Britannica's Great Books Of The Western World - Year 1

Apology by Plato

In which:

• Socrates has been accused of deceiving and poisoning the youth of Athens
• He’s brought before the Senate to plead his case
• Socrates refuses to beg for his life because he hasn’t done anything wrong
• Socrates asserts and defends that he’s done nothing wrong, by both the letter and intent of the law
• Socrates is convicted; the penalty is death

What of it?

• The law is different from those who execute on it
• The law can’t tell us if we’ve lived a good life
• Other humans can’t tell us if we’ve lived a good life
• Man’s Search For Meaning: only we have the power to choose what it all means
  • An idea that’s stuck in my head: You live. Shit happens. You die. Everything else is up to you.

Crito by Plato

In which:

• Socrates sleeps peacefully in his cell, knowing death awaits him
• Crito, a dear friend, looks on amazed
  • How can one about to die feel so much peace?
• Crito compels Socrates to flea
  • There are resources available
  • Socrates’s students need him
• Socrates refuses to escape, explaining that an escape at death’s door motivated by fear will rob his life’s work of its impact
• Crito reminds Socrates that he’s heading to his doom
• Socrates concludes that there are worse things than death
• Crito relents and departs

What of it?

• None of us gets out of here alive
• We ought to run towards a life well lived, no matter its duration

Clouds by Aristophanes

In which:

• St. and Ph. are a father-son pair
• St. is in debt and wants to get out from under it by “out-reasoning” (cheating) his lenders
• St. seeks out a portrayal of Socrates to teach him how to logic his way out of debt
• The portrayal of Socrates teaches St. a bunch of nonsense
  • Some of this teaching happens off-stage while early Athenian “rap” (rhyming verse) entertains the audience
• St. can’t quite grasp the nonsense, but is convinced the answer to all his woes is in there somewhere
• St. recruits his son to learn in his stead
• Ph. is cajoled into learning and receives instructions from Right Logic and Wrong Logic
  • Right Logic argues that justice is a real and measurable thing
  • Wrong Logic asserts that all men (and all gods) have committed crimes so considering justice is a waste of our time
• Socrates and St. return to see how Ph. is progressing in his learning
  • Ph. is really just confused.
• Creditors interrupt the debrief and St. dodges his debts. And the scene ends.
• A new scene begins with Ph. beating St.
  • Ph. uses the logic he’s learned to defend his actions are justified: you beat me when I was smaller and weaker than you, so now I can beat you.
• St. is in yet another situation he doesn’t want to be in, and blames the clouds for sending him to Socrates in the first place.
• St. acknowledges that it was wrong for him to keep is money, but learns it from the gods not from men.
• St. goes and burns down the school of Socrates, killing the students there. He feels justified in this action because the students there blaspheme against the gods.

What of it?

• People in trouble will do anything to get out of it.
• You can’t escape the problems you’re in using the same thinking that got you into them.
• Insecurity has been being used to manipulate and guilt trip for more than 2000 years.
• Without justice, we’re barbaric. The strongest win.
  • When Haidt’s “Hive Switch” doesn’t activate, we need to impose structure.
• Lack of accountability to social norms leads to chaos.
• The bad guys never think they’re in the wrong.

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

In which:

• Lysistrata starts a sex strike among a community of women to compel their men to end their wars
• The women begrudgingly join the quest
• The men arrive and try to figure out what this is all about
  • There is some bickering and escalations of violence, even though Lysistrata’s mission is to quell the violence
• Some of the women try to go back on their strike
• Lysistrata convinces them to stay the course
• One woman in particular, Myrrhina, sneaks away with her man
• The enemies in the war also arrive on site, seeking peace because their women have likewise started a sex strike (motivated by Lysistrata) until the war is over
• Myrrhina continues to string her man along and finally leaves without giving him what he wants
• Myrrhina’s man gets it. He returns to the rest of the men.
• Peace is agreed upon and everyone rides off into the sunset.

What of it?

