Of Gods And Man

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aaron ross powell: welcome to free thoughtsfrom libertarianism.org and the cato institute. i’m aaron powell. matthew feeney: i’m matthew feeney. trevor burrus: and i’m trevor burrus. aaron ross powell: joining us today is brianwilson. he’s co-founder of combat & classics, a program out of st. john’s that organizesfree online seminars on classic text for active duty reserve and veteran u.s. military. he’sjoining us today to discuss plato’s apology. brian, let’s maybe kick things off by havingyou tell us a bit about combat & classics. brian wilson: sure. combat & classics is sponsoredby st. john’s college. it’s an outreach

program through st. john’s. i’m a graduateof the graduate institute in annapolis and when i was kind of transitioning from studentto alumnus, approached the dean of the college and just said, “hey, what can i do for youguys?” they just really wanted to get kind of moreinvolvement with the military and we thought the best way to do that was just by what wedo at st. john’s which is just socratic dialogue and great books, just with the militaryaudience. trevor burrus: and does it come over prettywell? i mean are there any text that you tend to focus on mostly in that or is it prettybroad? is it classic philosophy or plays or greek and roman or anything …

brian wilson: yeah. i mean the degree fromst. john’s is liberal arts. so we study everything from euclid to newton to aristophanesto plato to basically the kind of classical liberal education. so we try to representthat as best we can with combat & classics. we do probably do a little bit more historyand philosophy, a little bit more thucydides, a little bit more herodotus, a little bitmore plato. but we try to get in a good amount of thingsthat maybe somebody who’s looking at the great books and is in the military has alreadystarted on but – for instance, our april and our march and april seminars are bothmacbeth. so we will be doing shakespeare for those.

but our february upcoming seminar is on theiliad. so we do kind of a marshal theme to a certain extent but it’s a broad swathof classical literature that we use. aaron ross powell: well then i guess let’sturn to our text. we chose today plato’s apology which is one that you’ve done seminarson. brian wilson: yeah. aaron ross powell: so give us some backgroundon that. brian wilson: so the apology is socrates ontrial, right? he has apparently corrupted the youth. he is accused of being a heretic,of not believing in the gods and this is socrates’ you would call lackluster defense of thosecharges, but also a robust defense of what

it means to be an individual, to be able tostand up to the state and what is the consequences of that for both the individual and the state. trevor burrus: why would you call the defenselackluster? brian wilson: i think that – and socratesadmits those to a certain extent. meletus, his accuser, has kind of made his case andsocrates is replying and that’s the beginning of the dialogue is socrates replying. he sayslike – what meletus has said is – and the accusers at large – which was not true,right? but it sways the jury, right? and it has obviously swayed the jury and he said,“i’m not going to do that. i’m not going to play this game. i’m just going to dowhat i do, which is seek truth, examine virtue

and if you guys don’t like that, all right.no big deal.” he’s willing to accept the consequencesof that decision of being kind of true to himself rather than i’m going to make acase to get myself out of punishment. trevor burrus: should we interpret this asa – i’ve never gotten a good handle on the theistic i guess kind of piety of thegreeks, of how much – are they kind of like modern day christians who if you don’t believein their gods – because i always thought if you are – if you believe in many gods,then you believe that – you kind of accept other people who believe in those gods tooand don’t treat them as atheists as much. so are these trumped up charges? sort of likethis impiety. was it the worst thing in ancient

greece to believe in different gods than thosegods in this corruption of – should we interpret them as trumped up charges? brian wilson: no, i think it’s pretty clearthat they are trumped up. you know, whether or not socrates was an actual theist or anatheist or what is kind of one of those things that – and i know that cato has talked aboutthis in the pas as far as like – how much of a deist was thomas jefferson and georgewashington? so it’s those kinds of things where it’slike only the people that – only you know, you know, how much you buy into whatever religiouscreed you might or might not espouse. so there were certainly questions that socrates raisedthat could make people uncomfortable, but

there’s no statement that i can think ofin the entire kind of platonic canon where he comes out and says, “i don’t believeany of this stuff,” right? but it’s the questioning that certainlycauses this accusation to get carried forward and certainly has swayed a decent amount ofthe jury. aaron ross powell: i mean it’s pretty clearhe’s not a straight-up atheist. aaron ross powell: like he very obviously– he defends himself along these lines by saying, look, i talk all the time and tellpeople all the time about … trevor burrus: demigods. aaron ross powell: demigods and demons andother things that assume …

trevor burrus: does he mean like hercules?is that what he – it’s like the hercules of … brian wilson: yeah, and he talks about thedemigods. he talks about the offspring of gods and man and i think you – it’s verymuch a rorschach test i think for the reader, right? if you want to read that as – ifyou’re an atheist reader approaching the text, then you can go, “oh, he’s messingwith these guys.” but if you’re a theist reader, then youcan go, “no, he’s trying to fit it into this theist doctrine that’s part of thecommunity and he’s just trying to play by those rules.” they may not believe him

matthew feeney: i mean it’s certainly thecase at least towards the end—i don’t want to jump ahead too much—but that hepostulates after death are a couple of possibilities and one is that it’s just an eternal kindof sleep and the other is hey, i’ve got to hang out with homer and all these otherguys. but he seems – so at the beginning, there’s this question – when he speaksto the oracle and it seems like hard to believe someone not taking that seriously with somesort of theistic belief. if you really don’t believe that the oraclewas the voice of a god, then he’s walking around athens, trying to see if he could findsomeone wiser than him. it seems a little pointless.

