The issue of free speech has never been far from the surface of late in many countries.
Elon Musk added his tuppence worth to the debate over free speech in this State when he tweeted recently about the Government’s proposed hate legislation, writing: “Destroying freedom of speech means destroying democracy.” Musk was reposting and commenting on a video by Free Speech Ireland, a group who are campaigning against the new law.
It may be cold comfort but we are not alone in our travails. The philosopher, Socrates (469-399 BC), is probably the most famous example of someone opening his mouth once too often and suffering gravely as a result. Of course, Socrates is also the most immediate of philosophers and the most Irish of them, remembering that he did not write anything down but left the scribbling in the jotter to his pupil, Plato. In short, Socrates was a seanchaí, which makes him one of our own.
Indeed, the Socratic method that he developed – ask a question, listen to answer, ask another question – is one that anyone of us can recognise and, just as importantly, take part in. It is a very Irish approach to philosophy. Socrates liked a drink too. What, in fact, is The Symposium but a session in Buswells where Micks on the make slabber about rugger and politics?
I have always imagined Socrates as the kind of philosopher you would meet at Croke Park with a pint in his hand. Oddly, I think he would have been a hurley head as the ash-wielding warriors of our times most resemble the hoplites with whom Socrates served in wartime.
(There is an excellent book by the historian Bettany Hughes, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life (Jonathan Cape), which tells Socrates’ story in the most vivid way and provides a portrait of the man and his times which this short article can only hint at. Athens, in all its glory and grime, is there: the political and cultural machinations; the prostitutes; the violence. It could be any city in the world today. Perhaps one line will suffice to show Hughes’ gift for writing and her intimate knowledge of her subject: “The day before Socrates’ trial, Athens would have breathed in the smell of crushed stalks and bruised petals.”)
Plato’s dialogues The Last Days of Socrates is one of the most important books in the Western canon and has been translated into numerous languages – including Irish. It is a book which, once upon a time, would have been required reading for many in the humanities. The work is immediate and moving, despite depicting events that happened thousands of years ago. In Irish terms, it is a “Jail Journal”, a story which recounts how Socrates ended up in a cell after being charged with impiety – or heresy as others have argued – against the city’s gods and for corrupting Athen’s youths.
He is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Of course, he need not die. There is a Greek solution to a Greek problem; the old nod and a wink and the ancient Athenian equivalent of the brown envelope and Socrates could hot foot it out of Athens and find a beach far, far away. Socrates, famously, decides against a jail break and argues that he has a responsibility to the State as much as the State has a responsibility to him.
There is humour in the dialogues that is still so recognisable today. At one point Socrates notes while in the pursuit of some answers from the powerful: “Well, I gave a thorough examination to this person – I need not mention his name, but it was of our politicians that I was studying when I had this experience – and in conversation with him I formed this impression that although in many people’s opinion, and especially in his own, he appeared to be wise, in fact he was not.”
That is a description that would fit many a politician walking the streets today, though you do not need mention a name.
Of course, the constant questioning finally got Socrates into trouble and he ends up in the Mountjoy of Athens with a pint of hemlock for his troubles. When offered his poisoned drink at the end, he asks his guard whether he should offer up a libation, that is, pour some out to honour the gods. It is another line that has always struck me as being very Irish for, in Donegal folklore, it was a custom among poitín makers to give three drops from a newly distilled batch to the “little folk”, a way, if I understood correctly, of ensuring their good will.
I am not sure how many questions you would have to ask to end up in jail these days but we might find out with the newly proposed legislation. What heresy could you commit that would warrant such action? Refusing to believe in Gaia, perhaps, and as to corrupting the minds of the young, you would have to work hard to do more damage than contemporary social mores and media.
Still, comfort yourself with this thought: the next time someone calls you a reactionary or a rabble-rouser for asking the wrong questions of people “who appear to be wise”, simply answer: “No, I am Socratic.”