"title":"Saturday October 26, 2013","author":"Pala","date":"October 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The first question is, \"What is the mind\". I agree with Socrates that to begin we need to understand the question. \"Mind\" is a loose term that includes different phenomenon that are (seemingly) associated. I am not discarding this paltry scrapheap of words because at least it includes a reasonable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":150,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/08\/16\/believing-that-the-world-is-ok\/","url_meta":{"origin":2414,"position":5},"title":"Believing that the world is OK","author":"Pala","date":"August 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There's this belief that the world is OK. How to address this? How about step 1: What is the nature of the constituents of the matter of concern? Or as Socrates might be modernized, \"What is the meaning of each thing?\". Truly ask this, because barely any do. Plato would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-CW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2414"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=2414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}