The Crucifixion of Socrates
The End of Debate in American Universities
The Crucifixion of Socrates, by Ted Goldstein
Plato opens the Meno with a question: “Tell me Socrates, can virtue be taught?” The Platonic Discourses, eternally considered the foundation of Western Philosophy, all begin like this, with a question.
Questions, taught Socrates, were the basis of all pedagogy. A student acquires wisdom through reason. When the reason is not obvious, as Socrates proves that it never is, the topic must be questioned until the true reason presents itself. This is what we historically called, “The Socratic Method.”
However, the Socratic Method is so fundamental to the way that we learn, that perhaps we should actually call it “The Fourth Grade Method.”
In 4th grade, children develop the cognitive ability to question the things that younger children would ordinarily accept. This cognitive ability comes in a three-letter package: “why?” For anyone who has ever worked with 4th graders, you know that these three letters are the most dangerous threee letters in their vocabulary, because no matter how many answers you give, the child is immediately ready to challenge you again, “why?”
For anyone who has read any Plato, you know that Socrates was no different from your average 4th grader in this regard. He was generally considered a nuisance at best, a villain at most, and he seems to have successfully annoyed all of Athens enough to the point that he was put on permanent time-out. When I first learned about the execution of Socrates, I was horrified – after teaching 4th grade religious school for two years, however, I can at least say I understand where Athens was coming from.
I understand where Athens was coming from because it’s frustrating to have a plan that you want to execute that gets completely waylaid by some annoying kid asking, “Why?” 30 times in 20 seconds. I get it. Most adults get it. That’s why we yell at a kid who asks why 5 times in a row instead of thanking her for her questions and asking if she can hold them until after class.
I know about this experience because I’ve lived it. I taught a class of 16 of some of the brightest 4th graders I’ve ever met, and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.
There is a very that every educator has: what if the student asks a question that I can’t answer? What could be more embarrassing for a teacher? Of course, the true educator yearns for that moment more than anything, the moment that one of their students take their lessons further than they had ever taken it and then the lines between student and teacher get blurred and they can both reach a new kind of learning. The true educator hears a question he can’t answer and says, “Thank you! Wow, what a question, I have absolutely no idea. What are you thinking?”
Because education does not have a goal. You are not done with my class when you have acquired these 30 pieces of information; you are done with my class when you have learned that learning never ends, and you know how to go out into the world and ask good questions.
But that’s not how we teach our students anymore. Indeed, the situation has become so disastrous in American education that I don’t even know if ‘teach’ is the right word to use anymore. Our scholastic disciplines have become so filled with self-created jargon that most of our university courses are classes in vocabulary more than they are in cognition. Take any paper from any social science at random, and I can almost guarantee that there will be at least 10 words in there that could not be understood by someone who had not received the exact same training as the writer of said paper.
A good fourth grader would have a field day in a university course. Professors have become so reliant upon their jargon that they cannot, in many circumstances, teach without it.
For example, the word, ‘discourse.’ I have struggled in recent years because, I was under the impression, as I believe many of us were, that discourse referred to a conversation BETWEEN two or more people with two or more points of view. However, recently, the word ‘discourse’ has become much more monolithic. You have phrases like, ‘liberal discourse,’ ‘conservative discourse,’ ‘racial discourse,’ ‘gender discourse,’ etc..,.
What is so strange about calling these things ‘discourse’ is that there is literally no discourse about the topics whatsoever. There is a ‘gender discourse’ happening on the far left politically, which is influenced by the ‘gender discourse’ happening in Gender and Sexuality Studies classes,’ and there is a ‘gender discourse’ among ultra-conservatives that is a rejection of the liberal gender discourse.
However, if this was actually a discourse, it would be a discourse BETWEEN the far left theoreticians and the far right theoreticians, and the side with the most truth would theoretically win. But it’s not a discourse because neither side is willing to be questioned by the other. They just find out what the other side was saying, mock it, and then block anyone who tries to open up the space for a real interpersonal discourse.
Imagine if the Athenians could have blocked Socrates. G-d knows they wanted to.
Socrates' biggest enemies were the Sophists. The Sophists were people who taught others the art of ‘Rhetoric,’ which is the art of persuasion. They were not interested in Truth; they were only interested in personal acclaim.
Then, one day, Socrates comes along, and he starts asking all of these questions, and, suddenly, the rhetoric of the Sophists starts falling apart. They start losing students. When they lose students, they lose money. They want to get their students back, but they cannot. They cannot because they cannot defeat Socrates.
The art of the Sophists was called Sophistry, and it's the root for the word, ‘Sophisticated.’ A ‘Sophisticated’ person is someone who is well-trained in the art of rhetoric and persuasion; it is not necessarily someone who is well-trained in Truth-Seeking. In fact, most ‘Sophisticated’ people are terrible at Truth-Seeking because sophistication is more social than it is intellectual, but that’s a discourse for another time.
Eventually, the Sophists realized that they could not defeat Socrates in open battle, so they leveled a calumny at him: they accused him of corrupting the youth. They brought him up on these charges, and they executed him.
Before he died, his friends came to him and offered to help him escape, and Socrates says no. Let history know that they killed me for asking questions so that my students may know how much a good question is worth.
After the death of Socrates, his greatest student, no doubt just as annoying of a questioner as Socrates, established The Academy, which was to be a self-contained universe for the acquisition of wisdom through questioning and the Socratic Method. Plato’s Academy was the progenitor of modern-day Academia.
So all the more tragic, then, that it was the Academy that crucified the Socratic Method this time. Where are the debates on college campuses? Where is the discourse? Where are the conservatives challenging liberal beliefs? Why do we have safe spaces for silence, but no safe spaces for debate? Why do we tolerate students silencing speakers? Is that what Socrates taught us? To shout down the questioner? To terrify the Truth-Seeker? There is not one American University that could handle a student like Socrates at this moment. Not one. There is not one American University that teaches its students how to question the world around them. Not one.
The students coming out of American Universities are Sophisticated Machine Men. They have learned how to talk fancy and make up 5 syllable words that sound smart, but they never learned how to question. And it’s tragic. For them more than anyone else. Do you think the life of a Sophisticated Machine will be fulfilling? How will they ever learn anything about themselves if we never teach them how to learn?
The students coming out of American Universities are not just uneducated; they’re miseducated. They’ve been taught by people who are unwilling to have their lessons questioned. That creates a culture that is unwilling to ask questions. Without questions, we cannot examine our ideas, our world, our lives. And, if one thing has remained true for the past 2500 years, it is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