trevor burrus: one final question i want toask before we open up a bag of worms here, but before we get fully into the text is,“is this a history?” brian wilson: i mean your guess is as goodas mine on that. i think that – i always liked christopher hitchens’ kind of descriptionof socrates versus jesus. you know, it’s like it’s not important if you’re lookingat socrates, whether or not he existed at all, right? you can take his teachings and you can takewhatever you want out of that, right? and it’s not important if he existed or didn’texist or if this is what he said or didn’t say.

trevor burrus: but it’s a little differentbecause in this one, i think one of two maybe of plato’s dialogues, plato is supposedto be there. so maybe he was taking notes. it kind of brings that spectrum a little bitmore. aaron ross powell: but i think this is complicatedby – so we only have two accounts of socrates’ defense. we have plato and the xenophon, whowas another follower of socrates. but then at the same time, there’s this – aftersocrates’ death, it was kind of a thing for writers to write their own versions ofhis defense. it was like just fan fiction. trevor burrus: it’s also probably kind oflike a rorschach test. they all wrote it the way that they saw it.

aaron ross powell: yes. so i mean it’s alittle bit different. we have almost no text. what we do know about socrates largely comesfrom plato and xenophon and plato very clearly drifts away from presenting anything thateven is remotely historical or documentary in his later dialogues where we get to justthese are plato’s ideas and socrates is a mouthpiece for them. there’s the argument made that i think seemsrelatively persuasive to me that of the two apologies that we have, plato’s and xenophon’s,like xenophon, well a smart guy, was not a genius on the level of plato. so it’s less– so plato’s genius probably takes over a bit more in his presentation. but they’re– i mean they’re similar enough although

it’s the – xenophon, socrates is not – hisspeech is not the great work of literature that we read for today and is quite a bitmore straightforward. but the skeleton is relatively the same. sowe could probably say – i mean there’s some level of accuracy there but we don’tknow. so i think largely when we’re talking about socrates, we’re analyzing socratesin the way that we would talk about hamlet, right? we act as if – we analyze him asa real person while recognizing too that he was a historical figure but what we’re reallytalking about is plato’s presentation of him. trevor burrus: so let’s talk about thatskeleton then. how does the dialogue open

up? brian wilson: well, the dialogue, i mean itrolls right into the defense, right? and there’s no – which i find – always find interestingis that there’s not really a presentation of the accuser’s argument. it is just thedefense and you have to kind of start with that question. i mean there is a dialogue that’s supposedto have happened right before the trial which is the euthyphro, which i know i’m pronouncingwrong because my greek is pretty terrible. but they don’t really talk much about socrates’trial, right? they talk about euthyphro’s trial for manslaughter. so we open with thisand socrates immediately kind of goes for

underwhelming. you know, he says, “i donot know what effect my accusers had upon you.” he’s speaking to the jury. “butfor my own part, i was almost carried away by them. their arguments were so convincing.on the other hand, scarcely a word of what they said was true.” aaron ross powell: it’s a wonderful lineto read during a presidential election. trevor burrus: are we picturing him in anamphitheater type situation with like – i picture this as a circle with the people sittingon benches around him while he was speaking to them. is that a … brian wilson: i always think about it justlike perry mason.

matthew feeney: this kind of juries i thinkwere done – i forget the name of the location but it’s quite close to the acropolis andit would have been about for the time, about 500 people then hearing the accusation andthe defense on the top of this rather small hill in athens. brian wilson: i think that the police proceduralhas just kind of tainted my visualization a little bit too much. i’m visualizing lawand order. aaron ross powell: and the setup just – thesetup of this trial and the way it functions is i think something we could talk about becauseit’s fairly interesting as a contrast to the way that we do things now.

brian wilson: sure. i mean he has this juryof 500 people, right? and it seems obvious to me that they’ve been fairly swayed bythe accusers. what we usually do at st. john’s when we’re opening a seminar, when we’retalking about something like this, is that the tutor will just ask an opening question.from there, there’s not really – we’re trying to stick to the reading as much aspossible. obviously you’re the host and you’re the cato institute. so if we wantto talk about the iowa caucus, then go for it. trevor burrus: please no. brian wilson: probably not. but we just tryto stick to the text as much as we can for

our points and for our questions. so the questioni would like to ask you is, “what was socrates’ mindset during this trial?” matthew feeney: so i think that’s a greatopening because if you think about the timeline here, he’s already an old man. seventy,which – you can say pretty old now, let alone in ancient greece. reading the defense, i got the impressionthat he might be just sort of resigned to the way this might end and the way it willend because he’s an old man and the way he’s addressing it, he discusses how deathisn’t particularly that bad and the important thing is to lead a good life and that youshouldn’t calculate the chances of living

or dying. you should think about doing theright thing versus the wrong thing and maybe if i die, i will be able to – an eternalsleep or talk to people i admire and i can continue these conversations. so part of me thinks his mindset might bewell, i could be doomed but at least i can go out in a great rhetorical flourish andmake these people look a little silly. i think he succeeds in doing that, especially withmeletus, that accuser. trevor burrus: yeah, i agree with matthew.i think also that – i always read socrates as so tongue-in-cheek the way he spoke topeople that i kind of read the apology as being kind of angry and his righteousnessagainst the accusing – this is who i think

it is. a libertarian-ish text or somethingwe can learn just political philosophy about a person standing against a power who hasthe righteous position which he discusses later on. if you do think you have the righteous position– that’s the way socrates does everything. do you think – he would never say it. hewould be like – he’s like, “what do you think? socrates, do you have the righteousposition?” he’s like, “i don’t know, sir. do you think i have the righteous position?are cows righteous?” he would never say it but you know he does think this. now he’sgoing to stand in front of the polis which is a much more community-oriented type ofconcept than the current state and then tell

