Welcome back to the Thinkery. I'm David Barr with me as always is my good friend Greg McBrayer. How are you Greg? Fine.
And Greg I know that you're hesitant to respond because I usually say something unkind to you at the start of the episode. Usually do. But this is different Greg. Listen, don't mess with me today David.
Okay. I understand. I understand. Yeah.
And you're drinking listeners can't see that but I can see that you're drinking. I know how you get when Greg. We can. Are you going to cuff me and Alex pre how are you Alex?
I do great. Thank you. How are you David? I'm well enough.
Yeah. We are on the third installment of our seemingly never ending series on Plato's Symposium. Is that correct? That's right.
That's right. And we are discussing the speech of P. Phaedrus? No, I don't know how to say the name.
What name? Pausanias. It was Pazanias. I thought that there was a debate on how.
I say Pazanias. You say Pazanias. Greg, what do you say? Pazanias.
Yeah. The real answer is and we'll get a nasty note from I am Bada Binga. Oh yeah. Bada Binga.
That's where he knows Greek like he knows Greek like the Athenians. Well, he knows Greek better than I do. But I think the answer is really nobody knows. I mean, there are better and worst guesses.
But at the end of the day, nobody knows the trouble I've been through. So take that off, man. I don't know why you got to antagonize him. No, no, I don't want to because he's too smart.
And he's also very buff. Yeah. Yeah. Is he?
Yeah. So what does he do? He just learns Swar Healy writes his hog around and lifts weights. I'm pretty sure he's also trained in driving getaway cars.
I'm not making that up. Yeah. I don't want we don't want to reveal too much about our friend. But he is a cool, cool back story.
He will be on our podcast one day. I hope so. Yeah. I'm actually sort of scared.
He's so much smarter than any of us. He's just a shooter. Yeah. That's what Greg dentures.
My dentures are a little loose tonight. We've already this is our second episode of recording tonight. I'm tired. I'm tired.
I'm missing it. That log. And so let's jump into it. Yeah.
Let's do that. So where you know Greg, you're getting older and I'm stupid. That's what flag Taylor told me. Flag.
I see you. Let's remind ourselves and listeners kind of where we've come from in the symposium. Sure. This is our third episode.
Third episode. So this is the second speaker, right? Yeah. So we've so there are six speeches.
There'll be a seven. But we have our first episode was sort of a broad overview of the dialogue, but also focused on what was called the narrative frame of the dialogue. The symposium is a dialogue by Plato 135. And this dialogue is symposium is a young man telling a story about a drinking party that happened some years ago to another unnamed man.
That narrative frame, we did an entire episode, almost entire episode on that narrative frame. Then we moved into the internal dialogue of the symposium that begins with Socrates and a young man with him or Sadeemus arriving at a party party in honor of the tragic poet named Agathon, who's just won a prize, basically Oscar or best tragedy. And the party is sort of in his honor. Actually, it's the second night of parties in his honor, the previous night they'd had a real real throw down as the kid say.
And this this night's party is a little weaker. They have decided this night to drink less and to have instead a conversation, instead of drinking heavily, they'll have conversation or in fact speeches about love or eros, the Greek God of love. And that was our first episode. Our second episode was devoted to the very first speech in honor of the God, eros, which was given by Phaedrus.
The listeners can go back and listen to that. I would encourage, by the way, I guess just as a brief aside, we're doing, I think today's speech is only five Stephanos pages. So we really are talking about a very short snippet of reading. Folks could, if they wanted to, treat this like a class of some sorts and they could read alongside of us.
It's a very modest reading load to keep up with this very deep dive on us and posing. Phaedrus' speech seemed to subordinate love to what good things one could get out of it. All of these men are going to praise love in their own special way and they're going to try and we're going to, apparently Plato's presenting them in a way that allows us to see different human types and to see what's going on in the soul of people, the souls of people, their psychology. Because something about the objects of their deepest longing has helped us to understand those people.
So Phaedrus, to use a sort of silly example, something like a gold dig or something like this, like someone who gets nice jewelry, nice cars, nice houses, they get rewards for being the object of someone else's love. Tonight, the three of us are going to discuss a speech by a guy named Pausanias, although they're some dispute, I suppose, among the three of us is how you say his name. So I think that's a summary of what's proceeded. So we've done two episodes, one on the frame and one on the first speech.
