Chavez 1

Colby Chavez

Stephen J. Andrews

Western Civilization 1 (0D1)

02/05/2023

Death of Socrates Reaction Paper:

Corpse God of the Empire of Blood

O’ Professor of History, you have asked to hear my reaction to “The Trial and Death of

Socrates”, a book by Plato, and the accompanying visual media documentary episode Empire of

the Mind. It is woeful that I cannot give an initial reaction to these matters as I had previously

studied them in my formative years in school, where they helped shape my world view as

excepted by those instructing me in the propaganda. The true nature of Socrates “Empire of the

Mind” is far more sinister than its public image. Nay! The empire of Socrates is not one of the

mind, but like all empires: one of brute force, nationalism, and genocide. “This is the way we

won our empire, and this is the way all Empires have been won”. A quote from the

accompanying visual media (AgeOfAntiquity, 02) at 29:57 that rang with ironic humor and

matched my feelings on the work of Plato and the “Empire of the Mind” that formed in the wake

of his work to shape the very form and function of Western Civilization. Again, I say nay! It is

more akin to an Empire of Blood with the martyred Socrates enshrined forever as its corpse god.

He was nothing but a doddering old fool clothed in wordplay and semantic arguments that

eventually kills himself to prove he is the wisest of men. Socrates’ Empire of Blood in an

unstoppable, hateful, and ponderous amalgamation that starts at his suicide, and end with its

evolved current form whose death spiral now looms over all of us as it teeters on the brink of
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total collapse. Despair, O’ Professor of History, for the Empire of Blood’s true name is: Western

Civilization.

O’ Professor of History, Socrates was accused of impiety and corruption of the youth,

and I for one agree with the charges of corruption of the youth. However, by Greacen standards,

I myself, and most likely you, O’ Professor of History would be guilty of the same. That

diminishes any meaning or comparison to that achievement. Socrates’ defense of himself was his

“Apology” as captured in the second dialog of the propaganda written by Plato. Anything but an

apology, Socrates used word play and Greek law to force a death sentence upon himself. And

what was his reaction to this plot succeeding? To stubbornly follow through on his mission as

only a stubborn old man can. He killed himself with hemlock as mandated by the state to prove

his point about all of this, That Socrates the “Wise” is so much more right and enlightened than

the rest of the Athenians, even in death.

Looking at all the facts laid out, my first reaction is that this all seems very reminiscent to

the plot of the film ‘The Life of David Gale’ (IMDB, 2023). It is the story of a man who uses the

legal system to force his own execution by the State for a crime he did not commit. A suicide,

staged as a murder set up by activists to “make a show” of how unjust the American legal system

is. The movie stars accused serial sexual predator Kevin Spacey, so I cannot recommend it on

moral grounds. However, if you have seen it, you might also easily draw parallels. Both pieces of

media seem to cover events strewn with propaganda spread by controlling a narrative, to get

manipulated results by effecting the public opinion of events around an execution. Unfortunately,

I understand how events transcribed and manipulated with purpose across history like the works

of Plato or the Christian bible have become just as fictional, as the entirely fictionalized events

seen in a movie from 2003.

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I find directly quoting Plato quoting Socrates is a tiresome endeavor. The massive

monologues of text espoused by Socrates remind me of the works of Quentin Tarantino, and I do

not mean in any favorable way. Both Plato and Tarantino are clearly in love with their own

drivel and have the capability to write endless prose that makes characters act as if mundane

banality is revolutionary. This all means large stretches of text must be quoted to make any sense

out of any of it. So here we go with the first quote upon which you want me to reflect.

And suppose the laws were to reply, ' Was that our agreement? or was it that you

would submit to whatever judgments the state should pronounce ? ' And if we

were to wonder at their words, perhaps they would say, ' Socrates, wonder not at

our words, but answer us; you yourself are accustomed to ask questions and to

answer them. What complaint have you against us and the city, that you are

trying to destroy us? Are we not, first, your parents? Through us your father took

your mother and begat you. Tell us, have you any fault to find with those of us

that are the laws of marriage? ' ' I have none,' I should reply. ' Or have you any

fault to find with those of us that regulate the nurture and education of the child,

which you, like others, received? Did not we do well in CRITO. 95 bidding your

father educate you in music and gymnastic? ' ' You did,' I should say. ' Well then,

since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, how, in

the first place, can you deny that you are our child and our slave, as your fathers

were before you? And if this be so, do you think that your rights are on a level

with ours? Do you think that you have a right to retaliate upon us if we should try

to do anything to you. You had not the same rights that your father had, or that
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your master would have had, if you had been a slave. You had no right to

retaliate upon them if they ill-treated you, or to answer them if they reviled you,

or to strike them 51 back if they struck you, or to repay them evil with evil in any

way. And do you think that you may retaliate on your country and its laws? If we

try to destroy you, because we think it right, will you in return do all that you can

to destroy us, the laws, and your country, and say that in so doing you are doing

right, you, the man, who in truth thinks so much of virtue? Or are you too wise to