them basically like a – on both their houses,all of you. so i see anger. aaron ross powell: yeah, that was my readingmore so than just resignation was the righteousness coming in because he’s – so he tells usthis story of the oracle adelphi saying that he’s the wisest man alive and that he hasbasically built a career around trying to assess that because he – like he doesn’tthink of himself as wise. but – which of course i think he really does but he justlikes to think he’s not. it’s because he recognizes his lack of wisdom that theoracle thinks he’s the most wise. but to kind of test this, he goes around askingpeople who are presumed to be wise and testing their wisdom and always finding it lacking.so he – he has got this other part where

he goes in about the training of the horses,right? where he says you wouldn’t – when you want to break a horse, you call in anexpert. you don’t just have like everyone break the horse because that’s not goingto work and that seems to be a dig against this system. so i read this as like a – like look, i’vebeen going around showing all of you up and now you’ve done this dumb thing where you’reputting me on trial and so it’s not just that i’m kind of resigned to my fate andi don’t really think that living over 70 would be all that awesome anyway and deathisn’t all – isn’t something to worry about. but also that i’m going to prove– like my last act will be proving that

i was right all along by getting – by showingthe complete lack of wisdom of all of you and that seems to be – because he’s constantlyprovoking them. this isn’t just like a lackluster defense. this is like come and get me, right? so even when he’s given like every opportunityand we get that in the follow-up dialogue, the credo where he’s given the opportunityafter he has been convicted to run away and he’s just – he doesn’t take it. like,in every step, he seems to want them to kill him even when – i mean they’ve declaredhim guilty and he offers up these basically absurd alternative sentences that he knowsthey’re going to reject. he just – he seems angry and he seems like he wants todemonstrate the foolishness of the people

of athens. brian wilson: yeah, i mean he – i like theidea of anger just because right at 28, he kind of has an external, internal dialogueand says – but perhaps someone will say, “do you feel no compunction socrates inhaving followed a line of action which puts you in danger of the death penalty?” i mightfairly reply to him, “you’re mistaken my friend if you think that a man who’sworth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death.” he gives the example of achilles, right? whichwe have this whole book of homer about it and the first word of that is “menace,”right? rage. singham used the “rage” of

achilles. so he kind of brings it off andthe whole presentation, i mean you can obviously – if you’re directing this, you can geta mickey rourke in there. you can kind of get somebody a little bit more relaxed. but the rage is there, right? i mean it’sright in the dialogue when he brings up achilles. but what’s interesting to me is that hesays right there, you know, the idea of even questioning that, right? the idea of thinkingabout that is – but that’s what achilles did for half the book. so i feel like there’skind of a – maybe a duality there of – he’s saying it’s wrong but he might also be implyingthat there’s a certain bit of human nature in wanting to spare yourself. do any of youfeel like socrates tries at any point to kind

of at least give himself some breathing roomin the dialogue to maybe convince the jury i’m not as big a threat as you think i am? matthew feeney: i think that he certainlydoes make fools of the accusers and make the charges sound ridiculous but i think as a– as aaron alluded to earlier, after the vote where he’s found guilty, but not bya particularly large margin. and socrates as well, i’m glad that you didn’t – thati got some support here. but then goes on to propose that they give him a pension orthat they – you know, comparatively, a meager fine be imposed and he seems to – he musthave known that that would lose him what support he probably did have and then instead of asort of sensible negotiation or proposal,

he’s sentenced to death and i think that– that’s quite telling. trevor burrus: well, i think that that interesting– he does try to some extent but this – at the beginning, he mentions aristophanes’the clouds which kind of parodies socrates. but he seems like a guy who believes the popularopinion is one thing about him. like if you imagine a star today and everyone thinks that– like there’s some sort of rumor about someone and that there’s really nothinghe can do to change this, especially because i do think that he believes it. most people are stupid and so he says, “well,i get up there and i talk to a bunch of stupid people who have an idea about me because ofthis opinion that’s in the clouds and other

sort of just rumors about me. i’m not goingto convince them at all.” but i think he does try or really tries tomake a case for the few people who might be willing to listen to him to some degree. aaron ross powell: well, that was – i meanteasing out this – he defends himself but whether it’s an attempt to soften it asyou ask or just to not i guess give in to what he sees as false charges, because he– he could have just said, “ok, you’re right,” and then throw himself on the mercyof the court or not really mounted much of a defense if he didn’t care one way or anotheror – but it seems like his defense is – i guess what i had a difficult time figuringout is how much of the defense was like him

trying to – like i don’t want to be punished.so i’m going to try to defend myself versus i totally don’t care what happens to meand in fact would like to be punished because it would prove me right. but i can’t stand by – because he talksabout how much – what ultimately matters is not wealth. it’s not prestige. it’sthe kind of person you are. it’s your principles and so he’s not going to – he’s goingto defend his honor and his principles against these false charges but it doesn’t matterwhat happens to him ultimately. trevor burrus: can we compare this to – imean it has been of course, but can we compare this to jesus in front of pontius pilate inthe sense of jesus offering a defense against

a crowd with a huge bias against him and sayingnothing in response to their claims of his own type of disobedience of the pharisees?i think it’s very similar except for jesus was a little bit more taciturn. matthew feeney: yes. so i haven’t actuallyheard much about that comparison but i think what they both have in common is that that– to a contemporary 21st century reader in washington dc, it’s – the thing thatsocrates and jesus do seem to have in common is that they’re being accused of what’seffectively thought crime in the – like you have the wrong kind of ideas and you’rebeing too persuasive to people and all this other sort of stuff.

