Napoleon is a 2023 biopic depicting key moments in the life of infamous French military Commander and Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon and Vanessa Kirby as his wife Empress Joséphine. It was directed by Ridley Scott, famous for films such as Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and the famous “1984” Apple Macintosh Superbowl Commercial.
-Why should you care?-
Napoleon feels like the filmed version of skimming through Napoleon’s Wikipedia Page. Many scenes in his life are depicted—his rise to power, his visit to Egypt, his coronation, his exiles, the Battle of Waterloo. It can all feel a little rushed. Some sequences entirely play like they were cut together purely for the sake of the trailer.
This is most likely because the film was produced through Apple Studios, the production company who is primarily responsible for the material found on Apple TV+, Apple’s streaming platform. Scott has talked openly about a four hour director’s cut planned to be released on Apple TV+. No doubt the film, in some way, was meant to be a large trailer for an even larger film, itself a huge mainstream advertisement for Apple Studios’ ongoing foray into theatrical releases. Plus, a redirection of attention to their streaming service.
Therefore, when the directing and the editing fail, it is the acting which saves this movie.
Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix play their parts with excellence. Phoenix has a juvenile neuroticism which he plays off as both charming, and at times embarrassing. Kirby’s Joséphine is cool, but vulnerable, and angry too. These two characters truly both hate and love each other, and in the moments where the movie slows down and they are allowed to interact, Napoleon becomes a window into a deeper film.
These performances make the movie worth watching. Like the real Napoleon was destined to conquer Europe, Joaquin’s Napoleon is destined to join the likes of Driver, Patrick Bateman, K, Travis Bickle, Cliff Booth, and all the others in the Sanctuary of He’s Just Like Me For Real. Albeit, in a niche role. Do not mistake memetic connotation for cheap tricks, though—this Napoleon is genuinely fun to watch. He feels modern and sincere in his emotional outbursts, yet equally capable of switching into a grim battlefield certainty. I’m interested to see what more we’ll get from him when Scott decides to make his Director’s Cut available.
Kirby’s Joséphine is a bitter woman who, in spite of herself, appears to love the man she’s chosen. Vanessa plays the character with a demure nature, one where it’s hard to tell when she is in control of the situation and of herself, and when she is barely holding back for the sake of those around her. There is a section of the film where she is moved from the Imperial Palace in Paris, for the sake of her health, to a small estate in the countryside. I could watch an entire movie about her life in that house. Kirby is a captivating actress, and against a Napoleon of cinema like Joaquin, she holds her own well.
-The Conclusion-
It’s a film hacked to pieces in the editing bays of distant studios, and its performances emerge with nothing much more than ribbons to cover them. In spite of this, there is still something beautiful in this piece, and its two leads deserve full recognition for not only keeping their dignity, but bringing real life to something nearly torn apart.
A 2023 teen Summer comedy about two best friends who start a fight club to meet women.
-Why should you care?-
Bottoms is that rare blend of comedy trending between realism and satire. It’s style is very much in the vein of movies like Mean Girls and Heathers, with the gag-driven surrealism of shows like The Simpsons and Clone High. It’s a really unique style of American comedy that is difficult to nail down, because it requires a straightforward approach and commitment to the humor and the story at the same time. Bottoms manages to dance this song pretty well. It may be off the beat in some moments, but it adds a youthful charm which makes the movie more endearing than anything else.
In all reality, The Simpsons is actually the most apt comparison to Bottoms. Both of them satirize American life while endeavouring to paint a sincere portrait of it. This creates, in the best moments, a wonderful tone where humor, character, and story all come alive.
-The Conclusion-
Bottoms is a truly spirited American comedy which will no doubt go down as a cult classic. I would honestly not be surprised to see a sequel, or even a prequel produced, though given its modest box office returns, we may need to wait a bit. Treat yourself to some classic American comedy, and go see Bottoms today.
Crouched on a crowded sidestreet in Chinatown, shaded by the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, you’ll find a compact little diner with a powerhouse staff serving classic American Breakfast food with a local neighborhood twist to hip Manhattanites and Chinatown natives alike.
Welcome to the Golden Diner.
I visited the Golden Diner this past weekend after a month or so of having it on my list. This is one of the more highly-rated places I discovered while building my archives, and I was excited to try it out, as it’s also the only diner I could find—at least online—located in Chinatown.
Coming in, I was quickly seated at the counter. This is a small space—you could walk from end to end in about ten seconds, though they make the absolute most of it. Groups of tables and chairs are abutted in a lone breakfast nook, and up alongside a long and wide main front window. Patrons discuss the events of their lives, and the plans for their ongoing weekend, in the warm orange light of overhead Tiffany lamps, mosaic shades decorated with roses.
At the counter, servers pass orders to the chefs, who in turn bark those orders—in a friendly, but precise and serious tone—to the rest of the staff. All the cooking is done right in front of you, and more than any other place I’ve been, I felt like I was practically in a real kitchen as the cooks worked in a television flow of manning the grill, chopping ingredients, plating dishes, replying “Yes, chef!” to every question posed, every demand made, every comment passed on under the breath. The Golden Diner, for the time I was there, really was like a fictional, scrappy big city diner come to life—New York’s very own The Bear.
And much like The Bear, I’m partial to believing that somehow the Golden Diner is currently being run by a harried, chain-smoking prodigal son or daughter, a truly divine and common figure of New York breakfast fare, because my meal absolutely murdered.
