Notes on Socrates and the Ethics of Sobriety (A 6/20 Paper by Maria Thanassa)

Curbing their enthusiasm: Socrates, Maria Thanassa & Larry David 

 

 

I. 

 

According to Maria Thanassa [1], notions of sobriety and intoxication are central to Plato's Symposium and Socrates is shown to be a man of self-restraint above all else; he drinks, but never gets drunk; he loves, but never succumbs to erotic ecstasy (even remaining somewhat indifferent to the charms of Alcibiades).

 

Socrates, in other words, is a man who, like Larry David, knows how to curb his enthusiasm [2] and keep his wits about him. It's not so much that he lacks passion, but he prefers to master his desires. For Socrates, sobriety guarantees the integrity of his nature.

 

But, as becomes clear later in her presentation, Dr Thanassa is not only concerned with the doings of ancient Greek philosphers. She is interested also in how the idea of sobriety can be reactivated within a contemporary culture she thinks of as intoxicated (and infantilised) by a form of liberal Dionysianism that promotes the freedom of the individual and self-expression.           

 

In other words, a bit like the Greek lyric poet Theognis, Dr Thanassa wants people to exercise a degree of control and not act in a shameless or foolish manner (enslaved by their own base instincts); to behave in an ethical and stylised manner, carefully cultivating the self [3]. 

 

II. 

 

This might make Dr Thanassa sound like a bit of a killjoy or a member of the morality police; i.e., one who wishes to enforce a code of conduct and is concerned when people transgress certain social rules. Fortunately, however, she is saved from becoming a battle-axe like Granny Hatchet [4] by that which Socrates and Larry David are both masters of: irony. 

 

Maria ironically tempers her own enthusiasm for telling others to curb their enthusiasm before it tips over into zealotry. Like Socrates - and Larry David - she seems at times to try out and test philosophical positions without ever allowing them to become points of principle or dogma. 

 

That doesn't mean we shouldn't take what Dr Thanassa says seriously - just not that seriously. And it certainly shouldn't stop us from enjoying the wine served at the end of the paper, for as Alcibiades might remind us, the 6/20 is, like the symposium, a drinking party as much as a forum of debate.

 

Having said that, food and wine is served at the 6/20 to help facilitate conversation between those in attendance, not to induce drunken excess and vomiting on the way home [5] - something that the host, Mr Christian Michel, would almost certainly not approve of.          

 

III.

I think the part of Dr Thanassa's paper I enjoyed the most was the section in which she (following Martha Nussbaum) discussed Socrates as someone who, in his strangeness, stands apart from other men - and indeed, the human condition itself. 

 

As already mentioned, Plato depicts Socrates as someone who is absent when he should be present; who drinks but does not get drunk; who is impervious to cold and hunger; who values beauty but remains unaffected by its physical manifestations; and who feels erotic desire but does not fully succumb to the pleasures of the flesh.

That certainly makes him sound like a queer fish and, according to Dr Thanassa, the oddity of his character when combined with his satyr-like ugliness makes him not only different, but genuinely other - inaccessible, impenetrable, and impossible to shut-up, even when sentenced to death.  

 

I can see why so many of his fellow Athenians hated him, just as so many of Larry David's friends and neighbours seem to find him impossible at times. But the above traits only increase my admiration for Socrates; he may lack empathy, but at least he recognises that even the most tragic events (such as the death of a pet parrot) have a comic aspect and that the philosopher must be free to ridicule, mock, or criticise everything under the sun - even if this risks offending others [6]. 

 

As the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote: Socrates could abstain from those things that most are too weak to abstain from and enjoy in moderation those things that many indulge in excessively to their shame. His strength, his ability to endure, and his sobriety marked him out as a man of perfect and invincible spirit [7].  