see that your country is worthier, and more august, and more sacred, and holier,

and held in higher honour both by the gods and by all men of understanding, than

your father and your mother and all your other ancestors ; and that it is your

bounden duty to reverence it, and to submit to it, and to approach it more humbly

than you would approach your father, when it is angry with you ; and either to do

whatever it bids you to do or to persuade it to excuse you ; and to obey in silence

if it orders you to endure stripes or imprisonment, or if it send you to battle to be

wounded or to die ? That is what is your duty. You must not give way, nor retreat,

nor desert your post. In war, and in the court of justice, and everywhere, you

must do whatever your city and your country bid you do, or you must convince

them that their commands are unjust. But it is against the law of God to use

violence to your father or to your mother; and much more so is it against the law

of God to use violence to your country.' What answer shall we make, Crito ? Shall

we say that the laws speak truly, or not? (Plato, 2023)

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This quote from “Crito,” the third of Plato’s dialogs appears on page 50 and 51 of

the Dover Thrift edition. As I see it: this is the seed of the nationalism later birthed in the

20th century, but it is also the core of much of the wrongs carried out by Western

Civilization. It demands that the youth either accept their lot, do what even Socrates the

‘Wise’ could not in life: change the world, or shut up and die at the will of those who call

themselves your betters. The ones who call themselves that only because they were

birthed first, so they got to setup the rules to the game we are all forced to play.

O’ Professor of History, you asked for my reaction on these matters, and this is that

reaction. Buried within the propagandistic works of Plato are the ugly seeds of nationalism: the

idea that solely where one is borne is what all that matters. Similar to the caucuses of mouth

breathers demanding patriots have “Love it or Leave it” absolutism in the modern American

body politic. O’ Professor of History, Plato’s dark seed would grow invasive over the millennia

as it gorged itself on human sorrow, until it now threatens to strangle not only us, but all life on

the planet.

O’ Professor of History, I do not think Socrates nor Plato knew how dark and prolific

their seeds of nationalism would grow after planting. For them, the fruit was sweet, but over time

the vine became bitter as it enlarged and became covered with brambles until it reached its final

form in the 20th century as fascistic nationalism. After gobbling up all territory on the globe using

the narrative of manifest destiny, the warlike aggression of the Empire of Blood returned to

Europe unquenchable. With no new minorities to enslave, suppress, and exploit it set about

settling old hatreds waging wars and genocides, grinding up the “souls” of more than 100 million

men, women, and children just to set its final borders. All as the last vestiges of the old nobility,

and the new unstoppably powerful oligarchs toasted the civility of it all.
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“The whole fabric of Athenian society broke down. Morally people saw no point in being

good.” A quote from the accompanying visual media (AgeOfAntiquity, 02) at 20:27 makes it

seem like that is the state of society before it was “saved” by Socrates’ ideas. We sit here almost

2,500 years later, on the back edge of a plague, war looming on the horizon, and “With the

assembly in the hands of self-interest despots, once mighty Athens began to lose her way.”

Another quote from the accompanying visual media (AgeOfAntiquity, 02) at 27:40, that rings

just as true for the modern state of the world implemented from Socrates ideas as Western

Civilization.

That, he said is true

But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken

of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity (Plato,

2023).

This quote, also from “Crito”, is the start of several pages of Socrates describing the

afterlife he believes he is on the verge of joining after his imminent death by hemlock. The proof

the doddering old man has that he has a soul is a description of Greek mythology. Things my

2,500 years of knowledge have flatly disproved. The gods never stood on high on Olympus to

judge us; nor is there a hades or any other afterlife; nor any “innermost depts of the earth (Plato,

2023)” as described by Socrates.

All that being said, I have that 2,500 years of knowledge at my disposal that Socrates did

not, including the ramifications of his own actions. However, I do not feel that doesn’t leave

Socrates or Plato blameless for the crimes committed by them and in their names. The road to
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Hades is paved with good intentions after all, and just because you meant well doesn’t mean you

aren’t responsible for the mass murder you caused. Not that being a murderer would phase

Socrates at all. He would look down upon men who had not murdered another man, as that

meant you did not fulfil your military obligation to the state, during a period of near constant

warfare among human tribes. O’ Professor of History, I should not need to remind you how

highly Socrates viewed the mandates of the state. Alas, for all this talk of high ideals and

Empires of the Mind, Socrates like the other Athenians was a warmonger. He had years of

military service during the Peloponnesian War. It is without question he had committed State

sanctioned murder on one or more battlefields as was common for the men of Athens. However,

images of Socrates plunging his blade into the heart of a 13-year-old Spartan before bashing the

brains in of another with his shield rim as he bellows a war cry in the dead boys’ face, spittle

flying from Socrates’ mouth; this doesn’t sell the propaganda of an “Empire of the Mind” very

well. So, it never seems to end up on the book covers or in the documentaries despite also being

just as much an objective truth.

Euthypho: Another time, then, Socrates. I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to be

off (Plato, 2023).