I had:
• The Chinese Egg & Cheese Sando, with avocado and sausage.
• Home fries.
• Coffee.
• Water.
• A piece of green tea cake.
This food was fantastic. The Sando is essentially a breakfast sandwich, served on a milk roll—think a sort of buttery, flaky-but-still-solid kind of crescent roll. Its eggs were gooey, dripping with cheese, and they practically melted in my mouth as I ate. The avocado was fresh and brought a solid flavor to the meal, while the sausage provided a real nice, meaty base. As a side, the home fries were crisp on the outside, soft and warm on the inside—basically little breakfast potato bites, a somewhat simple, but ultimately satisfying sidecar.
Here’s the thing, though—I was absolutely, completely, one hundred percent blown away by the very end of the meal. The green tea cake.
If you go to any diner in the city, right now, please go to the Golden Diner, just for this green tea cake. It is one of the single best dishes I’ve ever had at any diner, not just in the city, but anywhere I’ve been, in my life, and I really, truly, sincerely mean that.
This cake was lush, fluffy, creamy, and still solid in the middle—it had real weight to it. The top was a perfectly baked, flaky crumble, not brittle in the slightest, and seasoned with a loving dash of powdered sugar. Flavor-wise, it was like all the best parts of green tea and chocolate, something so oddly light and colorful, with a rich sweetness and a beautiful clash of textures to it all that made every bite worth the visit.
That green tea cake is God’s gift to Chinatown, and the world. It makes the Golden Diner a heavensent sanctuary of local cuisine, and I will defend it with ardent zeal until the day I die. May we all, one day, be so lucky as to have that be the day we try the Golden Diner green tea cake for the first time.
I think this might be my new favorite diner in the city. It feels like a fictional place, like somewhere that shouldn’t exist, that is so colorful in a quiet way, and powerfully gifted in what it does, that it belongs in a timeless story. Maybe, one day, it might just find its way into one.
I highly, highly, highly recommend the Golden Diner for anyone visiting the city. Step inside, have a hearty, stylish meal, a piece of heavenly cake, and live for a moment inside an episode of one of New York’s best living shows.
The Rehearsal is a 2022 reality satire program created by Nathan Fielder and produced/distributed by HBO. The show follows Fielder, a slightly stiff and awkward man, in his attempts to help other people overcome their anxieties towards major life events—everything from being honest about lying to a friend, to raising a child—by rehearsing them. Fielder accomplishes this by constructing a set of the location where the major life event will take place that is so detailed as to be indistinguishable from the real place. Here, the participant is run through a variety of scenarios in order to practice for every possible outcome during the real event they’re preparing for.
These rehearsals, and the event they prepare the individuals for, often result in both comedic and genuinely sympathetic outcomes as both the subject and Fielder are forced to confront the realities of not only trying to plan for every scenario, but what happens when the unexpected manages to make its way through even the most airtight plan.
-Why should you care?-
The Rehearsal will not be for everyone—and it’s initial debut has proven the point. Many of its critics believe Fielder is punching down at his subject matter, finding regular people and putting them through ridiculous, even hurtful, scenarios so he can produce a television show that will demonstrate his prowess as a cult comedy icon and a showrunner of significant and novel stature.
That criticism is not necessarily unfounded. Fielder made his entry into the popular awareness with Nathan For You, a show with a similar model and spirit, where he approached small business owners with outlandish but at times inventive or ingenious ideas to improve their business, and filmed the entire process. Much of the show has been cited as a document for how far people will go when they know a television camera is involved—and that is a large part of the criticism directed towards Fielder, that he baits regular people into on-camera spectacles, which he subsequently distances himself from through a demeanor that is simultaneously awkward and unsure yet oddly and sometimes suddenly perceptive and cutting.
Again, this is not unfounded. Fielder is, at this point, a veteran of the entertainment industry and has far more experience both on-camera and in a performative sense than anyone he could bring on his show. That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t subjected himself to embarrassing or cruel situations or people—but he’s a professional performer, and his subjects are not. There’s a strong case to be made that no one other than him, or someone with a similar background to his, could fully consent to any of what goes on during his shows, because no one other than him or someone like him would have both the natural and the trained ability to handle reactions both honestly and appropriately for the camera. A possible analogy could be an Olympic competitive swimmer who invites regular people with little swimming experience to try their hardest to swim for a certain amount of time on-camera in exchange for money. Occasionally, the swimmer gets in the pool, and despite being awkward and out-of-touch, easily surpasses any of the regular people. He then gets out and continues to film, all while maintaining his, “I don’t quite get regular people, aren’t they odd?” personality.
This is a simple distillation and a lot of criticism, so do not let it overshadow nor undermine these next words—Nathan Fielder is authentically a television genius. This kind of superlative is trotted out for him often, even moreso now with The Rehearsal, but it deserves to be said.
Personally, this reviewer believes such reasoning for a title can be found in what they thought to be the most gripping episode of The Rehearsal, the first. The introduction of the idea of rehearsing, the reveal of the replica set, the visuals of Nathan recording the participant’s dialogue in trees with a computer baby bjorn—brilliant. Absolutely and unequivocally brilliant. The whole concept itself is reminiscent of a Philip K. Dick or Kurt Vonnegut science fiction story in its quotidian application but its quietly grand scope and results. Even the tagline is something out of a short pulp science fiction story about a center that helps people rehearse moments of their lives:
A happy outcome doesn’t have to be left to chance.