In sum - and I think this was Dr Thanassa's closing line (borrowed from Baudelaire) - Keep smiling with Spartan serenity [8] and remember that curbing your enthusiasm means choosing not to burst into flame even though, as a philosopher, you will burn with a very special type of passion.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Dr Maria Thanassa presented a short paper entitled 'Curb Your Enthusiasm: On Socrates and the Ethics of Sobriety' at Christian Michel's 6/20 Club (London) on 20 Feb 2023. This post is based on my recollection of what was said and I apologise to Dr Thanassa should I misrepresent her ideas in any manner. 

 

[2] The Socrates / Larry David connection and comparison has been made before; see, for example, Daniel Coffeen's excellent post on the philosophy of Curb Your Enthusiasm on his blog An Emphatic Umph: click here. 

      Coffeen rightly argues that both Socrates and Larry are characters who interact with the world in a fundamentally different way from most other people, refusing as they do inherited terms and questioning beliefs and norms of behaviour at every opportunity: "But whereas Socrates is really only concerned with big ideas about truth, morality, language, politics, Larry takes on the micro interactions of the social." 

      I was rather disappointed, considering the title of her paper, that Dr Thanassa didn't make more of the relationship between Socrates and Larry David. 

[3] This is suggestive of Foucault's later work and I was pleased to hear Dr Thanassa refer to such later in her paper, as well as to Nietzsche's idea of what constitutes the most needful thing - the constraint of a single taste - if an individual is to give style to their lives. 

[4] Granny Hatchet (Caroline Nation) was a member of the American temperance movement in the late-19th century and early-20th century, who famously smashed up liquor joints with a handheld axe. See the recent post written on her life and times: click here.   

[5] See the poem by Theognis in Greek Elegiac Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, ed. and trans. Douglas E. Gerber (Loeb Classical Library / Harvard University Press, 1999), lines 477-496, quoted by Dr Thanassa on the night. 

[6] See my post of 14 Nov 2017 - 'Torpedo the Ark Means Everything's Funny' - click here. 

[7] I'm paraphrasing here from Meditations 1.16 - a passage quoted by Dr Thanassa in her paper. 

[8] See Baudelaire, 'The Painter of Modern Life', in The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays (Phaidon Press, 1995), p. 29. 

      What I say here of the philosopher is, of course, what Baudelaire says of the modern dandy - another figure who understands, style, sobriety, and self-restraint.

 

I would like to express my gratitude once more to Maria for producing a fascinating paper and to Christian Michel for hosting another very enjoyable evening. This post is dedicated to them both and I hope it brings them some pleasure. 

It Was Beauty Killed the Beast

"It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."  

 

 

I. 

 

One of the greatest movies ever made opened in New York City ninety years ago, on 2 March 1933. 

 

Directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, it starred Fay Wray as out-of-work actress Ann Darrow on the lookout for love and excitement; Robert Armstrong as wildlife filmmaker Carl Denham; and Bruce Cabot as rugged first mate on board the SS Venture Jack Driscoll. 

 

The film also featured astonishing special effects by the stop-motion animation pioneer Obie O'Brien. 

 

I'm referring, of course, to King Kong ...

 

 

II.

There are many, many reasons to fondly recall this film, in which a giant ape - captured on Skull Island and brought back in chains to America, so as to be exhibited on stage as the Eighth Wonder of the World - runs rampage in New York, climbing the iconic Empire State Building whilst carrying a lovely young woman in his huge paw.

 

But the reason I'm reminded of it now is because I have just returned from a 6/20 meeting at the London home of Christian Michel [1], in which a guest speaker presented her thoughts on the subject of beauty, seemingly oblivious to (or unconcerned with) what we might term the politics of the subject - even though, as the French philosopher Jacques Rancière puts it, aesthetics is that which ties together art, thought, and issues to do with how we choose to live together as a culture and a people. 

 

I'm not criticising the fact that Miss Hasan [2] chose to mount a conservative defence of beauty (informed by the work of Roger Scruton) against what she regards as the disenchanted utility of our modern world. But I do think she might, in future, consider how beauty itself can turn very ugly - and even murderous - when, for example, it is written with a capital 'B' and conflated with other ideal notions of Goodness and Truth.