This third episode is on the second speech by Pausanias. And let's say really quickly after me, you're going to say that sorry, I'm not touching it. Unbelievable, Greg. We just share the episodes shameful.
We're going to report you to the local constable. This episode's very Greek and the symposium introduces kind of, but you have to, well, I just take it away, Alex. I don't know how to discuss. So one way I connect Pausanias to speech to Phaetra is, you're so wrapped with attention, Greg, it's flattering.
I'm just going to put you on mute. Well, it's about old men and young men and Greg's old and we're young. It's attracted to us, especially when we... Okay, I said it.
So Phaetra gives a speech about arrows from the perspective of the beloved. I think that's always important to keep in mind. The rest of them tend to be lovers, but he's really the only one who's a beloved, maybe aside from Socrates. Pausanias then gives us the first speech from the perspective of a lover and from a very conventional sort of lover for the Greeks.
Now, a lot of the jokes, very disrespectful jokes coming from David and Greg right now are mocking the very ugly and elemental institution of Greek pederassae, but it's something we're going to have to talk about. So I thought I'd give a sort of short description because this is Pausanias' speech is basically a justification, I think a kind of a squirrely justification of this institution that serves as Plato's sort of send up or critique of it. It's kind of pretenses or vanities that it doesn't actually live up to. So basically what would happen is you'd have a young youth who maybe didn't have their beard yet.
Do you think it's a young youth? Alex, not an old youth. Yes, not an old youth. Okay, good.
A young youth. Thank you for that. So the youth would not yet have their beard, right? But the lover might have their beard.
And this very long bearded lover. Wait a minute, are you? No, no, no, no, there's nothing. Anyways, I have a long bearded.
Oh, really? Just coincidence? That might just be one overlap, right? So they might need a wrestling school, right?
They might be oiled up in a wrestling school. A place to replace her. That's what they call them, the wrestling school. But this better than me.
You were there. But... I have a long beard and I was a wrestler. Keep going.
Just a coincidence, right? Just a coincidence. It was a bearded wrestler named Greg. It might come up to you.
But anyways, the idea was that you'd be a youth, you'd be an exercising, you'd be studying, or whatever. And this somewhat older fella, not old old, but maybe in their 30s, Greg. I don't know what is it? Late 30s, yeah.
Early 30s, yeah. It would take you under your wing, right? And they would educate you, you would have a kind of companionship. And if all went according to plan, there would be some constipation, right?
Right. At the end of it. This is widespread, Alex, and I mean, like speaking seriously. How common was it?
And then wasn't it also kind of... I mean, today we look at it like with justified horror. But even in Athens, this wasn't like if you were a petarast, people dissed you, right? Like it wasn't the honorable kind of...
You talked about that a little bit, right? It was a mix, I think. Yeah. It depends.
I mean, so the fathers didn't take too kindly to it because obviously there is... The fathers of the youth. Yeah, the fathers of the youth. Can I...
Before you go too far, I just want to point out that like the young youths that you're talking about, these are guys in their late teens. So it's actually quite advanced youth. It's not very young youth. It's not very young youth.
I would say they're... You're there for years. It starts to come in, right? Isn't that what it says in the text?
Yeah. So I would say late teens. I mean, I didn't start going to be here until I was 25. But my only point is that it's...
I mean, I think that there's a difference between... This is creepy and weird. I think this is just going to happen. We're going to get some kind of defense.
We're going. I'm just saying that this, for me, this is a practice that is shameful, but not necessarily as... It's not a feel yet. It's not a feel yet.
That's what I was trying to say. Yeah. That's it. So...
And, you know, Pazani, it's just talk about your exact plan. I'm trying to find the page where he mentions this. It's... Yeah.
So this is around 183C to 184A. He talks about this a bit. He says, now on these grounds, one might suppose that it's customarily held to be a very fine thing in the city, both to love and for lovers to have friends. But on the other hand, when fathers said attendance in charge of their beloveds and prohibited them from conversing with their lovers, and the attendant has this as a standing order, and the beloveds' contemporaries and comrades blame him if they see anything like this going on.
And then elders in turn do not stand in the way of those who cast repurchase or abuse them on the grounds that they are speaking incorrectly, that if one glenses in this direction, one would believe that such a thing is customarily held to be most shameful. So it's got a kind of mixed reception, right? On the one hand, you know, it's often praised when it's done in a certain way, Pazani just wants to say, but on the other hand, it's often blamed. And there's a version of this, I think, in Plato's lysis, right, where these attendants come to take lysis away from Socrates, and they're usually kept separate oftentimes in the schools.