In this reviewer’s opinion, Fielder’s genius is in his conception, and the opening salvo of his new show proves as much.
However, he appears to falter when it comes to the more nuanced parts of the execution. His comedy is dependent on an engagement with real people—but does it have to be? Is that genuinely the best and funniest way to create these situations? Certainly it’s a brilliant work of art, and there is little else that holds a candle to it in terms of creativity and effort. But is this the best way to do set out what he accomplishes, and if it is, does he, or can he, stay honest to that stated endeavor?
This goes especially double if he wants to insert himself into the show. In the current iteration of The Rehearsal, I found that component both fascinating, but eventually telling—it stops being about the subjects, and eventually ends up being entirely about Nathan. That slow transition of focus does in some way turn people even more into props for his own story, rather than focal characters where the human condition is explored. Either that was what Fielder was intending, or perhaps the well ran dry, regular people stopped being good T.V., and he had to step in.
It would perhaps be interesting to see Fielder create a show that took one of his high-concepts but rendered it through a lens that is purely fictional—Nirvana The Band, The Show is a present example of this. He could still use amateur actors or real people in some capacity, but the show itself is fictionalized. This frees him for a different kind of comedy and story telling, one that my not be as immediately shocking, but has the potential to yield a far more rich level of exploration and possibly innovation for himself and the people he involves himself with.
Even The Rehearsal sets the stage perfectly for an entirely fictional television show. One that focuses on a guy who doesn’t understand social interaction who runs a business designed to help people live some of the hardest moments of their lives perfectly. It’s an amazing idea, and one with vast potential—and it’s now up to Fielder to demonstrate that he’s more than just a man with great ideas, but someone who knows how to fulfill them to the best of the opportunity they present, too.
Christ Cleansing the Temple by Carl Heinrich Bloch
Reading Recommendation
The Big Short
-What is it?-
The Big Short is a non-fiction book written by Michael Lewis and published in 2010. The book focuses on several narratives that follow various outsiders in the finance industry—from hedge fund managers, to Deutsche Bank traders, private investors, and others—and traces their separate realizations that the U.S. Housing Market is doomed to collapse because of its over-reliance on fraudulent housing loans.
-Who should read it?-
Many people have already been introduced to the general themes and plot of the book thanks to Adam McKay’s 2015 comedy/drama film of the same name. If you’ve seen the movie, there’s a chance you may very well enjoy the book—be warned, however, there are extensive descriptions of financial and investment banking terminology. This language isn’t so dense that it renders the book incomprehensible, but if you’re looking for a real smooth read, this is not it.
However, if you’re interested in a breakdown of the key elements of the Housing collapse—and an incisive look into those who run our markets today, as well as those who work within them to try and prevent the same catastrophe from occurring again—you may find this book rewarding.
-Some Key Ideas-
“Financial markets are a collection of arguments.” (pg. 67)
This quote relates to a major theme in the book, which is that a lot of finance is often packaged in hyper-complex language in order to obscure a simple message—most financial relationships boil down to one person who believes something has value, and another person wants to know if that statement is accurate.
Both people want to make money. There’s an outcome where the person with the argument of value will make more money, and there’s an outcome where the person questioning the value of the argument will make more money. There’s a third outcome where both parties stand to make so much money that neither cares whether the argument is valid—only that it’s valuable.
This is debatably the zone that the housing bond market quickly entered. The industry was generating so much revenue—so much so that $700 billion wasn’t even close to enough to cover the losses all the banks suffered in the collapse—that no argument from either party was challenged. Whatever someone said, as long as it kept the wheels turning, was approved and minted.
—
“ ‘There should be no greater thing you can do as an analyst than to be the Moody’s analyst. It should be, ‘I can’t go higher as an analyst.’ Instead it’s the bottom! No one gives a fuck if Goldman likes General Electric paper. If Moody’s downgrades GE paper, it is a big deal. So why does the guy at Moody’s want to work at Goldman Sachs? The guy who is the bank analyst at Goldman Sachs should want to go to Moody’s. It should be that elite.’” (pg. 122)
Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s—which is where the S&P 500 comes from—are the credit ratings agencies tasked with evaluating the stocks, bonds, and commodities that major Wall Street investment banks bring to them. These positions are vital to the health of the market, as whole industries depend on accurate, honest ratings of their financial assets in order to take their financial temperature and track their health. In the time leading up the housing collapse, these agencies were effectively pitted against each other by the investment banks.
For example, if Goldman Sachs came to Moody’s and asked for a bond rating, and Moody’s gave them a lower score than they preferred, the investment bank would simply go down to Standard & Poor’s and ask them for a rating. This kind of relationship is cited in the book as one of the key components of the housing market collapse—because the ratings agencies were incentivized into giving good ratings to whoever came through their door, the credit ratings that the entire industry depended on were severely out of proportion with the reality of the situation. This distorted view is what allowed the crisis to balloon out of control without anyone needing to deny or question what was going on. If the ratings were good, the markets were good too.