trevor burrus: but in our post-rationalizationbecause they kind of both start movements – these texts are at least written for thepurpose of starting a movement. both of these are just like, well, i’m going to die andmy death is going to be a lesson. i mean it’s a really big lesson for jesus but it’s – theyjust sort of resigned themselves to their fate and so we see a trial which again hasa righteousness of standing against the power that is arrayed against you. matthew feeney: yeah, and it is the case thatsocrates does say – i think at the end something – look, you’re going to think yourselfa little silly and i think he has been proven right.

trevor burrus: well, there’s a pharisaicequality to the people who are accusing him. these three accusers who i think are justsome sort of – they represent classes, if i read that correctly. brian wilson: yeah. i mean i – the way thati kind of tie this in more is i feel like that plato – i mean obviously this is animportant part of the canon, right? of the platonic canon, an important part of socrates.i don’t know if you need it. you need the pontius pilate story to have a serious impacton christianity. i don’t know if you need the apology to make socrates understood. butit is important. i would compare it more to something like kafka’s the trial, somethinglike orwell, something like eileen chang’s

naked earth where it’s – you’re againstthe state, right? socrates lays it out, right? he says veryspecifically around 31-c – he basically says, he says, “i don’t mess with thestate because i know what’s going to happen,” right? the last part of 31-c, “the truechampion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confinehimself to private life and leave politics alone,” right? he’s trying to go out of his way to do thisbut the state doesn’t care, right? the state just by questioning any aspect of its doctrineis going to get insulted, right? trevor burrus: i like how he was bringingup how he makes no money. there are a lot

of things that – as a lawyer, there area lot of things in the world where the state can’t get you until you’re making moneyoff of it. they don’t have any jurisdiction over you until you’re making money off ofit. so it’s like, hey, i’m just doing this, my own private life. private is private. brian wilson: yeah. the thing is that thisis the only thing that – the only two things that they could threaten, right? it was firstsaying you can’t do this anymore, right? and it was important for him to be able todo it and in athens and then the only other thing was his life, right? so if he wants to take that kind of binarylook and say, “if this or that,” it does

show how necessary he sees exploring whatis the virtuous life as a – at least critical for him and i think that that example obviouslyshines through in a very robust way in what he’s talking about. you know, something that we talk about – becausewe’ve done this seminar a couple of times with the military audience is – around line29. he says, “the truth of the matter is this, gentlemen.” this was right after theachilles comparison. “the truth of the matter is this, gentlemen. where a man has once takenup a stand either because it seems best to him or an obedience to his orders, there ibelieve he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anythingelse before dishonor. this being so, it would

be a shocking inconsistency on my part, gentlemen,if when the officers whom you chose to command me, assigned me at my position at potidaeaand amphipolis and delium, i remained at my post like anyone else and faced death, andyet afterward, when god appointed me, as i supposed and believed, to the duty of leadingthe philosophical life, examining myself and others, i were then through fear of deathor of any other danger to desert my post.” so, well, that’s like super firey-uppeyfor like libertarians. you have to wonder how effective that is. how effective is thatanalogy to you as readers? how effective potentially is that for a military reader? i mean it certainlyputs like a lot of military readers kind of on the horns of the dilemma is – you know,there is this idea of death before dishonor.

you know, why is socrates so set on eithernot teaching philosophy as more dishonorable than death? matthew feeney: well, i think it might strikeus as maybe a little odd as readers now to hear that rhetoric, especially coming fromsomeone who was a philosopher. but i think it’s important to remember that socrateswas also a soldier for a while and that one of the accusers is a general who fought thespartans in the peloponnesian war and that a lot of people in athens at the time wouldhave understood the role of the military and would probably have served. i think it’ssome sort of appeal and of course saying, “i’m just like achilles,” is a clear– everyone in ancient greece would have

known the reference clearly and who – legendswere very popular. of course achilles had this living with dishonoris worse than death and that even if i know i’m dead after i fight and kill hector,that’s worthwhile. he seems to view his own death – i mean i think that socrates’arrogance is on display in a number of places. but my favorite example of that was when hesays, “maybe if i die, my death will be like other people who died unjustly,” andhe cites palamedes who was of course sent to get odysseus, the great trickster, to cometo troy and palamedes tricked the trickster because of – odysseus tried to pretend tobe insane, was so insulting to the earth and palamedes put odysseus’ son telemachus infront of the plough and tricked odysseus because

odysseus wasn’t going to cut his own sonin half off the plough. i just find that a really interesting – thatwhen he says, “my death will be like other unjust deaths,” and that is death of atleast one particularly clever person is really quite telling. but no, i think going backto the original line of inquiry here that the military rhetoric is very deliberate andi think he must have known that it would have pulled on the heartstrings of a few of thepeople on the jury. trevor burrus: well, a lot of this traditionof death before dishonor or anyone from gandhi to martin luther king to people standing againstand saying, “i will not forsake my principles for this thing that’s standing against methat has none of these principles at all,”

it resonates with almost everyone. i meanmovies, everything, is made after this and you could always sort of put a libertarianspin on this. but i think it’s interesting that – thisis something i had noticed before that – i don’t have the exact locations unfortunatelythat you do for the official version. but he has done this before. socrates talks aboutthe thirty, in like how he had done this before. he had stood against this – the thirty … aaron ross powell: the tyrants. trevor burrus: when the oligarchy of the thirtywas in power, they sent me and four others into the rotunda and bade us bring leon thesalaminian from salamis as they wanted to

