No Answers for You!

I am a fan of Western Civilization. Over the course of human history, there have been many civilizations and, by and large, the Western way has generated more wealth, more freedom, and less evil than any other.

Many people who hold this opinion do not live in a “Western” democracy. Many of the people who disagree with it do. Funny how that works.

To begin to answer what Western Civilization is, I read Plato’s Dialogues - Euthyphro, the Apology, and Phaedo. These are widely considered to be the first works in the Western canon. The last time I had set eyes on them was in college, and I promptly decided they were useless.

Seventeen years later, I find them remarkable. These dialogues are all different episodes related to the trial and execution of Socrates, an Athenian philosopher found guilty in 386 BC for corrupting the youth.

In the first - Euthyphro - Socrates runs into the titular Athenian on the way to the courthouse. Euthyphro asks him “what are you doing here?” Socrates responds, “Well a young man named Miletus accuses me of corrupting the youth. He is very young but must be very wise.”

Ah. Irony.

Socrates then returns the question to E. To his surprise, E. is there to prosecute his father. “How can this be?” he asks. E. explains that his father’s servant murdered a slave, so his father bound this servant, threw him in a ditch, and went to the nearest temple for the Oracle’s advice on how to proceed.

On his return, the father found the servant dead. E. is there to prosecute him. He proudly exclaims that murder is impious, from the perspective of the gods, no matter the circumstance.

Enter the Socratic method. Socrates, feigning awe of E.’s wisdom asks to become his student so that he can learn what is pious and what is impious. E. offers the simple answer that piety is what the gods say is pious and impiety is what the gods say is impious. S. pounces on this. He asks if the gods agree on everything. Of course not. Then they do no agree on what is pious. And on and on.

You might be thinking, “save me the read, what’s the answer?” What is, as they say, the “TL;DR.” There is none, and that’s the point. Euthyphro and Socrates never discover the nature of piety. But at the end of their conversation, they’re closer to it than when they started.

Many similar dialogues follow. All explore different facets of the question at hand, all without a definite conclusion.

You want simple answers? Sorry, none for you here. Thinkers only. This is the actual message. A model for the meritocracy of ideas which, Western civilization, more than any other, is.

Or, as Socrates might have said in a dialogue Plato never published:

Socrates: Let us examine whether it is pious to seek the truth

Dan: Let’s

Socrates: Do you agree that humans among animals are unique in their ability to think critically?

Dan: Yes

Socrates: Good. If you had a servant plowing your fields for a yield of 10 bushels a year and you fashioned a more fertile seed and stronger plow and gave it to them, would you not expect them to use it?

Dan: I would

Socrates: Indeed. And would you not be angry with them if you fashioned them better tools and they didn’t use them.

Dan: I would

Socrates: Then would not the gods, who we are servants to, expect us to us the tools they fashion us. And, indeed, be angry with us for not using these tool?

Dan: They would

Socrates: It then must follow that thinking critically is demanded by the gods.

Dan: Agreed.