—
“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions—if they can get rich making dumb decisions?” (pg. 191)
The traders and banks who played instrumental, or at least symbolic, roles in the collapse of the housing market were often let go with hefty payouts. Howie Hubler, the architect of the single largest trading deal loss in the history of Wall Street, was still paid millions after he left Morgan Stanley. And the Citigroup Investment Bank, after it received $25 billion in taxpayer investments—bailouts—also received another $20 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program—TARP—which was created to prevent major Wall Street Banks from failing. On top of this, Citigroup was granted $306 billion in government guarantees, meaning the federal government promised nearly half a trillion dollars in order to insure Citigroup from collapse. This is roughly two percent of the U.S. GDP and nearly all the combined budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation.
Ultimately, the point stands—if the top financial analysts and managers in the world aren’t expected to make intelligent and honest decisions with the capital at their disposal, and are in fact paid for their wildly costly mistakes, why would they do anything different? It’s not as though a system could be developed in order to vet only the best, brightest, and integrous of a population to handle with care the beating heart of a country’s economy. That would be ridiculous and there’s no precedent for institutions that would perform such a vetting, or any real-world industries that have such controls in place.
-Conclusion-
If you’re feeling up to the challenge, The Big Short is a rewarding, cathartic, and horrific book that puts on full display what happens when a financial system is allowed to generate ludicrous amounts of wealth without having to prove that any of it actually exists. While the movie certainly does a fantastic job of illustrating the characters and plots in cinematic language, finance and its truths lay in the numbers, and this book is full of them. You’ll walk away feeling like you could man a Goldman Sachs trading desk, realize what that means, and look to the East and wonder if anyone on that one street actually knows what they’re doing.
-Bibliography-
Lewis, Michael. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine . W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.
A bleak and wonderful novel about a young woman living in New York who decides to undergo a personal transformation by attempting to sleep for a year. This reads like Dostoevsky meets Clueless. It’s funny, it bites every once in a while, and there are truly moments of sheer brilliance sprinkled throughout. It’s one of the only pieces of recent contemporary fiction I’ve read in a while, and I cannot recommend it enough.
-Why Is It Important?-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a book written in a voice that is both grounded in a realism that makes it intelligible, while also allowing itself to drift into literary allusion/metaphor that helps provide a sort of symbolic elevation which keeps the novel from feeling dull or drawn-out.
There’s something incredibly satisfying about inhabiting the headspace of the narrator. Her apathy and acidic, but often sincere and accurate, worldview is highly cathartic to see executed so well. For the same reason people enjoy Regina George in the film Mean Girls, this narrator can be enjoyed as well—simply put, who doesn’t, at some point in time or another in their life, want to feel like a hot bitch?
What’s more, there is genuinely a deep reservoir of sympathy to be found in someone with such a perspective on the world as our narrator has. She has the staple tragedies of any dramatic novel about a young person coming of age in a difficult way—her parents are both dead, her best friend doesn’t quite understand her, she feels isolated and alone in the world at large—but instead of being played out and mined for their saccharine tragedy, they are instead explored by a narrator who must be honest with herself and admit that, despite her losses and her relative disconnect with the world because of them, they grant her no special freedoms or insights. She is someone whom tragedy has happened to, and who’s past has been colored by it, but she herself feels a detachment from. She isn’t sociopathic, not really, though I’m sure some critics have described her in an allusory way as such. More than anything, she accepts that these tragedies have happened, and instead of fixating on them, is more interested in pursuing the idea of what that pain—or what pain in general—really means overall, than what it means in the context of her own experience.
Above all, the prior rationalization may very much be moot. The book is a rather simple one—a young woman, beset on all sides by the tyrannies and tragedies of her life, decides to undertake an experiment of experience. She wants to, for once, be the one who changes her consciousness by a willful act of submission to a greater purpose, instead of bouncing around life and hoping change will come. By the end, she experiences what she set out to—enlightenment. And she finds, in a way, that other people may have the opportunity to do the same.
-Conclusion-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a totally engrossing contemporary work of art. There is a cold honesty throughout the entirety of the book, mixed in with a heavy dose of social satire and deprecation, and topped off with an ending that is as tragic as it is hopeful. I can see why people have found themselves attached to the novel, and I think it is well-deserving of the cult following it has already accrued, and the underground fame that will no doubt cement it as a classic popular work for decades to come.
-Bibliography-
Moshfegh, Ottessa. My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Penguin Press, 2018.
The Phaedo is the last of what has been called by this author the “Core Four” Socratic Dialogues, beginning with Euthyphro, continuing with Apology and Crito, and ending with Phaedo.
This Dialogue opens on the last day of Socrates’ life. His friends have gathered around him in his jail cell, and are looking forward to speaking with him for a short time before he is executed via the imbibing of hemlock, a toxic drink made from a poisonous berry.
Most of Phaedo concerns Socrates positing and defending his positions on immortality and the soul—namely, the belief that human beings do in fact possess an immortal soul, and it is the duty of any good or just human being to recognize the inclinations of this soul towards beauty, justice, truth, temperance, and so on. This recognition allows for the practice of virtue, and in Socrates’ conception, pursuing the virtue of the soul in all its forms is the noblest cause any human being could strive for throughout their life.
Many of Socrates’ friends and students have questions they ask him regarding his positions on these subjects, and he gladly and calmly entertains them.
Eventually, the prison guard brings out the hemlock mixture, and Socrates drinks. His friends begin to weep, and before he goes, he asks his old friend Crito for a favor. He forgot to pay back a man named Asclepius, to whom he owes a chicken, and wonders if Crito will settle the debt. Crito says he will, and in a few moments after, Socrates dies.