put him to death. this was a specimen of thesort of commands which they were always giving with the view of implicating as many as possiblein their crimes. so we get this – there’s basically somesort of stalinist despotism, just killing people left and right. “and then i showednot in word only but in deed that if i may be allowed to use up an expression, i carednot a straw for death and that my great and only care was lest i should do an unrighteousor unholy thing. for the strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me intodoing wrong and when we came out of the rotunda, the other four went to salamis and fetchedleon, but i went quietly home. for which i might have lost my life, had not the powerof the thirty shortly afterwards come to an

end. and many will witness to my words.” it’s kind of interesting that at some point– i’m not sure historically how long that was. he had the habit of this death beforeunrighteousness kind of thing. matthew feeney: yeah. the historical contexthere is interesting because this sort of – this oligarch, this pro-spartan set of tyrantswere in charge effectively, in charge of athens and … trevor burrus: do you know what years? matthew feeney: so this was 404 bc. trevor burrus: so just five years …

brian wilson: yeah, it was very recent. matthew feeney: it was very recent and i thinkthat—apologies to historians if that’s wrong—but it was recent and i think thereare certainly people who claim that are part of the accusation against socrates, was thathe stuck around in athens and certainly knew the leader of these tyrants and was – thatwas not perceived as a particularly – aaron ross powell: because i – i mean hewas a mentor of critias who was the leader of the tyrants. so that’s … trevor burrus: so he was like a … aaron ross powell: so to some extent, likebecause we – reading this thousands of years

later, we look – this looks very bad forthe people of athens, right? but i think that we can defend them a bit in the sense thatthis – the historical situation you had. athens’ democracy, it was taken over bythese tyrants. things were very bad. socrates had been the mentor of the leader of the tyrants.he had also been the friend and mentor of alcibiades who had – worked against thedemocracy, had been kicked out, had run off to sparta, was pro-spartan. socrates is at least presented by plato whoseems to like a lot of elements of the spartan regime. he didn’t leave when the thirtytook over and so – and then my understanding is when the thirty left, there was a treatythat was signed that granted some degree of

amnesty to people who were involved in it.so if the people of athens were mad at him for what looked like support of the thirtyand then there was this also – notion in greece at the time that like the mentor wasto some degree always responsible for the actions of his students because it was hisjob to teach them and they were carrying out his teachings. so they could blame socrates for what happened.but the treaty prevents them from trying him for that and so this is possibly a runaroundthe treaty. so it doesn’t look – so we can still judge them harshly but there mayhave been complicating factors here, which is why these charges look so silly.

trevor burrus: kind of like the … brian wilson: yeah. so if we can – thisis all good background. i don’t mean to turn this off of this but within the textand taking into account those kinds of historical precedence, why did socrates stick aroundthrough all this, through the tyrants, through alcibiades’ defection and through this trial?he has no property, right? i mean that’s what ties us to the state in a lot of ways,right? we usually have property and it’s hard to move it. why did he stick around? trevor burrus: righteousness again i wantto say. matthew feeney: yeah, i don’t know. i thinkhe’s an old man. he might just not be up

for this political uncertainty and going intofleeing athens, although – you know, whatever his reasons, i think it would be mistakento think that he was some sort of supporter of this oligarchy, that he was pro this tyranny.i think it would be a little unfair. aaron ross powell: but he does seem anti-democracy. matthew feeney: sure. but these can be mutuallyexclusive, right? you can be anti-democracy and also anti the tyranny at the time. soyeah, that’s a good i think historical question. i don’t know. i don’t know of anyone … aaron ross powell: i mean he gives reasons– this is on the next text. so i won’t – he does give some reasons for stickingaround in the credo which is when his followers

show up while he’s in jail waiting executionand say, look, we can get you out of here. it will be easy. we just bribe the guards.kind of everyone is expecting you to do … trevor burrus: it’s like el chapo, yeah. aaron ross powell: and – yes, and he saysno and he presents these reasons and every intern semester, i give a talk to the internsabout the credo and about obligations to obey the law and say that socrates’ argumentsare all terrible. but he does have these arguments. my sense – i mean from this and from justwhat we know of him as his character is – i mean athens is his own. he like – he seemsto be – socrates seems like a creature of habit. i mean it’s agreed that – one ofthe more delightful parts of this text is

at the end when he’s talking about – sosocrates is – he would be a hard guy to live around. i mean he just goes around harassinglike – and he’s a pain in the ass. trevor burrus: he would be like a jehovah’switness … [crosstalk] aaron ross powell: he’s a historically epicpain in the ass. trevor burrus: yeah. aaron ross powell: and then he doesn’t – whenhe’s talking about death at the end and he’s like death is nothing to fear becauseon the one hand, it might be oblivion, which he – which is a really good night’s sleepor there’s an afterlife and in the afterlife,

i can go and harass all of those people too.you can imagine all of these like great greek heroes looking down from the afterlife andjust saying, “please don’t kill him. please don’t kill him.” but he just seems to be like – he just knowsthis way of life. this is what he does and that’s my reading of – to a large extentwhy he doesn’t leave. there’s the principal reason. like, he doesn’t think he shouldhave to but he just – this is what he knows. this is his home. this is what he has beendoing for years. trevor burrus: your comment about being anti-democracybut before the passage i read about the thirty. he seems to call that the days of the democracy.again, i don’t know how much he supports

