Monday, March 15, 2021

Athens, Jerusalem, and DC; or Hemlock, Cross, and Cancellation

It is often said that western civilization is a fusion of Athens and Jerusalem (and sometimes Rome), in reference to the genealogy of our religion and politics. Interesting that the two most important names associated with these cities -- Socrates and Jesus -- were both subject to cancellation, big time.

Dennis Prager has often remarked that the most dynamic and successful religion over the past century has been leftism, irrespective of whether one counts converts or victims. 

Leftism is dynamic, in that it readily changes form in order to adapt to contemporary needs, while keeping the substance in tact. "Cancel culture" is its latest form, but it's the same old human sacrifice -- the same sadism expressed toward atheists who refuse to honor the gods of the state.

If theology is the queen of the sciences, then philosophy must be king or something. If so, then -- extending the metaphor -- the royal line of the latter begins with Socrates. Whitehead quipped that western philosophy is but a footnote on Plato, but Plato is a footnote on Socrates (if not in form, then in substance, more on which as we proceed; suffice it to say that the essence of philosophy is a way of life, of endless seeking after and loving wisdom).

So, you can say that western philosophy is founded on a cancellation -- as is Christianity. For that matter, Judaism is founded on Abraham's near-cancellation of Issac. In this context, I suppose we could say that ritual circumcision is a kind of symbolic auto-cancellation, but that's another story, mohels away from this one.

It seems that where religiosity is, sacrifice isn't far behind. At the moment, we're in the middle of Lent, and what is Lent but a voluntary sacrifice to God, for the sake of increased purity? This is on the perfectly trans-logical grounds that God and impurity don't really mix: the more of one, the less of the other.

Again, the trial of Socrates is one of the most famous cancellations in history. Why was he cancelled by the progressive mob of the day? The usual reasons: atheism, corrupting the minds of the youth, refusing to honor the popular gods of of the state. 

At his trial, Socrates describes a familiar sounding breakdown in the educational establishment, such that many of his accusers had been indoctrinated to believe Orange Robed Man Bad! (http://cotechnoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Socrates.jpg)

they approached you at the most impressionable age, when some of you were children or adolescents, and they literally won their case by default, because there is no one to defend me.

Socrates goes on to read the indictment of his thoughtcrimes: first, he "is guilty of criminal meddling," insofar as 

he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example.

This is reminiscent of how, in our day, one will be cancelled if one presumes to, say, defeat the stronger arguments of Antiracism with the science of IQ, or mock the arguments of feminism with the fake science of sexual differences, or ridicule Transgendersim with recourse to mere biological reality.  

More generally, mocking the stupidity of the ruling class is reason enough to be cancelled. Socrates:

And by dog, gentlemen, for I must be frank with you, my honest impression was this. It seems to me, as I pursued my investigation at the god's command, that the people with the greatest reputations were almost entirely deficient, while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much better qualified in practical intelligence.

This, of course, is why both sides of our ruling class agreed that Trump had to go. You can't just go around saying that smelly Walmart shoppers and inbred deplorables have more practical intelligence than a Puerto Rican barmaid or a demented tool on China's payroll.  

Socrates also got in trouble for mocking the artists and celebrities of his day, as if "the very fact that they were poets made them think that they had a perfect understanding of all other subjects, of which they were totally ignorant."

Fasting forward to today, you can't just go around making fun of some Poet Laureate of the Left Side of the Bell Curve, whose soothing words speak of that sacred place

Where a skinny Black girl / not that there's anything wrong with being a fat Black girl / descended from slaves, like everyone else on earth / and buoyed by affirmative action / can dream of advancing the cause of the racist left / and vilifying whiteness.

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