 

Plato famously made this mistake. And failed artist Adolf Hitler also acted not in the name of hate, but in the name of Love informed by Classical ideals of what constitutes Beauty; harmony, wholeness, purity, etc. 

 

Indeed, one is almost tempted to say that just as it wasn't the airplanes that killed Kong - It was beauty killed the beast - neither was it the military-industrial complex of the Third Reich that resulted in genocide; it was, rather, the Nazi aesthetic and their totalitarian desire to eradicate all they deemed ugly, monstrous, degenerate, alien (i.e., all forms of otherness) [3].           

       

Notes

 

[1] Christian Michel is a French polymath who has graciously hosted the twice-monthly 6/20 Club at his west London home for almost twenty years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics.

 

[2] Born on the southern coast of Pakistan, Mariam Hasan is a London-based writer who runs discussion groups in pubs and parks. Her academic background is multidisciplinary, stretching from Frankfurt-style critical theory to explorations of collective memory. 

 

[3] As the Swedish film director Peter Cohen says: 

      "Defining Nazism in traditional political terms is difficult. Mainly because its dynamic was fuelled by something quite different from what we usually call politics. This driving force was aesthetic. Its ambition was to beautify the world through violence." 

      Quoted by Matthew Gault in the online artcle 'The Nazis Obsessed Over Beauty', on medium.com: click here. 

      Readers who are interested in this might like to watch Cohen's 1989 documentary The Architecture of Doom (originally released in Swedish as Undergångens arkitektur). The film explores Hitler's obsession with his own neo-Classical (and yet paradoxically Romantic) vision of what was and was not aesthetically acceptable. The Nazis didn't just eliminate enemies of the State, they killed anyone whose very existence conflicted with their ideal of what they deemed Good, True, and Beautiful.

 

 

For those who can bear to watch, click here for the final tragic scene from King Kong (1933). 

 

 

Spectres of Marx and Derrida: A Post in Response to a 6/20 Paper by John Holroyd

 

The ghostly figures of Karl Marx (1818-1883) 

and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

'Deconstruction never had any meaning or interest 

other than as a radicalization of a certain spirit of Marxism ...'

 

I couldn't help thinking that John Holroyd's paper on Marx presented last night at Christian Michel's 6/20 [1] was something of a missed opportunity. For rather than simply rake over over the ashes of historical Marxism, he might have invoked the spirit of that untimely Marxism which continues to haunt capitalist society and the imagination of those concerned not with communism per se, but the possibility of radical critique. 

 

And rather than argue in favour of positive freedom - i.e., a fulfilled and unalienated form of existence lived within a harmonious community established upon an ideal of justice - Holroyd could have developed the idea of what might be termed posthumous freedom, by which one refers to a model of freedom invested with elements from the past and overshadowed by futurity; a model that embraces uncanny otherness thereby disrupting the presence of what is present (including the self), and renders the question of alienation a non-issue. 

 

That's not to say Holroyd's talk was uninteresting or poorly presented: in fact, Holroyd is an accomplished speaker who clearly has an excellent grasp of his material. But, it was essentially just a reminder of Marx and the messianic or religious nature of his work - the aspect which clearly most excites Holroyd - rather than a daring philosophical attempt to reimagine Marx in spectral form à la Derrida [2].    

 

Of course, Holroyd doesn't pretend to be a Derridean and probably has little truck with différance and deconstruction. And some might argue it's a little unfair to criticise a speaker for what they don't say, rather than focus on the issues that were addressed.

 

Nevertheless, for a writer interested in the persistence of ideas from the cultural and social past and intrigued by those thinkers, like Marx, whom Nietzsche calls posthumous individuals, Holroyd might at least have indicated he was aware of Derrida's seminal text on atemporal Marxism - and if he isn't, then this, in my view, is a serious shortcoming and I would respectfully suggest he add it to his reading list ASAP.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] John Holroyd has a background in theology and philosophy and has taught religious studies (and other subjects) in schools (and online) for many years and lectured at the London School of Philosophy.  He is the author of Judging Religion: A Dialogue for Our Times (Silverwood Books, 2019). 

      Christian Michel is a French polymath who has graciously hosted the twice-monthly 6/20 Club at his west London home for almost twenty years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics. 

 

[2] Jacques Derrida's Spectres de Marx (Éditions Galilée, 1993) was trans. by Peggy Kamuf and published in English by Routledge the following year. 

      The ideas that Derrida introduces here - such as hauntology - were first presented in a series of lectures during a conference on the future of Marxism held at the University of California, Riverside in 1993. For Derrida, the spirit of Marx contines to haunt the modern social imaginary even in a world that is post-Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union (and this will continue to be the case so long as there is injustice, inequality, oppression, and exploitation). 

      For a critical reading of this text by Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, and others, see Ghostly Demarcations, ed. Michael Sprinkler, (Verso, 1999).

 

 

Jumping Grace (A Short Verse in the Manner of Michel Houellebecq)

En sautant Grace -

Visiblement belle

Ravie dans son nouveau soutien-gorge de sport

Indifférente à la gravité.

Jumping Grace -

Conspicuously beautiful

Happy in her new sports bra

Unconcerned with gravity.

Thanks to Gedvile Bunikyte for kind permission to use her photograph. 

Thanks to Simon Solomon, Christian Michel and Sophie Stas for help with the translation (into French); any errors or inadequacies are entirely my own. 

(No) Sympathy for the Rich

Christian Michel

In wake of the recent publication of the so-called Panama Papers, the French libertarian writer Christian Michel advises that we resist the urge to howl with predictable moral outrage and instead express our gratitude towards those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford to significantly reduce their tax bills.

In other words, we should sympathise with the super-rich, not curse them. Michel writes:

"It's hard to be rich. I pity the billionaires who, with a bit of hard work and an immense amount of luck, have managed to offer us products and services we want to buy. The public brings billions to their coffers. Then the public unfairly blames them for amassing those billions.

Of course the rich don't pay more taxes than they are required to; they are just like you and I. Who writes a check to the NHS for a treatment that comes free? Or pays TfL full fare when one is entitled to a discount? We don’t believe in paying government bodies more than called for and it so happens, when it comes to taxes, that legal opportunities exist to minimise the burden.

Thus this is not a moral issue. When some politician admonishes corporate executives on their greed and immorality they threaten all our freedom. A government function is to produce legislation. What the legislation allows is no longer the remit of government.

Commentators may choose to debate the perfectly legal behaviour of individuals, but government officials should not do so. That’s a condition of our security. If zoning laws state that you may build a house up to ten meters high, the council’s mission is to check the highest tile is not higher than 10 meters. That’s all. It is not their business to discuss your taste in decoration, or whom you choose to share your home with.

Likewise, if the rich choose to make use of perfectly legal tax havens, that's their business and their right to do so. Some people may resent it, but the law affords protection to all - even the rich.

Cheating, of course, is a different matter. There exist so many ways to mitigate taxes legally that you wonder if it is laziness or simply stupidity that makes some cross the line that separates tax avoidance from tax evasion. (Of course, it may be the source of the funds that's the decisive issue here, but that's another question.)

Ultimately, everyone - rich or poor - wants to protect their own interests and maximise their own advantages and we should not only acknowledge this fact, but encourage it and celebrate it as fundamental to the workings of a mature, liberal society."

Now, although I'd not describe myself either as a liberal, or a libertarian, I'd pretty much agree - perhaps to Christian's surprise and the disappointment of others - with what's said here. It's not that selfishness and greed is good, but rank hypocrisy and politicised moral ressentiment is worse and arguably more dangerous in the long run.

Having said that, it would really stick in my craw having to express sympathy, gratitude, or admiration for the 1%. That's simply not going to happen. In fact, like Joe Strummer, I don't wanna hear about what the rich are doing and I don't wanna go to where, where the rich are going. For great wealth - like great poverty - deforms and makes ugly at last. And wanting to be rich is a sign of low vitality.  


Notes

Christian Michel is a London-based, political theorist and activist; un homme de lettres et un homme de la ville. He teaches courses on economics and is regularly asked to speak at international events as a leading figure within the libertarian movement. Christian also organizes a twice-monthly salon at his West London home known as the 6/20 Club and facilitates the Café Philo at the Institut français on Saturday mornings. His text, which has been slightly edited, is used with kind permission. 

Joe Strummer was the lead singer of British punk band The Clash. The lines quoted are from a song written by Strummer entitled 'Garageland' which appeared on their eponymous debut album (CBS, 1977). Click here if you want to hear it.   

The Joy of Buttons - A Guest Post by Christian Michel

I

When the success of Lolita allowed him to live in the luxury he had been accustomed to in his childhood before the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Nabokov complained after the long-serving and much-loved lift man at the Montreux Palace was replaced by an automated system of buttons.

Nabokov doesn't elaborate, but his concern seems unrelated to the misery of unemployment or the human cost of further advances in machine technology. Rather, it was more to do with his own desire for recognition as a respected patron of the hotel. Buttons, alas, do not meet this need.

The lift operator - educated, well-mannered, and at ease around the rich and powerful - was, if not quite a gentleman in his own right, nevertheless a true professional who understood perfectly how society is founded upon mutual respect and recognition between its members, even across divisions of class. The sordid topic of coin does not - or at least should not - be allowed to disrupt this.      

Certainly in the well-ordered environment of a grand hotel, members of staff are not regarded as abject inferiors and whilst they must certainly not be overly-familiar or forward, neither are they expected to be obsequious or servile. It's a question of balance; of being relaxed, but not informal or discourteous. This, in turn, impels the guests of the hotel to be polite and, hopefully, generous with tips. Thus all actors in this disciplined artificial utopia perform in accordance with social expectation and custom.  

Of course, this social model may not appeal very much to a modern, democratic sensibility. But isn't it more human and, indeed, more humane than a world wherein we are all required to push our own elevator buttons? 

II

Having said this, perhaps Nabokov and those who subscribe to an idealised world of masters and servants miss something crucial: we moderns love pressing buttons and interacting with technology and that is why the machine has triumphed and the old order given way.

Perhaps our daily use of and reliance upon mighty machines and smart devices has somewhat dulled the pleasure, but imagine our ancestors joy at realising that they could suddenly achieve miracles at the touch of a button, or the flick of a switch. To get anything done at all used to require hard labour and dirty, dangerous, tedious hours of endless toil. And the result was often hardly worth the effort!

It is only after the industrial revolution ushers in the Age of the Machine and, later, information-technology, that work becomes honourable and life becomes more than merely a short, brutal form of meagre existence that is scratched out from the dirt on a day-to-day basis. What is more beautiful than being able to press a button in order to power up and light up the world? Or indeed, destroy it. 

Nabokov neglected or chose to ignore this aspect. And so, whilst I agree with him that individuals need the recognition and respect of their fellows, we don't want to be deprived of the joy, the convenience, and the privilege of pressing buttons.


Christian Michel is a London-based, French political theorist and activist; un homme de lettres et un homme de la ville. He teaches courses on economics and is regularly asked to speak at international events as a leading figure within the libertarian movement. Christian also organizes a twice-monthly salon at his West London home known as the 6/20 Club and facilitates the Café Philo at the Institut français on Saturday mornings.      

Christian appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for his kind permission to revise and edit - and not merely reproduce - the above text which has previously appeared elsewhere in a longer, somewhat different version.