it but he says – right before the – “imade up my mind that i would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather thantake part in your injustice because i feared imprisonment and death. this happened in thedays of the democracy. but when the oligarchy of the thirty …” so that’s – does that sound to you also– like you’re saying that that was the same time as the thirty, the democracy? thatwas unclear to me but i – he is pretty anti-democratic. i think that’s quite clear. aaron ross powell: i wanted to – this questionof the orders and what sort of orders he used to obey and the death before dishonor. i wantto tease that out a bit from this libertarian

perspective because it is – i mean it’sa really – it’s a fairly radical notion, right? and especially in the context of militarypeople that there are principles that he thinks were knowable via philosophy, principles ofhonor, principles of justice, and that those trump the state, that they – you know, theorders of the king, the orders of the democracy are not synonymous with justice and that whenthey conflict with justice, when they conflict with basic morality, our duty is to this – thesehigher principles. it’s not to the state, which is – i mean important from a libertarianperspective because many of our arguments – libertarianism when argued from a moralbackground, instead of in – as opposed to

say just like an economic efficiency argumentis often like look, what the state does is morally wrong. it’s morally wrong to take people’s moneyin these ways. it’s morally wrong to lock them in cages for taking certain substancesand that it’s your duty to follow morality and not the dictates of the state. but thisis – i mean trevor, you said everyone kind of believes the death before dishonor. trevor burrus: to some degree. aaron ross powell: but it’s also – it’san extremely controversial thing. i mean i – like does this mean that – i think it’strue that this means that say like a district

attorney has a moral obligation not to prosecutepeople for unjust – under unjust laws and that in fact if they do, they are behavingimmorally and should be condemned for it. but you could take it to the extreme in themilitary. remember, there was a twitter trending topica while back of like express your own popular opinion and i think it was will wilkinsonwho used to be at cato and now he’s not. his thing was soldiers who kill in unjustwars are murderers, which is an extremely controversial and radical claim to make andcertainly is not something that like you would have higher-ups in military say is the case,right? brian wilson: i think there’s a lot moregrey area than you might think. i mean it’s

something that’s kind of shocking to folksthat haven’t spent a lot of time with military folks, who have been in the military themselvesand it was something i was kind of surprised at. i went through the naval academy and ihad spent 13 years in the marine corps. there’s almost a dual-pronged education system there. there is – you would be shocked at the amountof time that we spent in situations like this, sitting around and talking about what’sthe right thing to do, you know, and how much it is reinforced that, you know, you haveto make unpopular decisions. you have to make decisions that are contrary to what somebodytold you to do because it’s the right thing. for a lot of folks, they just look at me afteri say something like that and they’re like,

“no, that’s not how it is.” i go, “i’mpretty sure it is. i was there.” and that helps you a great deal i think in your kindof own personal moral education and the troubling thing that you find is that you find peoplethat – in the military that ignore that. they’ve had that training but they err onthe side of not examining that maybe as closely as you would like them to. but i’m consistently kind of gratified bythe number of folks that seem completely at ease more or less with – i know if i’mtold something to do and it’s wrong that i’m not going to do it and i will acceptthe consequences of that and it’s fascinating. the kind of trite piece of that is you makean oath to the constitution to the orders

of your higher-ups, right? the key thing thereis that you just have to accept the consequences, right? so no matter what it is that you’rechoosing to do or not do, you have to accept the consequences and the example that i alwayslike to give is omar from the wire where it’s – you know, a man has got to have a code,right? a lot of people in the military kind of understandthat going in and there’s really from my experience a fairly small minority that don’tget that, that don’t understand that and the way that i would describe it, you know,having been to iraq is that i suited up for game time today. i got my uniform on. i’mhere to play, right? if somebody else wants to suit up and geton the field with me, that’s fine. they

are in the game. but if they’re not on thefield, they are spectators, they should not have anything happen to them at all, to themor their property or their family or anything. they are not in the game and that is somethingthat is – you know, reinforced i would say a significant amount in the military and it’sclear in our rules of engagement to assert – there’s ambiguity there. there are certainlyfolks that buck against that. but with my experience and kind of the counterinsurgencyrealm, it’s how you – i won’t say win but it’s how you don’t lose. trevor burrus: so how do the military thenin your program combat & classics like – you probably talk about this in regards to apology.like, could – is this something we can learn

lessons from in our jobs as military aboutwhat happens when you’re in a nuremberg type situation or something like this? brian wilson: yeah. i mean i really like – thepeople that show up for these are already kind of questioning a lot of things and they’realready wondering what else is out there as far as education. i mean another reason thati started this program was because i was enrolled in command and staff college, which is a requisitefor field grade officers and marine corps. i did that after st. john’s and i just didnot have a very good time. it was not something that was edifying and enlightening. when i’min annapolis or in these online seminars, there are these moments of tremendous joyin reading this kind of limitless works and

just talking with other people and havingthem help me learn in the socratic fashion what this means. is it logical? does it makesense and does it represent human nature? if not, where are the flaws? and picking thosethings apart is something i think that a lot of military audience want to do to a greaterdegree because too often it is – it is a nuremberg example. it is lieutenant calleyand my lai. those are the examples that are drawn out. so i think that our type of audience wantssomething like socrates’ apology where it’s like it’s not – it’s not 100 percentclear because – you know, was the state right in doing this? it’s another question.do they have the power to do this within their

purview to do something like this? was socratesa threat to the state? does the state have a moral obligation to act against those kindsof threats? well, i would love any of your feedback on any of those questions becausethat’s what i do. trevor burrus: well, that was part of my questiontoo and i thought you guys would have more – these accusers, because i wanted to tryand get a grip on what the state is in this because it’s not totally analogous to whatwe would – you know, post-westphalian, bavarian definition of a state, but these accusers,if they’re real – if they were even real people which is probably a silly question.but they seem to just represent classes of athenian society and he calls all of themidiots basically. i mean is there a mention