• Community organizing is a superpower. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
• If you’re able to keep your crew motivated through the hard times, they’ll do what you’d hoped for them to do when you’re not watching.
  • Keeping a team motivated and aligned is very hard.
• Victory demands sacrifice and commitment
• Understanding history is an important ingredient to building a compelling case.
• Followers are what make leaders powerful.
• War always has collateral damage.
• Violence is almost always answered with more violence.
• The burdens we choose to carry aren’t always productive for moving us towards what we want.
• Learned helplessness is within our control. We can unlearn it.

The Republic, Books I and II by Plato

Quotes:

Book I

• p.296 – “For let me tell you, that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.”

• p.296 – “There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cepahlus, that conversing with aged men: for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.”

• p.296 – “Some complain of the slights wihch are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause.”

• p.296 – “For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many.”

• p.296 – “…for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.”

• p.296 – “… for to teh good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself.”

• p.297 – “And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.”

• p.297 – “…the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought they they may be true…”

• p.297 – “And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to decieve or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offering due to the gods or debts which he owes to men.”

• p.299 – “Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?”

• p.299 – “It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?”

• p.301 – “The natural thing is, that the speaker shoudl be someone liek yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows.”

• p.301 – “… and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.”

• p.302 – “Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse?”

• p.302 – “…for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists… we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler is unerring… as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger.”

• p.303 – “…has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does every art requrie another supplementary art to provide for its interests, and that another and another without end?.. For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true– that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired.”

• p.303 – “Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?”

• pp.303-304 – “Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does.”

• p.304 – “Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust.”

• p.304 – “Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much.”

• p.304 – “For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it.”

• p.304 – “…as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit and interest.”

• p.304 – “Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded.”

• p.305 – “I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception.”

• p.305 – “I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as ruler, whether in a state or in private life, could only regard the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority.”

• p.305 – “But the truth is, that whiel the art of medicine gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay.”

• p.305 – “Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interest of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger– to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior.”

• p.305 – “… no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration.”

• p.306 – “… and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good.”

• p.306 – “You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice?”

• p.306 – “And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?”

• p.306 – “I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite.”

• p.307 – “I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you?”

• p.307 – “Does the just man try to gain any advantage over the just?”

• p.307 – “We may put the matter thus, I said– the just does not desire more than his like but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike? Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement.”

• p.308 – “Then the just has turned out to be wise and good and the unjust evil and ignorant.”

• p.308 – “As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point…”

• p.308 – “And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship…”

• p.309 – “And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person; in the first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the just?”

• p.310 – “Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other?”

• p.310 – “Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live ill?”

• p.310 – “…so I have gone fromm one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice.”

• p.310 – “And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy.”

Book II

• p.310 – “With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning.”

• p.310 – “Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?”

• p.311 – “For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear.”

• p.311 – “I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice paraed in respect of itself; then I sahll be satisfied, and you are the person from whom I thnk that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utomost of my power, and my manner of sapking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and cersuring injustice.”

• p.311 – “…nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse.”

• p.311 – “This they affirm to be be the origin and nature of justice– it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliations; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inabilty of men to do injustice.”

• p.311 – “Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his his hand, when instantly he bacme invisible to the rest of the compnay and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present.”

• p.312 – “Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respoects be like a God among men.”

p.312 – “… for wherever an one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.”

In which:

Book I

• The men of Athens gather to discuss the good life.
  • Age, temperament, money, holiness, travel
• A particular definition of a good person is suggested and accepted:
  • Someone who “has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others”
• A proposal of justice is made and challenged:
  • Proposal 1: justice is paying your debts and speaking the truth
  • Challenge 1: the context of repaying the debts matters
  • Proposal 2: justice “gives good to friends and evil to enemies”
  • Challenge 2:
    • the context of the giving, and the definition of friends and enemies both matter
    • people are wrong quite often about good/bad, right/wrong, and their perception of a situation is likely to change
• Socrates is challenged, by Thrasymachus in particular, to just answer the question already instead of parrying the definitions offered by others. What is justice?
• Thrasymachus hems and haws, accuses Socrates of only ever stealing knowledge from others, and then sets in to define justice.
  • Thrasymachus defines justice as the will of the strongest.
  • Socrates rebuts – there must be more to justice than strength. Those who rule well consider what is best for their subjects, not for themselves.
  • Thrasymachus doubles down – we must examine outcomes.
    • Those who are “just” in Socrates’s view will always submit to the will of the strongest.
      • e.g. when a “just” and “unjust” man are in contract, the “unjust” man will end with more.
      • e.g. when a “just” and “unjust” man pay taxes, the “unjust” man will keep more of his own money
    • This whole condemnation of strength is not about “justice” – it is the weak pooling together to protect themselves from those who would win via strength.
  • Socrates challenges:
    • We agreed that rulers rule well by thinking first of the needs of their subjects. Now you say that rulers like being in power. They are there for their own benefit, not the benefit of their subjects.
    • And then asserts that, in a society of all good men, the fight to not lead would be as great as the fight to lead.
  • Glaucon sides with Socrates that justice is more advantageous than injustice.
  • Thrasymachus gets frustrated and makes his arguments extreme and obtuse.
  • Socrates keeps his cool and persists with question after question.
• Socrates vanquishes Thrasymachus, but finds himself unsatisfied. The question of what justice is has been ignored.

Book II

• The group resets for “the real” discussion.
• Glaucon presses Socrates for a deeper discussion.
  • To prove that justice is indeed the better path, Glaucon will argue the opposite and hope Socrates will do the work of finding holes.
    • point 1: nature and origin of justice
      • injustice brings rewards, but also a risk of punishment. Justice is merely the middle ground we find when the people desiring to do injustice aren’t willing to risk the punishments. It’s an uncomfortable equilibrium. Not a desired state.
      • a thought experiment that involves a shepherd with something very much like Tolkien’s Ring of Power
    • point 2: those adhering to justice do so against their will
    • point 3: the life of the unjust is better

What of it?

Book I

• Does getting old suck? No. Age is age. What it means is up to you.
• Is it tolerant to be intolerant of intolerance?
  • Remember: the grass is greener where you water it.
  • If you want tolerance, you must remain tolerant even in the face of intolerance. Be better.
• There is more to life than measuring outcomes.
  • New principle: outcomes and intentions both matter. Journey over destination. Orientation over location.
• Does the stronger always win? No. Strength is contextual. What it means is up to you.
  • Poetry: one plus one doesn’t always equal two.
  • Principle: the grass is greener where you water it.
  • Rephrase: Justice is alignment to some interest. As a group, we choose whose interests matter at a given time. This changes over time and place, and based on who we define as “the group.”
  • Addendums: Nothing exists in a vacuum. Morally just people accept losses and carry on. Orientation over location.
  • Principle: If you want to understand behavior, understand incentives.
• A ruler (or leader) is asked to take accountability for things beyond their control. In exchange for this unpleasantness and exposure, it is only fair to pay them.
• Claim: Justice is in the interest of the strong.
  • Rebuttal: Good men are just. Good men lead, but not because they are strong.
• Those who are unjust want more than everyone. Those who are just only want the share they’ve earned.
• Those who are just have a better life than those who are unjust because those who are just will pool together their efforts. Evil doers can’t build long-lived teams.
• Sometimes we have to blab and blab and blab to get to the good stuff.
• The better questions you ask, the more likely you are to get to the good stuff sooner.
• Principle: Every conversation we end starts another one.

Book II

• Different audiences demand different discussions.
• If you can’t focus your thinking, you can’t move the needle.
• Seeming to persuade is much different than actually persuading.
  • Culture eats policy for breakfast.
• You are what you make. If you make an opposite argument, that’s what you’ll get good at. If you want to convince yourself that justice is better, spend your time building that case. Do the deep work. Use the opposites as a tool to unblock better thinking and forward motion.
• Character is priceless.
• The Invisible Man will always go crazy, because he necessarily can’t be connected.
  • Creativity is lonely is the same way. No one can really see you. And the finished product is… superficial. It’s only a portion of you. Manufactured for viewing. That’s fake, in a way. But it’s also showing respect to the game. It’s showing your audience the 1% at the tip of the iceberg, for their viewing pleasure. It’s honoring the game and what came before. Is it good enough? Only the artist can say. It all depends what the goal is.

Related books:

• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
• Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• The Ones Who Walk From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin