Why Socrates is Still Important Today

So Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher, born 470 BC, who’s often seen as the founder of western philosophy.  Socrates was a mercurial figure who, because he didn’t believe that writing was an effective way of communicating, didn’t write anything down. So what we know of him and his ideas comes from accounts of other writers, the most important of which is Plato. Socrates’ influence has been enormous, it’s been felt far beyond philosophy itself, and in every age.  

So what I thought I’d do in this episode is to run through a few ways in which what Socrates has to say is still relevant or topical today. Now if I’m being honest, I think the list is endless here, he’s that incredible of a thinker and what he has to teach us is pretty much universal or applicable in any time period. But that said, what I thought I’d try to do is focus in on three sort of themes; they are; one, the power of rhetoric, two, the importance of integrity, and three, a reconsideration of beauty. 

Ok, so let me start with the subject of rhetoric, cause it was a hugely important one in Socrates’ world and still is today. And let me begin with this; Socrates wasn’t a big fan of it (at least certain versions of it)! Ok so what Socrates does, at least at times, is he opposes rhetoric to philosophy. And the opposition is this: philosophy aims at the truth and at the good, he says, while rhetoric aims at persuasion regardless of what’s true or good. As a matter of fact, for Socrates, rhetoric was essentially just a kind of flattery, you know, where you flatter and pander to the audience you’re speaking to, where you just say what they want to hear, ultimately because you want to win them over and gain prestige or power for yourself. 

Actually, now that I think about it, Socrates makes an interesting analogy that might help us to see some of the main differences between rhetoric and philosophy; what he says is that rhetoricians are like pastry cooks and philosophers are like doctors. So what does he mean by this? Well, when doctors advise you to eat something they’re doing it for your health and their advice is grounded in deep-seated knowledge about medicine. On the other hand, what do pastry cooks do? Well, they just cater to your pleasure without at all thinking of your health, nor in fact knowing anything about it at all! 

Ok now here’s the unfortunate thing though: Socrates says that if these two individuals were to both try to make their case in front of a group of people, the doctor wouldn’t stand a chance! His or her words and their advice just won’t be as appealing or palatable as those of the pastry cook, even though what the cook is offering is unhealthy, and what the doctor is telling them to take is actually good for them! 

Well likewise when it comes to trying to convince people of the truth through doing philosophy or through rational discourse; Socrates says most people just won’t find it appealing or palatable. Unlike being presented with a pastry, philosophy and the search for truth is sometimes unpleasant and difficult and often people don’t want to submit to it and its arguments - just like they don’t want to submit to the doctor’s painful cures! And so really the bottom line is that people aren’t going to be persuaded by evidence and argument, they’re going to be persuaded by pandering worthless rhetoric. People aren’t concerned about the well-being of their soul, which for Socrates means they don’t want to be free of false beliefs, no, what they want is something that’s easy and digestible and something that placates their appetites, they want the gratifying but empty pastry. Truth, virtue and health be damned!

Ok, now I’d say we have a problem with rhetoric today too, but actually I think that our situation is even worse than that. What I mean is that in the ancient greek world, even though I didn’t quite get to that, rhetoric, however nefarious it may have seemed to some, it was still a kind of art or skill, it consisted of various techniques and such, I mean even the cook has to be able to put together the pastry. So for instance, ancient rhetoricians talked about how to make the weaker argument the stronger, and they had technical ways of doing that, they talked about the application of long speeches, they used all sorts of logical tricks, and they made sure to do all this with a polished, stylistic brilliance. 

But what do we have today? Well, in the place of anything somewhat sophisticated and technical and thoughtful, we have instead things like; excessive exaggeration, contradiction, offensiveness, personal insults, cliches, platitudes, blatant lies, bluster and brash and bullying, sensationalism, outrageousness, and often all this in the service of pushing conspiracy theory,  junk science, radical ideology and partisan politics, all with the ultimate aim of course of maximizing opportunism and self-interest, which, remarkably, no one even really bothers to hide! 

If Socrates was worried about the rhetoric of his time, surely he’d have an aneurysm if he was around today to see what was happening! Forget well-crafted pastry, it’s toxic vomit! When we’re pulled in by things like this, when our allegiance becomes tied to the loudest, the most vulgar, and the least thoughtful, when we don’t even try in the least to address each other in the pursuit of the truth, it’s hard to understand how it is we can ever really move forward. 