– like socrates went around and was tryingto figure out if anyone was wise and all these people are really smart. but they’re allnot wise at all. aaron ross powell: well, that – take thisopportunity to – there’s a wonderful – i love this line where he’s talking abouthis attempt to go and find people who are wise and he talks about looking at artistsand poets. he says poets are by far the worst because they think that they are wise butthey totally aren’t, which is interesting in light of how much he and everyone elsecites home and other poets as authorities. but he says – he’s talking about why theymight overestimate their wisdom and so he says because he is someone who is – saya very good poet or a very good artist. “because

he excelled in the practice of his art, hethought he was very wise in other most important matters and this mistake of theirs obscuredthe wisdom that they really possessed.” i just – that explains so much of humanbehavior and political opinions and washington brian wilson: that’s why there’s no topicunder the sun that paul krugman won’t write about. trevor burrus: yeah, or aaron’s big thingabout people who have some knowledge of tech therefore have large knowledge of how to reorganizehealthcare. aaron ross powell: yeah, or – i went toa dinner with a nobel laureate who had – in economics and had done work on a fairly narrowfield in economics and then received his nobel

prize and then wrote a book about basicallythe decline of america and american culture and it was everything that’s wrong withbasically the kids these days and it was very clear after listening to him talk that hisreal problem was he just didn’t understand what the internet was and like didn’t – hedidn’t understand what like – he had his tastes and he liked classical music and sorock and roll was the decline. he liked baroque art and so graffiti artists were an exampleof the end of western civilization. so is this like – he thought – you know, i’vebeen awarded this – there’s no prize that says you are wise more than the nobel prize,right? but it was for this narrow thing and he wasvery good in that line of his art. but he

thought that represented wisdom everywhereelse and this seems to be a very – paul krugman being another nobel laureate who thinkshe knows everything about everything. trevor burrus: i mean on that – going offthat, with these critics, who represent these different classes of athenian society, orat least the way i read it, who are all – it’s called idiots by socrates and i would sayby plato and i mean at this point – it’s a kind of a democracy and so there’s also– there’s a huge condemnation of the way that society and the state is currently madeup and the kind of idiots who run it, which again – again, very similar to jesus, thetrial, because a huge part of the gospel writers’ intention was to lambast the jews who “killed”jesus and the pharisees and the sadducees.

these different groups that were just badand so like there’s a subtext there in the gospels. here, we can read plato’s condemnation ofeverything about it. then we know from the republic what he really thinks a good societylooks like and it’s not very similar to what – the one that killed socrates. brian wilson: yeah. i mean i think that – forme, this – it might be self-congratulatory, right? but as libertarians, we say, “i don’tknow how to live your life.” i don’t know what you should do with your property. i justknow that you shouldn’t hurt me and you probably shouldn’t hurt other people too.but a lot of that is none of my business.

so we want to pat ourselves in the back andsay to a certain extent like we’ve accomplished some kind of socratic ideal. i don’t knowhow well we hew to that too much because i think that our instincts are like most humans’instincts of wanting to get involved in things that we potentially shouldn’t. but it also causes me – you know, becausewe think we kind of figured it out, right? we think we got – oh, it’s property, right?it’s property. trevor burrus: libertarians? brian wilson: yeah. it’s voluntary interaction.it’s – we’ve got these principles. so i think actually while we can pat ourselvesin the back to a certain degree and say we

have the socratic ideal of i don’t knowwhat’s best for you, there’s still a long way to go and maybe i’m not sure that thisis actually right. when we read kind of the foundational authors, if we’re reading misesor hayek or something like that, even in technical economic terms, we go, “i don’t know ifthis is right.” so i think that from the libertarian audience,they can get a ton from this kind of seminars, from this kind of readings and the militaryaudience as well because the military audience, i think, is also fairly sure how certain thingsare. but when you actually peel away those layers and you say, “well, define your terms,”and socrates doesn’t really do that either. but i think that that’s probably – atleast for me, that’s kind of how i found

libertarianism is because i thought i waspart team red because that’s basically what it is, team red, team blue. i thought i waspart of team red and i was like, ok, let me read about this conservative republican stuff.i went, “oh, this doesn’t make any sense.” you have to dig through those principles andyou have to question and question and question. when you think you figured out the right answer,you’re probably a meletus and you’re probably wrong. matthew feeney: yeah. i think what i especiallylike about the text – what you just said reminded me of this that it was – what socratesdoes is he’s asking his accusers to answer questions truthfully and they do and theylook dumb. it’s this sort of amazing – and

i think that’s why these are such profoundtext. that you read these accusers digging themselves into these logical holes and socratesis left with the truth on his side. trevor burrus: i’m imagining like goingto a white house press conference and being like, “you must answer truthfully now.”you’re making them look like idiots. matthew feeney: it’s sort of a grey imageto think of these hundreds of people staring down on socrates asking, i just want you to– you know, just lay it out for people to hear exactly what you think i’ve done andwhy you don’t like my response. i think the power of that – i mean i think it’sthe reason why it remains so poignant is that it’s not some sort of crime novel wherethere have been trumped-up evidence or whatever.