-Why is it important?-
The modern reader may find the Phaedo unsuccessful as a philosophical work, mainly because it positions its entire argument on grounds which cannot empirically or logically be proven on all levels: namely, the existence of a soul.
This question, in the opinion of this author, cannot be answered satisfactorily by any one person or idea; perhaps that is somewhat the point.
But because of this, it is understandable as to why readers would find such a treatise somewhat frustrating. Though Socrates effectively proves in some way that the idea of immortality can exist, and that if the soul is indeed in existence, it would be immortal, his arguments can come off as somewhat myopic, operating in a closed-loop system of logic that only admits itself to the participant if they cross a threshold for which logic must momentarily be suspended. It makes for good debate and reading, but in terms of a practical application to life, at least when compared to other Dialogues, Phaedo falls short.
This author would argue that, in some way, this is possibly the point of the Dialogue.
Phaedo opens on Socrates composing a hymn for Apollo. This is an old man who, for all we know, has never written a song in his life, and his musical abilities are more likely than not average, perhaps sub-par—the evidence of this could be taken enough in what he has to say about poetry/art in The Republic.
And yet, despite the illogical nature of his action, Socrates is engaging in it. He says that he has had dreams his whole life compelling him to make music, and for a long time, he believed that in some way those dreams were related to him practicing philosophy. But given that he is close to the hour of death, he figured that he should give genuine composition a shot, for, “…being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, to compose a few verses before I departed.” (Phaedo, page 20).
There is something endearing about an old man who has never made music before trying to do so, trying something entirely new, before he dies. Most likely, Socrates composing his song would be somewhat crude, off-key, maybe even laughable, in a childish sort of way.
And it is here where the author believe a key point of the Dialogue is found—the practice of living, which often involves doing something new, as much as it involves accepting a sort of constant state found in the world.
Socrates, for his entire life, has preached philosophy. He has achieved great triumphs in logic, and reason, in his own field, for all people to one day read about—he has done enough. There’s no reason for him to believe he should ever try anything different.
But he does. He gets a guitar—lyre—some notebook paper—parchment—and under the window of the jail cell he’ll soon be put to death in, tries writing a song for the very first time.
Socrates engages in an act of faith by doing so. He knows, more likely than not, he will fail; but he pursues the action nonetheless, because the end is not the goal, but rather what occurs in the pursuit.
Though this meaning is certainly extrapolated, and idiosyncratic to the author, one can see support for it under-girding the Dialogue. Socrates paints a fantastical, almost Homeric, picture near the end of what life in the afterlife will be like for those who pass; but how could he know? As a man of logic and reason, he must have some intuition that he has no sense of what may really happen—so his entire talk leads one to believe that he is, in a way, not trying to prove immortality, or the existence of the soul, or what happens in the afterlife, to or for himself, but for his friends. He is trying to give them a kind of hope, even if it’s in a story, or a conversation, that doesn’t make much logical sense when you begin to look at it. He’s maybe trying to give them a different sort of sense. A sense of calm, and presence, and an acceptance of a normality that unifies the greatest and the smallest moments in life.
And the final scene lends itself perfectly, perhaps, to this point. Socrates’ final words are utilitarian, almost banal—he could have said that, and maybe did, at any point in his life. His last exit was not that of a supreme philosopher, an ascended master, a sacrificial messiah—he was a regular man, who lived and died in the way he did. And when it all comes down to the end, that’s perhaps one of the only really true things one could ever say about someone like him.
-Conclusion-
Though it may not appear as practical on a surface level as the other Dialogues in the “Core Four”, or other Socratic/Platonic Dialogues in general, Phaedo still has much to teach the discerning reader who is willing to look beyond what it being said in the story, and rather what is instead being lived.
Street Canal of the Ideal City by Arthur Skizhali-Weiss
-Reading Recommendation-
Crito
-What is it?-
The Crito is a Platonic Dialogue that takes place a few days before the Athenian philosopher Socrates is executed for crimes of impiety and corruption against the state. It is set entirely in the jail cell Socrates occupies while waiting for his execution, and the main action of the Dialogue occurs when a friend of his, Crito, comes to visit him.
Crito wants to help him escape. He explains that he has ways of helping Socrates flee undetected, and says the old man shouldn’t worry for fear of capture, as Crito is willing to expend all the resources at his disposal to ensure the old philosopher’s freedom.
Socrates refuses, and explains to Crito why—he believes that to run from his judgment, even if he or other people believe it to be unjust, would do more harm than good. He believes that one cannot repay an unjust act with an unjust act, and to break the law of Athens, even if it is applied incorrectly or unfairly, would be an untenable action that would rob him of the possibility of discussing in any serious capacity virtue or the just way of living one’s life.
This is about all he has to say, and after explaining his motives, he asks Crito if his friend has anything to say. Crito replies that he does not.
-Why is it important?-
The discussion had in the Crito certainly seems to be able to apply to nearly any person who has suffered at the mercy of unjust laws, and it supplies an answer that is immediately frustrating and callous—deal with it.
At first, this proposed solution doesn’t seem to be a solution at all; it seems to be a surrender. In a sense, it somewhat is. But examining the logic of Socrates’ argument, within the context of his situation, it does make some degree of sense.
