Rachel's post

Tom has invited me to write a guest post here on his blog.  In the absence of a topic set for the post I have chosen to write about Socrates and philosophy in brief.

Socrates is suitable because both me and Tom hold him in high esteem.  

My thoughts on this are jumbled and came out of my head whilst laying in bed this morning so bear with me.

 

If I dare to open my mouth and express my thoughts on Covid 19  I have been told, erroneously I might add, that I am a conspiracy theorist, told to fuck off, and other things besides.   That I am a conspiracy theorist is not and has never been true but I have questioned many things out loud on my blog about the scientists, the BMA, the WHO, the statistics and now,  more so than early on in the pandemic,  exactly who is controlling Boris Johnson;  is he controlling himself;  has he lost control of his Cabinet;  is somebody else controlling him;   or perhaps none of these statements are true.   I don't think anybody knows the answers to these questions so I am not expecting you to answer nor least of all do I want political rants.

 

This brings me to Socrates, because he liked to question everything and to the answers he received,  he countered with another question.  For this he made many enemies and eventually was charged with morally corrupting the young for questioning moral values and for undermining morals.   He was basically a pain in the next to the political hierarchy of Athens.

 

In conducting his defence Socrates sought to find out whether anyone was wiser than him.  The oracles of the day came back to him and said no, nobody is wiser than you.  Socrates was baffled and he tested what the oracle said.    Socrates who  always claimed to know absolutely  nothing, concluded that "I am wiser than all of them only to this extent that I do not think that I know what I do not know".  

During the pandemic self awareness does not go amiss.

     

So as Socrates said,  lead a virtuous and a  flourishing life and seek knowledge all the time and everyday question your own life and how best you can live it.  Virtue is knowledge and the soul is far more important than wealth.   The word flourish meant knowledge in the time of Socrates and the only way to flourish was to seek to learn all the time.

 

Blogging is like a ritual, a ritual meeting space and within these blogs a meeting place of those we wish to meet at least in theory but it doesn't always work that simply.     Being part of a blog we find community fellowship with other but the problem of sharing in public and what you put in and what you leave out puts us  in a position of vulnerability and that can be misinterpreted and abused.   This would not stop Socrates and his questions so it doesn't stop me.