Alcibiades and America

Socrates spends pages outlining all of the activities at which Alcibiades would be useless. To paraphrase:

S: Do you know anything about shoes?

A: No, that’s why we have cobblers.

S: Do you know anything about horses?

A: No, that’s why we have equestrians.

Etc…….

Until finally Socrates is left to ask the final big question: well then Alcibiades, what are you good for? This is an excellent question and one that I don’t feel like we contemplate very often. Other than the occasional existential crises that come maybe after college or around your 50^th birthday, I wonder how much quality time the average person spend developing self- knowledge by questioning one’s strengths and weaknesses. AsI watched the news after reading Alcibiades, I began to think of all of the ways American devalue self- knowledge. I keep hearing politicians say, “the American people want…” as if unaware that they are but one individual. I started to ask the news pundits, “what is your purpose?”

I ask: “Do you gather the news?”

G. Beck: “No, that is why we have journalists.”

I ask: “Because you report on crime, are you an expert in criminal psychology?”

K. Olbermann: “No, that is why we have criminal investigators.”

I ask: “Because you report on war, are you an expert in field tactics?”

W. Blitzer: “No, that is why we have generals.”

Until finally I asked, what is your purpose? So much of my reality is determined by these people whose expertise are looking thin on camera and pronouncing difficult names correctly. Talking heads decide what news we hear, what questions are being asked, how topics are delivered, and in what light to process information, and yet they are experts on nothing of value. Unable to realize their own strengths, people like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann “teach” others subjects about which they are uninformed. And then finally, America’s uproar over the innocent Representative from Arizona being shot I think really presents America’s lack of self- knowledge. Appalled by the internal violence that took place last weekend, we have poured over t.vs. and newspapers and yet I rarely see a tear dropped for the many victims of the decade long war America has been raging in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like Alcibiades, America has been long told how rich and noble and beautiful and free it is as a nation and now it seems unable to look within to determine its strengths and faults. This is why our culture cannot tolerate intellectualism; we cannot tolerate finding out what we don’t know.

As an individual it is important to self-question, to assess one’s own knowledge. Hubris, and maybe because it accompanies passion, is an affliction of the young. Maybe this is why America seems so struck with the kind of hubris that Alcibiades exhibits. We are a young nation and need a wise old philosopher to show us the way.