Why is this text worth commenting on? The question at hand: Can philosophy defend freedom? So far, it doesn’t seem so. Our last few considerations of this issue found the philosopher promoting the useful above things essential to freedom and dignity. Now it may be the case that the philosopher merely wants what is useful to inform freedom. We still have to wonder how far that thought can go. Philosophic freedom is very distinct from political freedom. How Socrates lives is not an accident.
I want to talk a little bit about something we passed over that might have future relevance. Aristarchus first dismisses any appeal to utility by associating slavery with providing for one and many (II.7.3). Then he attacks having an art in favor of “being freely educated” (II.7.4) and finds any barbarian examples of using people well distasteful (II.7.6). The example of Nausicydes in II.7.6 makes one wonder if barbarian orderings are symbolic of political life generally. If that last part is the case, freedom as an end conflicts with politics itself, unless Aristarchus’ notion is so utterly useless. There’s certainly evidence for such uselessness. Indeed, we’ve already listed it.
(II.7.8) [Socrates:] “And did they learn what you say that they understand, on the assumption that these things are not useful for one’s life and that they would not be making any of them, or, on the opposite assumption, that they would be attentive to these things and derive benefit from them? For how is moderation fostered more in human beings: through their being idle or through their being attentive to the useful things? And how would they be more just: if they are at work, or if they idly deliberate about their provisions?”
Comment: The women in Aristarchus’ household do know how to make barley meal, loaves of bread, cloaks, tunics, mantles and vests (II.7.5). That they should employ this knowledge is only part of a larger argument Socrates is making. That argument started with II.7.7: freedom and happiness were connected with work of a sort. That work mentioned learning and remembering and branched from there. Acquisition was also mentioned, but property wasn’t stated as a goal, only “what is useful… for life.”
Here, there is still no private property: the emphasis is on production creating moderation and justice. Justice is very curious, as it stands opposed to “idle deliberation.” A lack of idleness seems to aid the intellect (II.7.7) and produce virtue (II.7.8). Of course, “benefit” is crucial to the enterprise.
(II.7.9) “But in fact as it is now, I think, you do not love these women, nor do they love you; for you believe that they are causing you a loss, and they see that you are annoyed on their account. From this situation, there is a risk of greater enmity coming into being and their former gratitude diminishing. But if you preside over them so that they are at work, you will love them when you see that they are beneficial to you, and they will cherish you when they perceive that you are delighted with them; and since it will be more pleasing to recall former good deed, you [pl.] will augment the gratitude stemming from them and as a result be more friendly and like a family to one another.”
Comment: Socrates is giving the advice that will translate into Aristarchus’ creating a sweatshop. It moved from some rough consideration of the intellect and virtue to love. Our big question: does this advice help heal the family? The political order? Civil strife, after all, helped cause this mess in the first place.
It isn’t clear there is a family or appropriate notion of gratitude at work when everything is so conventional. Creating one to be an aristocrat-oligarch is perhaps too great an affront against nature. Nature allows for love of benefactors, though, and even the pleasures had from earning rewards in a reduced system. Before, the “freely educated” had dignity. Now they may trade it for a pat on the back for small jobs well done.
That this isn’t really gratitude discussed should make us wonder about whether a family can be purely conventional. Something about the family must be natural. Were Aristarchus’ relatives really a “family” when eating so much as to destroy his household? Moreover, what of “beneficial?” A natural good is not so much recalling “former good deeds,” but attaining wisdom.
A rough, provisional conclusion: one may need conventionality for love. You need it to have gratitude and a sense of pleasure connected to dignity. Purely natural benefits may not further society’s growth. The natural may be a more appropriate concept for family, but thinking through that, we realize that bad conventions (creating an aristocrat-oligarch) might create bad familial relations.
- Perplexities of the City: Analysis and Discussion of Xenophon, Memorabilia II.7 (Part I)
- Perplexities of the City: Analysis and Discussion of Xenophon, Memorabilia II.7.6-7 (Part III)
- Perplexities of the City: Analysis and Discussion of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, II.7.3-5 (Part II)
- Rambling: Xenophon, Memorabilia, 1.1.15
- A Question of Wealth: On Xenophon, Memorabilia I 2.62
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
No Comments