But... So it's an institution that's widespread, a practice that's widespread, and yet always kind of frowned upon. So is that your sense of a two-grag? I think that's right.
It's mixed in it. It varies based on location too. So different Greek cities had different views of it. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like in Sparta. Wasn't it rampant in Sparta? Well, it was legally...
Sparta had some of the harshest laws opposed to it, I think. Oh, like I said, it's Xenophonically... No, no, no, but Xenophonically was actually widely practiced, despite that. So yeah, I think it was widely practiced in Sparta, actually.
Yeah, interesting. Yeah. So the institution ostensibly, the idea... And this comes out in Pazani's speech, right?
The idea behind it is you take something under your wing, you educate them. And it's noble so long as it's enduring and with an eye towards virtue, right? That's the idea. And that's what makes it noble.
The practice in and of itself, he says, is neither noble or based. It's the end or the goal that it serves that distinguishes them, right? And on this note, I'll just note that Pazani is... I think he's speaking from experience because he was a longtime lover of Agathons, right?
Agathon, right, as Greg mentioned, just won this tragedy. And they have a sort of long-term relationship. And what we find out is Agathons kind of fawning on Alcibiades and Socrates. We find out later somebody's left, and I think it might be Pazani's.
He doesn't like seeing his man fawning over others. But he does... I think he means this, right? I just think he doesn't understand how when you make the goal virtue, the whole sexual aspect ends up being somewhat beside the point, if not undermining.
Sorry, Greg, you were going to jump in? Just a small point, not subsequently. But for those listeners who are interested in these things, like in our... As we were talking earlier the day before, we recorded...
The overbook on Greek sexuality is really, I think the foundational secondary text that people are interested in continuing to explore is... I think it's just called Greek sexuality or something. Is that right, Alice? Yeah, Greek homosexuality.
I think... Yeah. I think Greg, Alex, are you saying that...? You can watch the 300, but not the war movie, the other one.
Good heavens. Alex, you were saying that... No, I'm era. Is this speech then?
Do you think that Pazani is embarrassed of his lifestyle? Is this a kind of... No, it's ironic. I should underscore it.
It's more ironic that the ultimate lesson. Now, his speech is really important, I think, for later in the book. He talks about lover and beloved wanting to be welded or fused together. The only time that's used elsewhere is in air-stoffany speech, right?
Same verb. It does, and everybody loves air-stoffany speech, so that desire to be one with your beloved, right, is something that I think speaks to people, right, and romantic love and the way they understand it. Also, the idea of falling in love with someone for their body, which is in the background of a placentist's speech, that's really important as well, because that comes in Socrates' ladder of love is a kind of a set of love from the lowest level, but an important first step. So, Alex, we talked...
I suppose I mentioned two episodes ago that one of the major questions of this text is, love was a God for them. And so, for Phaedrus, this is the one over the last time, Phaedrus says that Eros is one of the oldest gods, maybe the oldest, but maybe not the oldest, depending on which source he goes with. Pausanius says that there are two Eroses, but in Greek, two Erotes, or whatever. There's the Pandemian and the Uranian, the younger and the older, the one that is more vulgar and the one that is more heavenly.
So, he bifurcates this. I'm going to give you a minute to reflect on telling me more about that in a second, but you're mentioned of love of the body, spurred me to thank the following. If I remember this speech well. Pausanius seems, my impression of Pausanius, and I think you just said this, is that he actually is very much attracted to bodies, looks, these kinds of things.
But the thrust of his speech ends up being that the reason why not to be attracted to folks is in fact, they're higher qualities, they're higher qualities of the soul. And we can maybe, I can press that in just a moment. So, is he diluting himself? He's, I'll exaggerate.
He likes hot blondes, but he tries to persuade himself that no, no, it's their superior intellect or something that actually is what draws me to them or something like this. And so, there's a kind of self-deception going on, but this bifurcation he's drawing, there seems to be something problematic about the split, the body being attracted to the body, but then also having this non-corporial element. That wasn't well. Yeah, I think that's 100% right.
It's like me saying, I like, you gave me like a beer mug versus a champagne glass. I said, I really like the champagne glass. And you say, why? Well, it's filled with champagne, right?
The glass is irrelevant, right? And so, it becomes the answer. Maybe David was going to discuss a little bit this basic distinction that you introduced, the painting. Oh, correct me, me too.