these people really believe that what socrateshas – admits that he’s doing is wrong and that’s what i think makes it reallygreat reading. aaron ross powell: and i think that’s what– your point about even these principles that we guess libertarians believe are correctand holds very strongly. we should have this degree of why and might i be wrong and mighti change my mind, which is a point that we make a lot on free thoughts. this notion – i mean socrates, when he presentslike this is – look, the choice is between sticking to justice or doing what i’m toldand we want to read the apology as look, he’s – socrates is standing up for justice andprinciple as opposed to the athenians who

are just angry at him or want to kill himoff. but these are arguments about principle that’sgoing on here. i mean the athenians think that they have principle on their side, thatthere is such a thing as impiety and he has been impious and being pious is really importanton a basic principle level and democracy matters and that respecting your elders matters andthe teaching the youth to disrespect their elders or doubt the wise is harmful to society.these are important principles and so they disagree with socrates on the core principlesof what really matters and that’s what the argument is about. that’s a very importantthing for libertarians to think about, for everyone to think about, that you’re closely– when there’s political disagreement

say, that it’s often at the level of – itcan happen at the level of principle. it’s not that you are principled and your opponentsaren’t, right? it’s that they hold different views andthey may be wrong but before we condemn them, we should make an attempt to really dig intothem, to really understand them, to really learn from them. brian wilson: that’s the trick thing andthat’s part of the reason why i wanted to ask about the mindset because it’s alwaysstaggering for me to read any plato and not put myself in socrates’ situation and justsay, “i just want to punch this guy.” like, it’s so – it just seems so demandingto both – you know, having done it, i’m

sure we’ve all done something, tried todo some type of socratic dialogue and whether you’re talking with another libertarianwho’s just like a little bit off from what you think is more important or whether you’retalking to a socialist or republican or democrat and you feel that anger begin to swell. that’sthe whole point. either anger or just you start laughing inside at least. trevor burrus: that they’re not giving theright answers? brian wilson: yeah. i mean they’re not beingtruthful. they’re not examining and so it’s yet another kind of thing that we try to bringto that military audience is saying like, you know, really take a look at what you’resure of. really examine what you’re sure

of and then be open to other interpretations. i had a very fortunate job in the marine corpsand then i did human intelligence. so while – you know, while i was in iraq, a lot ofmarines are having language barrier issues. they’re having kind of confrontational issueswith iraqis where i’m seeing iraqis who are risking their lives every day to comeand talk to me and tell me this guy is killing people, this guy is killing your guys, thisguy is doing the wrong thing. i see that level of bravery and i see that level of self-sacrifice. so i generalize and say the iraqis i dealtwith are some of the bravest people i’ve ever met and i bring that up in – you know,not in these seminars but in – you know,

just kind of conversations with other marinesand they just kind of look at me like, “what are you talking about?” because it’s nottheir impression. but that really helped me kind of understandthe big divergence that can happen within the military, between – you know, i’min the same place as you are. i’ve got the same things happening to me that are happeningto you and i have this completely diametrically-opposed thing. but it also – you know, maybe i’mwrong. maybe i’m wrong about this stuff. i think that’s very helpful for that militaryaudience to kind of be able to – if they can’t do it in a situation like that, atleast do it through the lens of socrates and say, “what am i more certain about and whatam i less certain? maybe i should take a look

at those.” aaron ross powell: so we’ve touched on thisa bit but maybe close by – your courses, your seminars are for military and ex-militarypeople. aaron ross powell: so the value of these textsin particular, these classic texts, to – because most of what we’re talking about is theseare lessons that we can all learn and we all have – we all see like just a certain sideof things and peeling back the layers and seeing the other side is valuable. but whatif anything in these texts is uniquely important for the military and ex-military audienceto learn? and then also i’m just curious. is there – when they respond to the textin the seminars, is there a difference in

the way that they respond to the text if they’reactive duty or reserve or veterans? brian wilson: yeah. i mean to your first point,you know, what we’re really trying to get at is what is the nature of man in conflictand what is the nature of man in cooperation. how do those two things differ? and the otherthing we’re trying to offer is an alternative, right? so for me, it was, ok, i can go tocommand and staff and not enjoy any of this or i can just kind of go back and hang outat st. john’s or start a program like this. well, the people that need to stay in needto accomplish things like that. at least i can hope to give them some little bit of adifferent avenue to educate themselves that might keep them sane during the kind of lesssane education that goes on within the military.

i think your last question was … aaron ross powell: when they’re respondingto the texts. do you see a difference in the way that they interpret or respond to thetext if they’re active duty versus say reserve or veteran? brian wilson: i think that the actual – wedon’t see a huge difference with active duty versus veteran or even versus service.what’s most entertaining and most enlightening for me is seeing the difference between themore senior and more junior members that come to the seminars. the more senior members have read, at leastthey think, a decent amount about this and

have many times kind of been within a certainworld view for a much longer time. so they have a lot of problems with some of the biggerquestions that we raise and they’re very defensive sometimes about the idea of doingit. somehow they got harangued into doing it or just the idea of asking some of thesequestions. the junior folks are much more open to reallyexamining, really critiquing what the reading means to them and also how it impacts theirmilitary career. so i mean most of the people that stick withthe program are really company grade, field grade type officers. these are folks thatare really in their like late 20s, early 30s. you know, haven’t made that step of saying,“ok, i’m going to stay in for 20 years,”

and it just – it’s one of those thingswhere it’s like if you can just reach like one or two people every seminar and get themto really kind of say, “wow, this is not something i knew was this important. it wasnot something i knew was this rich,” and it’s something that they’re going to carrywith them for the rest of their lives and go, “i need to do this.” aaron ross powell: free thoughts is producedby evan banks and mark mcdaniel. to learn more about libertarianism and the ideas thatinfluence is, visit us on the web at www.libertarianism.org.