This final quote is from Euthyphro, the first of Plato’s dialogs, it appears on page 17 of

the Dover Thrift edition. Upon great refection, it may be my favorite quote out of the works of

Plato. It captures the ending of a conversation with Socrates the ‘Wise’ by the Greacen prophet

Euthyphro. This is my favorite quote as I believe it shows what game Socrates was really up to.

In modern parlance it is called trolling, and it is an art form I have much skill in.

In high school, I used to play sports of running verbal circles around those I saw myself

as better than. I would disingenuously lay semantic land mines in conversation only to later
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spring the traps, and publicly embarrass the other person with a sudden debate of their world

view that I had just callously shredded and insulted. I pursued all manner of prey: students,

teachers, parents I did not care whom. After much reflection later in life, I found it kind of made

me, in modern parlance; an asshole. So, instead of persisting boorishly to my death like some

doddering old men incapable of change, I sought to change the behavior in myself. Trolling is

only harmful bullying and not all that beneficial for anything other than lashing out and causing

emotional trauma.

O’ Professor of History, quite the opposite was true of Socrates the ‘Wise’. He took a

delight in interrogating people with endless questions he already knew how the persecuted would

respond. With Socrates only asking the question at all, so he can twist their words around.

Stabbing at his foes wielding their world views as weapons. A smile from savage glee spread

across his misshapen head as the turmoil shifts in his prey’s eyes as he savaged them. O’

Professor of History, would it really surprise you that the conclusion I draw is that the

misshapen, famously ugly, proto-intellectual who laid the groundwork for nationalism has just as

much in common with just about any other mouth breathing, basement dwelling, fascist,

neckbearded, keyboard warrior 4Chan or QAnon could summon forth to plague my existence.

I imagine if I unleashed my younger self upon him, I would eventually elicit the same

response from Socrates, that he received from Euthyphro. After verbally harassing him from my

perch of 2,500 additional years of human knowledge to call forth upon a whim, He too would be

just as desperate to end the conversation the same as Euthyphro did.

After I disproved and dismantled all his deeply held beliefs with a combination of

semantic trickery and the basic natural philosophy skills of a community college freshman in

2023. I would see the same turmoil shift in his eyes, as I twisted the knife, and the savage glee
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reached my lips instead of his. At this point he would turn to me with the same desperation of a

parent left alone too long with a question laden toddler he would say to me “Another time, then,

Colby. I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to be off.”

Then I would shout after him “What are you doing, my friend! Will you go away and

destroy all my hopes of learning from you what is wise and what is not.” But this nor my

mocking laughter would do little to halt his retreat.

I know his kind as I was one of them, until I realized that maybe I’m the problem. So, I

made the choices needed to process trauma and change. O’ Professor of History, Socrates chose

a different path. He doubles down on being an asshole, bragging about being a one to others

Ateneans even at his own trial as part of the most insincere apology in history. Socrates, then

chose suicide rather than admit “hey maybe I am an asshole” or more likely to keep mocking and

manipulating the Athenians with post death propaganda from the hands of his pupil, just like the

fictional David Gale.

O’ Professor of History, how grand it is we are that this would not be the path of the

current the current Colby. If I were so fortunate as to end up in a “Bill and Ted's Excellent

Adventure”-esque time travel adventure, where I get kidnap Socrates out of time and show him

what he wrought upon the world, I do not take him to San Dimas, California (IMDB, 2023).

I take him to Verdun in 1916, and make him smell the mud, and the blood. The charnel

stench of no man’s land, and the burning stink of sulfur on the air.

I take him to the hills of Georgia in 1835, and make him hear the cries of those dying

from starvation as they are marched from their ancestral home to a desert reservation.
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I take him to a Caribbean paradise of peace and prosperity in 1492, and make him watch

as the first representatives of his Empire brutally torture, rape, and eventually snuff out every

Taíno in existence.

I take him to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 and make feel the heat from the ovens as they

turn the flesh of millions of dead to nothing but ashes.

I take him to a hill in 1945 and make him witness the flash incineration of Hiroshima

then 3 days later Nagasaki, as double the population of his Athens is simply erased.

With the true scale of death caused by his Empire of Blood, I like to think that I don’t get

the same brush off anymore. Nay! Instead I hope I get tears, and gnashing of teeth, and much

sorrow as the “Wise” comes to me for answers on how this all could be prevented, and all I could

say is; “I don’t know.”

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Bibliography

AgeOfAntiquity. (02, 02 2023). www.Youtube.com. Retrieved from The Ancient Greeks:

Crucible of Civilization - Episode 3: Empire of the Mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08UtxuyI9ok&t=1704s

IMDB. (2023, 02 02). IMDB. Retrieved from The Life of David Gale:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289992/

IMDB. (2023, 02 03). IMDB.com. Retrieved from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096928/

Plato. (2023, 02 02). www.wikimedia.org. Retrieved from The trial and death of Socrates:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/The_trial_and_death_of_Socrates

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