Ok, well, you know what, I think this is a good time to move to the second theme I mentioned, namely integrity. I mean this is something Socrates was renowned for and it’s worth thinking a bit about it, however briefly. So for Socrates integrity had to do with, well, in general, things like honesty and coherence and consistency and soundness of being and being steadfast in one’s commitments and principles. But let’s get a bit more specific. What Socrates says himself is that the worst thing one can be is out of harmony with oneself or in contradiction with oneself. Actually his full quote is this, it’s: “It would be better for me that multitudes of men should disagree with me, rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.” Now that word he uses, harmony, that’s interesting and suggestive! I mean what it suggests is that there’s different parts in us that need to be congruently arranged so we become internally harmonious and whole. So that’s what integrity essentially means for Socrates. Actually it’s interesting, the word integrity is derived from the latin word integer, which meant wholeness, entirety or completeness. Anyway, the idea here for Socrates is that, what it means to have integrity, is that you don’t let your desires and beliefs and your words and your actions, split apart, and go asunder, but instead you bring them into some fundamental consistency. So if you say it, it’s because you believe it, and if you believe it and say it, you do it! In other words, there’s an accordance between what you believe and say and how you behave. That was Socrates to a T. There was nothing hypocritical about him. Even in his last days, when he sentenced to death, he very easily could have escaped and he could have resorted to using rhetorical language to persuade others to let him go, but instead, because he sincerely believed in certain principles, he spoke plainly and honestly and decided to stay in prison to drink the hemlock. He chose to die for the sake of what he believed was right and true. Again, that’s integrity. 

Ok well, I won’t go into too much here, but I don’t think I’d be alone in saying that we’re currently suffering from a lack of such integrity today, especially, but not limited to, the political arena. That’s to say, there seems to be more than a little gap between what a lot of people avow and how they live. But here’s the thing, what are you exactly if you say one thing and do another, what are you if you’re just a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions? Without some degree of intellectual and moral integrity, without some internal consistency, are you really anything at all? I mean if you have no integrity, you have no moral compass, and if you have no moral compass, then you don’t really have a self do you, and so what are you, other than a leaf blowing in the wind, selling yourself off to the prevailing current!

Ok, well, so let’s lighten things up a bit, so that the last thing I wanted to talk a little bit about was Socrates and the subject of beauty. Actually to be more specific I want to say something about the significance of Socrates’ appearance and how that relates to the larger topic of beauty. But before I do, let me back up and give some context here. So to put it bluntly, for the Ancient Greeks beauty was, to say the least, extremely important. They were fascinated with it! I mean just think of the Venus de Milo and the statues of Aphrodite, or of Helen of Troy and her face that launched a thousand ships, or of the shining Odysseus with his well muscled shoulders. Looks mattered. They made a cult of idealized beauty. But actually in some sense it goes deeper than just surface appearances. You see, for the Greeks, a beautiful face or body was considered to be direct evidence of also having a beautiful mind or soul. In other words, a perfect exterior mirrored an inner perfection, an inner beauty and nobility. So physical beauty was thought to be connected to psychological beauty,  beautiful biceps or breasts, meant a beautiful character. 

Ok now all that said, enter Socrates! So what does he look like? Well, he was disturbing to say the least. You know, he had this weird swaggering walk, he had protruding crab eyes, he had a big snub nose and exaggerated lips, and to top it all off, a pot belly. Actually, some also said he had a face like a satyr, you know, the part man, part goat creature! The point is, by most accounts, he was a strange sight to behold. So just imagine someone as prominent like this walking around in the midst of a beauty-obsessed society. You think he’d be ridiculed and ignored! 

But here’s the thing though; every time someone talked to Socrates or got personal with him, they started to be pulled into him by his words, and his demeanour and his character. In other words, they became entranced by just how beautiful this man was, appearances withstanding. Socrates may have cut an ugly figure, but he revealed nothing but beauty and goodness inside. The point is that what Socrates did is this: he turned beauty inside out. He showed that there’s a much more powerful form of beauty than the one associated with the surface of our skin. And not only that but he counselled his fellow Greeks not to be fooled by that bright shiny surface, because what that bright shiny surface often does is it hides the empty and sometimes the decadent, in other words, what it often does, is it conceals an inner poverty, it hints at a soul unattended to. 

Ok but all that said, I think Socrates is sending an even deeper message here. He’s not just urging his fellow Greeks and us to question the importance of physical appearance, but he’s asking us to question appearances, period. There’s a world beyond mere appearance, he’s saying, and it’s much more beautiful and interesting than we think it is. I think that that’s the central Socratic message. Don’t be satisfied with the surface of things, go past it and dig deeper and you’ll discover that what you thought was the most beautiful of things can’t hold a candle to the treasures that lie within!