Friends of Aesthetic Realism
            Countering the Lies
“It’s a lie, and not a well told one at that.
  It grins out like a copper dollar.”

                  —Abraham Lincoln
 

A Dramatic and Cautionary Tale about an Unknown and Very Unimportant Person

Note. The following tale was forwarded to us by anthropologist Arnold Perey. It appears to be a translation. We gather that the information in it was obtained from writings on papyrus unearthed in an archeological dig northeast of Athens.

There once was a young man of ancient Greece named Milos. And Milos knew Socrates. He did not like Socrates because the great man asked far too many questions. And even worse, though he said he knew nothing, he knew more than Milos.

Now Milos had a mother who regarded him as a gift to Greece. And she thought of Socrates as a much overrated busybody and heretic. And Milos was not immune to either the praise his mother gave him or the blame she laid upon others.

Milos was interested in power. And when he attended the Dialogues of Socrates he felt he should be teaching the students, not that old philosopher. Listening to Socrates made him sleepy. When the youths would exclaim "What a great man!" and eagerly discuss new ideas as they came from afternoons when Socrates conversed freely with all, Milos was angry. He wanted them to say "That Milos! What a great mind!" and discuss his exploits at gaming and not the arguments of Socrates. But they didn't. "I should be the toast of Athens," thought Milos, and grumbled to himself while looking as pleasant as he could.

"He forces them to attend," he would say about the people who couldn't get enough of listening to Socrates, the people who came again and again, the people who felt a man like Socrates was born once in a hundred years (if that often). "It's expected of them to come," he grumbled. "If they don't come to 9 out of 10 Dialogues they are chastised. It's that infamous student of Socrates named Plato that makes them come. Perhaps if I blacken the name of Plato they will stay away." And he tried.

In the Dialogues, when the students in their turn questioned Socrates, and he answered even the most difficult questions with depth and sweetness and thorough (and modest) logic, it made Milos angrier than ever. "How could he know so much," he would say under his breath and grit his teeth.

"Perhaps," thought Milos, "if I remove my garments and run naked through the marketplace people will see the originality of my mind." And so he did. But the people of Athens went on buying their vegetables and fruit, and fish, and bread as always and were neither sufficiently scandalized nor sufficiently impressed to suit Milos. "Never mind, I'll try it again another time," he said comfortingly to himself.

Milos began to lie in earnest about Socrates. He made up offenses which had never taken place, for the great man who only had spoken to Milos a few times wished him well. He had tried to teach Milos, but without success. Unfortunately, in asking Socratic questions of Milos, a person was addressed who hated to learn from another. "Too many questions!" said the young man sneeringly to his mother, meaning, "Too many questions for me to maintain my usual level of narcissism."

Milos sought revenge. He told everyone he could, in the council, the marketplace, the homes of friends, that Socrates was trying to tear down the great tradition of Greece: the worship of the living gods--Apollo, Zeus, Dionysus. He told the priests how the old man believed in a higher power and had questioned the gods' very existence, despite the fact that everyone could see them, made of marble and wood and gold and paint, in the city's "cultus" temples of worship. He accused Socrates of leading a new and heretical cultus in which he was the object of worship himself.

There is no record as to whether the lies of the young vermin, Milos, had an effect or not. For there were already some local officials and jealous intellectuals whose lust to be superior had spurred in them a sullen and restless anger at the brilliance and plentitude of ideas coming from the philosophic school of Socrates.

And so, in the Encyclopedia Britannica , more than 2000 years afterwards, Professor Edward Taylor of Oxford and Edinburgh tells how a "half-witted" and "fanatic" prosecutor indicted Socrates for "impiety." And at the trial the vague charge of "corrupting the youth" was made. And the court,"incensed" at the great man for telling them truthfully that he "merited the treatment of an eminent benefactor"—and not a trial for crimes he did not commit—sentenced him to death by drinking the cup of hemlock. The greatest philosophic innovator of Greece was to pay with his life.

