Thursday, January 20, 2011

Perserving the soul through communal memory


I found this reading particularly difficult to get through after loosing a friend on Monday night. For the last couple of days, I have been thinking on the subject of death and the consequences of an individual's passing. Therefore it is interesting to contrast my own personal beliefs about death and the soul and that of the Phaedo's soul, which is immortal, reoccurring, and ever existent. Like Socrates I am unsure what comes to an individual after death, but I am sure about what happens in their absence. My community gathered to mourn the passing of my neighbor, Errol. At least a hundred people came to be with one another in our grief and confusion and it got me thinking about how the Phaedo talks about the soul. At the very beginning of the Phaedo something Socrates said really struck me. He argues, "I am cofident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil." For me, death is the final frontier. Put me in a box or an oven, I won't know the difference because I believe death is the end of each of our individual existences. But after Errol's (or as I call him Scooter's) wake last night, I started to think maybe Socrates has teased out something essential about the souls of the deceased. Last night, I watched the living spring from the dead. In his families sadness, in our sadness as friends, we sprung to life at Errol's death. Even though our emotions are anger, sadness, and despair, they define us as the living. While it is not what Socrates is arguing, I would say that the way death results in emotion, which enlivens the living is a way that "the living spring from the dead." Socrates continues by saying that "the souls of the dead are in existence." This is surely true as even in death, Errol still controls and affects the world of the living. Because the memory of Errol lives within those who knew him, he never resigns to death. Finally, Socrates argues that "good souls have a better portion than evil," and again I must agree with Socrates. Those who were good in life remain longer in the living world. The more individual you touched in your lifetime, the longer your memory will be preserved and cared for. Errol touched many lives and this is why his death brought many mourners. His spirit is alive in us.

I know that I am bastardizing the argument that Socrates is making here but his teachings on death very easily lend themselves to this argument. There is something immortal about the soul and whether it is physical or metaphorical the dead living amongst us. Those that are left behind in the living world give life to the dead through their memories and in this way souls are immortal.


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