While self-preservation and the thwarting of an unjust sentence would be a relatively rational decision for Socrates, it is not the most good decision someone in his place could make. The offer is tempting, and more than that, it is in many ways justified—and there are few things more appealing, understandable, or quietly terrifying in the world than a justified temptation.
It’s worthy of note that Socrates doesn’t approach Crito’s proposition of escape any kind of moral aspersion-casting; rather, he looks at it from a reasonable point of view. If he is to conduct a good action, that action must prevent harm. Doing harm to another cannot be good, and therefore an action that mitigates or totally prevents harm is an action of the highest good. This means that even if someone is committing an action against you that is bringing you harm, or worse, committing harm against them is still not justified. As Socrates says, he will, “die a sufferer of evil not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men,” and by doing so, he is setting an example for those who come after. This is what happens when the law falls into the hands of those who don’t know, or don’t care, how they use it.
And if Socrates were to flee, he would be breaking the laws of Athens, and showing his true colors. Such an action would show that he only holds to the law when the weather is fair. Whenever it isn’t, he’ll turn and run.
As he said in the Apology, he believes in a kind of duty and obligation in life, and the shame in the desertion of that duty is worse than the pain of death. He would rather die than engage in such an action.
-Conclusion-
The Crito is a short but meaningful Platonic Dialogue that explores what it means to uphold the law, in all its forms, even when it is used against you unjustifiably. Though some of the ideas may appear outdated or even grossly antithetical to modern sentiments, there is a kernel of something admirable in the way that Socrates stands by the ideal he holds of his city, even if the reality is about to have him killed.
The Apology is a Platonic Dialogue that details the trial of Socrates in the Supreme Court of Athens. It directly follows the Euthyphro, and in it, Socrates gives his self-defense for the charges that have been laid upon him by the court. These are mainly the charges of impiety, i.e. atheism/deifying gods that are not permitted by the state, and corrupting the youth through his teachings; as Socrates summarizes his accusers having said, “Making the worse appear the better cause.”
For the purposes of clarity and conciseness, the Apology will be broken down into five quick sections.
-Introduction-
Socrates says hello to the court and establishes his speaking style and background. He says he will not give a speech, as he believes the court has heard enough rhetoric for one day. Instead, he will speak off-the-cuff, and he implores the jurors to exercise what reserves of patience they have left with him, saying:
“If I defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have been in the habit of using in the agora, at the tables of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account…. I would have you regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his country:—Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.” (Apology, page 11).
It’s also here where Socrates explains what he does for a living—walk from city to city, teaching youth and citizens alike about philosophy, for no charge. The reason he gives for his passion is that he believes he has been charged with a spiritual quest by a daimon, a spirit, from which he receives wisdom. What’s more, a close friend of his once visited the Oracle of Delphi, and asked the Oracle who was the wisest in Greece. The Oracle responded that there was no one wiser than Socrates; incredulous—one of his most famous paraphrased quotes was, “All I know is that I know nothing.”—Socrates set out to find one person wiser than himself. He has been on this quest ever since.
-The Cross-Examination of Meletus-
Meletus is one of Socrates’ accusers and also one of the three Judges presiding over the Supreme Court. In his cross-examination, Socrates covers many points very quickly, and the dialogue between him and Meletus becomes notable, not for what is necessarily being said, but how it is being said. Meletus consistently flips his opinions whenever challenged by Socrates. Socrates will confront him with a point, and Meletus will say, “Yes, that’s actually what I meant.” Socrates will confront him with a conflicting point, and Meletus will then say, “Actually, that’s also what I meant.”
The points Socrates is making aren’t really what’s important—it’s the demonstration of Meletus’ character. The man seems disinterested in any kind of conversation entirely. He doesn’t care at all about defending his position, or hearing out Socrates’ own. Over the course of his cross-examination, it’s driven home somewhat strongly that he has no conviction about the matter of Socrates’ trial either way; it seems as though he wants to wrap this up as quick as possible, and his behavior would possibly lead one to believe he’s already made up his mind as to the outcome of the trial. A wholly disreputable and unbecoming attitude for someone who occupies one of the highest seats of justice in Athenian society.
-The Duty-
After the cross-examination of Meletus, Socrates further explains why he feels it so necessary to pursue activities that have landed him in front of the Court. He relays the belief that a good man does not desert his duty for fear of death, and should hold firm to his post and obligation, lest he suffer the disgrace of abandonment. In Socrates’ conception, though he may be faced with death because of what he says and does, he believes in holding firm to what he sees as his duty—the teaching of philosophy and the inquiry of true justice, knowledge, beauty, and so on. It is here where one of his famous statements comes in, where he says that he believes himself to be the “gadfly” of Athens, motivating the state—which he compares to a great and noble steed, prone to slow movement because of its size—by reproach or questioning towards higher aspirations rather than lower ones.
-The Sentence-
Socrates is found guilty. He is presented with several options: he could spend the rest of his life in prison; he could leave Athens altogether in exile; or he could die.
The old man says that he has no money, and could not afford to pay the fees that it would take to keep him in prison. He also states that if he chose to leave Athens, he would spend his last remaining years going from city to city, and finding interest but no sympathy, for he would have shown himself to have deserted his character and the obligation to his state when it was most under duress. And again, he reiterates he is not afraid of death. He says, given his age, the Judges could simply wait, and death would come to him within a few years. But barring that, he would rather die than live an unrighteous life the rest of his days.