In the famous depiction of Socrates by the French painter David, the man of thought, condemned to death by suicide, discourses serenely in prison with his friends and students—the poisoned cup in his raised hand. In the Dialogue Crito, his friend begs him to escape, to flee Athens, and not take his life as the law has dictated. But Socrates cannot bring himself to flee. He has done no wrong and will not break the law now.

After Athens mourned the loss of the man who reasoned nobly about beauty, ethics, life and death, and equality—the man who believed knowledge was happiness—Milos continued his campaign of revenge. He wanted to demolish utterly the contemporary who dared to know more than himself. And so he
started in on Socrates' posthumous reputation. He would whisper to known purveyors of the lowest gossip; he would grasp the collar of whomever he could in the marketplace and say, spitting ever so slightly, "How great was Socrates, really? He said self-knowledge made for a happy life. But how happy was he? He committed suicide."

Yes, Socrates is safe in the bosom of history. And Milos is no longer remembered. The perfidy of ancient Athens, however, is remembered; and it always will be. Now, in our time, we have to ask: How much is this injustice, oh this murderous injustice, in action this very day?

READ WHAT'S TRUE—
  • Read statements by many individual men and women inside
  • Reviews from the NY Times Book Review, Saturday Review, Library Journal, Harlem Times, Popular Photography, and more
  • Poetry by Eli Siegel, so greatly respected by William Carlos Williams and many others
  • Read lectures by Eli Siegel on subjects as diverse as literature, love, & economics
  • What really is learned in classes taught by Ellen Reiss
  •  
     
    Isn't being Anonymous
       wonderful?
    I can say anything ugly and
       dishonest I choose...
       >continued
    bullet for Friends of Aesthetic Realism "The Incredible Aesthetic Realism Deadlock..."
                                and more

    A Dramatic and Cautionary Tale about an Unknown and Very Unimportant Person

    There once was a young man of ancient Greece named Milos. And Milos knew Socrates. He did not like Socrates because the great man asked far too many questions....continued

    Statements by Friends of Aesthetic Realism

    Barbara Allen
    Frances Amello
    Jerry Amello
    Christopher Balchin
    Mara Bennici
    David Berger
    Alice Bernstein
    Rachel J. Bernstein
    Barbara Buehler
    Gina Buffone
    Beverly Sue Burk
    Maureen Butler
    Jeffrey Carduner
    Margot Carpenter
    Lori & Robert Colavito
    Albert Corvino
    Nicholas Corvino
    Henry D'Amico
    Matthew D’Amico
    Ernest DeFilippis
    Vincent DiPietro
    Carol Driscoll
    Donita Ellison
    Lorraine Galkowski, RN
    Pamela Goren
    Edward Green
    Avi Gvili
    Ames Huntting
    Mark Lale
    Dale Laurin
    Rose Levy
    Timothy Lynch
    Lorraine Mahoney, RN
    Derek Mali
    Glenn Mariano
    Haroldo Mauro Jr.
    Joseph Meglino
    Pauline Meglino
    Allan Michael
    Marvin Mondlin
    Robert Murphy
    Michael J. Nadeau
    Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman
    Ruth Oron
    Arnold Perey, PhD
    Lauren Phillips
    Jack Plumstead
    Maria Plumstead
    Rosemary Plumstead
    Rev. Wayne Plumstead
    Marcia Rackow
    Zvia Ratz
    Ann Richards
    Anthony C. Romeo
    Leila Rosen
    Rhonda Rosenthal
    Sally Ross
    Claudia Senatore
    Sheldon Silverman
    Jeffrey Sosinsky, MD
    Barbara Spetly McClung
    Joseph Spetly
    Faith K. Stern
    John Stern
    Arlene Sulkis
    Devorah Tarrow
    Jaime R. Torres, DPM
    Dennis L. Tucker
    Francine Weber
    Steve Weiner
    Miriam Weiss
    Carrie Wilson


    Also see the Aesthetic Realism Online Library  the Aesthetic Realism Foundation  Terrain Gallery  What scholars, writers, artists & teachers are saying  the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company  & Links
    © 2004-8 Friends of Aesthetic Realism—Countering the Lies. All rights reserved