A Friend's Defense

Symposium—a Friend’s Defense
As soon as Socrates ended his speech, an unpleasant noise which seemed to be created in front of Agathon’s house, for certain, disturbed the unisonous conversation between those most prominent sages in the city of Athens. “It is Alcibiades” someone exclaimed, “and he is drunk.” Another one added. Though there was a tiny displeasure in mind, the conversation participants still remained unruffled for the cumulative reputations of being magnanimous they have maintained for so many years. As many people known, Alcibiades was not a good guy, he does not follow the common rules, neither does he ever do something really helpful for general people; some elder in the city even doubted his loyalty. “What is he doing here?” except other people’s qualms, Socrates appeared to be more nervous when Alcibiades shouted:
God, what’s this? Socrates? You have been lurking there waiting for me—and this isn’t the first time: you are always suddenly popping up where I least expect to find you. What are you doing here this time?
This dramatic scene, as Plato wrote in Symposium, did lay some questions regarding the integrity and righteousness of Socrates, for Alcibiades had always been the representative of corrupted youth in the city of Athens. Also, according to the historical record, the most prominent Greek philosopher Socrates was tried and convicted by courts of democratic Athens on a charge of corrupting the youth and disbelieving in the ancestral gods in the year of 399BC. How satirical it was, for what Plato wrote in his masterpiece, that a victim of corruption declared the war against the person who corrupted himself. Also, what made this conversation more significant is the fact that it was a relatively private talk; despite the social restrictions which made people to ponder before open their mouths, what ideas or thoughts presented by Alcibiades in this night were with more freedom. So, for a conversation in which necessary people, appropriate location and theatrical time coincident dramatically, can people who wanted to accuse Socrates use Alcibiades’s speech as evidences? Can Symposium really be considered the proof for the trial?
Back to the first sin committed by Socrates, which was corrupting the youth, the idea of how philosophical education made people to disobey the existent rules or convention in Ancient Athens was clearly presented. It even seems to me that the same idea was articulated metaphorically in another great creator Aristophanes’s comedy Clouds. He used the way which were full of satire to describe a simple story—Strepsiades, an elderly Athenian who faced with legal action for non-payment of debts, enrolls his son in The Thinkery so that he might learn the rhetorical skills necessary to defeat their creditors in court. The son thereby learns cynical disrespect for social mores and contempt for authority and he subsequently beats his father up during a domestic argument, in return for which Strepsiades sets the Thinkery on fire. More significantly in this story is the fact that Socrates was the one who took charge of the Thinkery, which literally made Socrates more inexcusable. With no doubt, the rational thinking pattern which introduced by philosophical study can lead the students to challenge the fixed rules in the Athens society. However, standing as a strong advocator of Socrates, why Plato included the episode of Alcibiades’s speech, which not only seems to disturb the original harmony in the eulogy of love, but also could possibly jeopardize his teacher?
All the questions and doubts in mind still need us to seek answer through the original passage. Starting at 213a and ending at 222c, the description of Alcibiades’s atitude towards Socrates had been witty and ambivalent. On one hand, Alcibiades looked like an outrageous guy for he persistently exposed the ‘dirtiness’ and ‘hazard’ of Socrates; on the other hand, what our complainer said, from another perspective, did increase the forcefulness and persuasiveness of Socrates. Did Alcibiades really resent Socrates? No for sure. It was simply because Socrates’s wisdom was too radical and didactic that made ordinary people hard to accept, thus created the impression that he was so “brutal”. In the 215e, Alcibiades said:
Whenever I listen to him speak (Socrates), I get more ecstatic than the Corybantes. My heart pounds and tears flood from my eyes under the spell of his words. I’ve seen him have the same effect on plenty of others too.
Ostensibly, what this speech unveiled was the miserable condition when Alcibiades and other people heard the voice of Socrates and he even portrayed Socrates as Sirens. But in fact, it not only showed the admiration from Alcibiades towards his teacher, but also helped us to experience how impelling the ways Socrates use to speak are. Powerful argument, accurate pointing and merciless exposure are the indispensable features of them. Moreover, the points in Alcibiades’s speech arranged by Plato showed the pith embodied in Socrates’s teaching method, which commonly known as the most important contribution to Western thought. His dialectic method of inquiry which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts such as the Good and Justice, is in order to solve a problem, it would be broken down into a series of questions, the answers to which gradually distill the answer we seek. What Alcibiades said, far from being a profound revealing of Socrates’s contemptible behaviors, in fact more resembled to the exhibition of Socrates’s teaching accomplishment—even in the condition of drunk, Alcibiades articulated his points clearly and systematic; his appearance definitely showed us how to behave like a successful orator.
From another perspective, what Alcibiades said in his speech also showed us the integrity and muscularity of Socrates. His valor in the battles of Potidaea and Delium was highly appreciated and highly venerable in the city of Athens. As Alcibiades recounted, Socrates even saved his life in a battle. Such description in Symposium, with no doubt, will lead us to think about the courage and spirit when Socrates faced the impending execution. Socrates stated when he refused his friends’ rescue: the escaping will let me betray the principles I have believed for my entire life. The death judgment was ruled by a legal court, even though the judging process was biased because of the untruthful description of accuser. If I escaped, then my behavior can be nothing but the giving-up of sublime citizenship.
Finally, the inclination of Plato’s arrangement of symposium stopped at Alcibiades’s love towards Socrates. With the background information that there was a trend of love between males in ancient Athens, the love between Alcibiades and Socrates deserves more of our attention for its relationship between lover and beloved reversed to some extent. Unlike the common situation that adult male seeks the love from adolescent boy, in symposium it was Alcibiades who acted the role of lover. However, Socrates was neither rich nor handsome. Why Alcibiades finally chose Socrates, whose appearance presented through not only symposium but also other books was merely a white male whose youthfulness had already abandoned him and always face the lover’s hospitality with contemptuous scorn? Wisdom, the thing which Alcibiades yearn for but currently lack of, as to Plato, is the only explanation of such puzzle. Alcibiades wants to be as erudite as Plato, as knowledgeable as Plato, also get as much enlightenment as Socrates; and then his aspiration made him a steadfast fan of a person who was older than himself for almost forty years. Plato once again used his protean techniques to indirectly affirm Socrates’ s incomparable accomplishment.
Plato was smart anyway. His wisdom in Symposium, which superficially recorded the evidence of Socrates corrupting youth, at the contrary helped Socrates to exculpate himself from such crime as the courts of democratic Athens had tagged him. Plato was a philosopher himself; while he enjoying the pleasure when immersed himself in the exploration of value, atitude and hierarch, he firmly resisted the fetters the society had given him and other scholars. “The social convention should go to hell”, Plato thought, thus he wrote symposium, “so should the jury consisting five hundred male citizens”.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche used to say: “in the history of Athens there were two of the most beautiful flowers but were nevertheless corrupted by Socrates and one of them was Alcibiades”. But what Plato wanted to say in symposium is far from corrupting youth, Socrates taught them how to behave like an independent thinker, how to use a dialectic perspective to explore the world and how to be strong in front of difficulties.