-The Goodbye-
The Judges condemn him to die. Socrates bids a goodbye to all the jurors in the audience, and uses the last of his time to elaborate this thoughts on what might wait in the afterlife.
No man, in his belief, can truly know what waits after death—so to be afraid of it, or to speculate with certainty, is asserting a position that is by the nature of the object discussed, untenable.
In his conception, there are two options: one, death is nothingness, a state of relative unconsciousness lasting for all eternity. He compares it to a great sleep, and says that if this is the case, people should rejoice, for all of eternity is but one long and restful night.
The other option is that death is the transference of the soul from one place to another. If this is the case, and there is some kind of an afterlife, Socrates paints a hopeful picture. He believes that such a place would involve the communion of great men and women from all across history—kings, queens, heroes, heroines, great artists and musicians and scientists and philosophers, and a whole number of others unknown—which the one who has died will be welcomed in to. Socrates says that if such a place exists, he cannot wait to ask questions and converse with all those who have come before him. It is a hope alone, and one unfounded at that, but one the old man seems to find contentment in.
Socrates eventually says goodbye to the jury, and before he is led down to the jail below the Court, where he’ll be held for several days before his execution, he departs with these last words:
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows.” (28)
-Why is it important?-
The Apology is one of the most seminal texts in all of popular Western Philosophy. There are many reasons for this, and many opinions as well, and the author will detail two of his own below.
The first reason and/or opinion is the document sketches out a refined scene of speaking truth to power.
Quite a few of Socrates’ arguments are somewhat specious or unsupported. For example, he makes the case that someone who is unconscious of their wrongdoing should not be charged with a crime, and says that as this is the case with him, he cannot be charged. This is fair enough, to a point. Intention and action must be proven to constitute a crime, and the degree of both determines the justice that will be applied.
That being said, even if Socrates didn’t intend to corrupt youth or preach impiety, he still committed actions that led to those outcomes. Several of his students took part in destructive revolutions that evolved into tyrannies during his lifetime. His character is not entirely without blame, regardless of the extent to which his intention may have led him.
But his accusers are not bringing him into the Court to have a genuine discussion with him. They don’t care about finding the root causes of events, or investigating the truth the matters, or carrying out justice in any capacity. They’ve brought the old man in because he’s irritated them personally, and they are using the mechanism of the Athenian Court to dispose of him. In the Apology, the Judges are the constructed epitome of a naked abuse of power. These are men who will use their positions to settle personal debts. They have no sense of duty to anyone, or anything, other than themselves. While Socrates could certainly improve on certain things, the very event of the Trial proves that point he makes over and over again—that the Judges are just as, or possibly far more, guilty of impiety and corrupting the youth by reason of their conduct than Socrates.
The second reason and/or opinion that makes this document worthwhile is that Socrates knows this. It’s clear he has a sense of how the Trial is going to go before he begins speaking. He’s not laboring under any pretenses that he might be able to change the Judges’ minds—they’ve already been made up.
So the Dialogue becomes the portrait of a man who knows he’s going to die, and has chosen to make one last public speech before he’s taken away. He will take part in two other Dialogues after this—the Crito and the Phaedo—but those are more private events than this one.
Through this framework, the Apology becomes a kind of ideal example as to how one, when faced with injustice and the pain of death, can respond. Socrates delivers a defense—keep in mind, in ancient Greek, apology/apologia means, “to explain or defend”—that is both measured and passionate, sincere and ironic, improvisational and refined, and more than anything, authentic in the sense that he believes he is doing what is ultimately right. The strength of his conviction, while at times can make him appear ridiculous and out of touch, is somewhat endearing, if only in how genuinely he seems to believe in, uphold, and defend it.
It is a sacrificial act, and in this moment, Socrates becomes a martyr for a greater cause. This is not necessarily to say that the only way, or the only end, to a great cause is martyrdom—but it does demonstrate an example of, if such an end is met on such a way, how one may choose to act when faced with such a moment.
-Conclusion-
The Apology is a groundbreaking piece of Western Philosophy and literature, and perhaps—forgive any hyperbolic intonation—one of the most important documents ever written. It is an excellent demonstration of what occurs when systems of power fall into the hands of those who are unfit to wield them, and how one can respond when they not only witness, but are directly subject to, injustice at the hands of these systems. More than that, perhaps, it is beautiful a portrait of how one may live and speak, knowing that one is going to die regardless. There is strength to be found in facing the unknown with such conviction and steadfast belief, while at the same time acknowledging that even those can provide no real certainty for what is to come. In the end, perhaps to know that you know nothing, to know that there some things no one can know, is a greater wisdom than most, even in the highest courts, would esteem.
The Euthyphro is a Socratic Dialogue written in the late 300s by the Athenian philosopher and writer, Plato. It is the first of what will be called in this series “The Core Four,” the four Dialogues written by Plato that detail the final days of Socrates’ life.
Socrates was the teacher of Plato, and he was a renowned itinerant philosopher, orator, and teacher in Athens for much of his life. He wrote nothing down himself, and so everything we know of him either comes from Classical Greek histories, or Platonic Dialogues. These Dialogues are written much like plays, and often feature Socrates as a central character, who is discussing some matter of politics, metaphysics, culture, or overall life with another individual or a group of individuals. Each Dialogue is meant to explore a specific philosophical idea or theme that was prevalent at the time in ancient Greece, and Socrates usually plays the part of both an ironic critic and a careful teacher, both deconstructing and asserting various philosophical and metaphysical points of view in conversation with the other characters.
The Euthyphro opens with Socrates sitting on the porch of the King Archon, the steps of the Supreme Court of Athens. He has been called to trial on the charges of impious action and corrupting the youth, and while he waits, he ruminates on how he will defend himself.
An answer appears in the form of Euthyphro, a young lawyer/diviner, who is coming from a case he brought to court himself. Socrates is ecstatic, not only because he knows Euthyphro, but because, after asking Euthyphro if the lawyer can help him build a defense, the man agrees.
Socrates and Euthyphro discuss throughout the Dialogue what makes an action pious or impious, and it becomes apparent that Euthyphro does not have a working definition. The actual points of the Dialogue are somewhat complex and beholden to context, but one of the most salient points is the idea that, to define the state of an object, an action must first be committed to render the object in that state. For example, in order to say an object is carried, the action of carrying must first take place; the reverse, that someone is carrying something because it is carried, is nonsensical.
This may seem obvious and convoluted, but it cuts to the a point Socrates continually drives home about the proper definition of a quality—namely, that it cannot be used to define itself. The question of why something is worthy of carrying, what makes someone want to carry it, can be tied to the idea of piety, where the central question Socrates asks is: is what is loved by the gods holy because it is loved by them, or is it loved by the gods because it is holy?
There is a microscopic but incredibly vital difference between these two ideas. Put a little more simply: is something made special because someone chooses to love it as such, or does someone choose to love something because it is special? How can you differentiate the two? Is one superior to the other? Are they equal? What are the situations that would determine them as one or the other?
And again, these are small tee-ups to the larger question at hand, one that goes unanswered by Euthyphro: what is piety? What makes an action pious? Can a working definition for the quality of piety, the isolated element, be found?
Unfortunately, at least in the Dialogue, it cannot. Euthyphro becomes overwhelmed by Socrates and says goodbye to him, rushing away to attend to other matters, and leaving the old man to sit back down on the steps and contemplate how he is going to defend himself at trial.
-Why Is It Important?-
This Dialogue, the first of the Core Four, provides a view into a major component of Socratic—and by lineage—Western Philosophy: what does meaning mean, and how do you define it?
To some extent, this question may have no real answer that is intelligible, or at least quantifiable, beyond a certain point. Socrates himself makes a point across many Dialogues to not provide many concrete answers, at least not in a definitive form; like the teaching style he developed, he preferred to let his students and listeners find their own conclusions, and acted as a sort of guide along the way to get them there. In all Socratic dialogue, there is an implicit intuitive faculty that is activated and exercised alongside the rational, one that forms a unique and indispensable part of his teachings. This is why, perhaps, his conversations are often girded with heavy frameworks of irony—he does not always mean what he says, and it is up the reader to determine when Socrates is making a sincere point, when he is asserting a caricature of his opponents, when he takes his opponents seriously, and when he has decided to make fun of himself.
That being said, there is a certain level to Socratic discussion that reads as incredibly hard-boiled and logical, one that was meant to convey a sort of universal, at least fundamental, line of thought. This sentiment especially comes through when Socrates is confronted with someone who wields a position of authority, power, or influence, either institutional, social, cultural, or otherwise, and he believes them to be in poor use of it.
And the Euthyphro presents such an example. Euthyphro himself is relatively harmless—he isn’t arrogant, or smug, or even really mean. Socrates even seems to somewhat like him.
But the young lawyer-priest does, in the Dialogue, act as a microcosmic representative for the greater Athenian legal system. If a lawyer cannot answer, in the definitive, the underlying meaning of a law—not only what makes it necessary, but moreso than that, what aspect of natural law it correlates to, what it actually means—and instead relies on the deployment of a subjective convention—“The definition of the law is doing as I am doing.”—then either that lawyer should not be practicing, or the overarching legal system is not doing its job of enforcing laws that have clear and definitive attributes.
A convention is fine in certain cases. Moral aphorisms, common sense, ironic expressions—these are all conventions, and they serve and important cultural and social role in dispensing basic wisdom.
But if a convention is allowed to exist in a legal setting—if the truth of a matter is not, or even worse, cannot, be investigated in the space that it is designed specifically to investigate truth, if the meaning of something is taken on name alone and nothing else—that is a flagrant abuse of the power of the law at the hands of those who are supposed to tend to it. At best, it’s a sign of lazy and indulgent ignorance or arrogance that is unbecoming of the highest courts and authorities; at worst, such an action points to potentially malicious corruption and willful manipulation of a system that is supposed to see for the good of all, and is instead in the hands of those who would use it for their own personal ends.
This thought is one that Socrates carries into the following Dialogue, the Apology, and it will be discussed in greater detail in the next recommendation.
-Conclusion-
The Euthyphro is a fantastic piece of both fiction and philosophy, and in this author’s opinion, an excellent starting point for anyone who is either interested in reading more of the Classical Canon, or who simply wants a piece that will make them think. It’s a relatively short work that manages to explore, in a brief but depthful manner, the idea of what meaning means in a society, and how we can begin to talk about it, so as to avoid the tragedies that occur when we don’t.