I just, the only thing I want to do, the only thing I want to underscore is that for listeners is the bifurcation of arrows into two, we can be more specific. So Greg mentioned the name. So there's the, how do you say Iranian, Iranian? Iranian?
The Iranian arrows, which is the elder type of arrow. So they're two, right? Iranian and the Pandemian. So, Iranian is the elder form.
Pandemian is younger. The elder arrow says the daughter of the rhinos and he connects, Pausanias connects this with kind of like, peterasty. And this is the arrows that he praises, right? I believe so.
Then there's the younger arrows. This is the arrows who was born the daughter of offspring of Zus and Deani. And this is he, Pausanias describes this arrows as base. It's the arrows of the vulgar.
This is the kind of arrows that's equally attracted to, to men, boys and women. The arrows that's attracted to bodies, not souls. It's a kind of stupid lustful thing. And so he, he makes this split and he praises one of them.
And it just so happens, of course, that the arrows that he praises falls exactly in line with his proclivities. Did I capture them? Yeah, I think that's good. I think one of the things you start to realize is, well, if one has to do with soul and one has to do with body, why do you need to have sex?
Right? I mean, why do you need to have that gratification? Imagine saying, you know, your lover is coming up to you and he's like, oh, your soul, your soul, your soul, I'm going to take care of your soul and give you've hurt you. And then, you know, after that, he's like, okay, all right, give it up, right?
It's time to, you know, I mean, it's, it's really, and a sign of this is that when he refers to this, this, this reciprocation, he uses euphemism. So 185B, he says, does for the sake of the virtue alone, is it wholly noble to grant one's favors, right? What sort of favors do you mean, those anions? So I think it undermines it.
It reminds me a little bit of this character in Wagner's, do you mind, sir, singer? Have you guys seen that opera? But there's a character, I think it's that one, but there's a character is in love with this woman. Oh, it's an American man.
I don't want to German operas. Yeah, he's just oil up in the wrestling school. But he's in love with this woman, and he says that I love her so much, I'll never sleep with her because that's just a sully, a beautiful thing, right? That's what a truly, if your love is solely had to do with virtue, right, or a kind of the soul, the body aspects would be filthy, right?
Alex, you made me feel so good. I frequently would get this line from women in college. And now I'm totally at peace with myself. So I appreciate that.
Yeah, college and well, not with your wife, because, oh, you should have mentioned, I tricked her. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's the irony that's at the heart of the speech is that you just images them by body and soul, but then body sneaks in at the end. And this points to the fact, I think there's a really deep observation.
It's not just a send up of this practice. It is, of course, that, but it's also pointing to the fact that arrows looks beyond the individual, right? There's some higher standard by which you judge whether something's lovable or not. And that for Socrates and Socrates, the beautiful itself, right?
That becomes a standard that so pause any system of the poem. That's I think unwittingly and importantly, I'm just going to have a place in the speech. Another detail bring in just about the distinction between the two nurses. I think it's a very subtle point.
And I haven't worked this through entirely. So let me know what you think, but in he said, right, he talks about arrows, right? And he gives these one of the earliest gods and we've quoted this a little later, he derives strife, right? That's one of the gods.
One of the works in Daisy says, there isn't one strife, there's two stripes, right? And they're distinguished as noble from base, right? And one is tied to a kind of injustice and one's tied to just sort of a good spirit and competition which you strive to be better than one another at some activity. And I wonder if there's something going on there in that parallel.
I've never tried to work it out entirely, but it just struck me strange that after referring to Hesiod, he then makes a distinction along the same lines before a different god, not strife, but arrows, not a principle of division, but a principle of unity for whatever that's worth. Does pause any of his or further? Hesiod or was that? I'm not from Hesiod or his.
He's kind of in the background here. Yeah, that would make sense. What strikes me with the... Oh, and I'm sorry, I should just to finish up that point, just as the two arrows end up being one in the speech, right?
Because they are driven to the body, ultimately even the one with pretense to the soul. So too, I think at Hesiod, the two stripes end up not being different as you're working through. So I think it's still kind of parallel, but other than a parallel, I don't know. Sorry, Greg.
That's okay. No worries. I mean, you know, some of these listeners, some of our listeners know this symposium, so this is all familiar to them, but for some folks, this is just really bizarre. What in the heck are we talking about?
Two different gods devoted to love and who cares? If there's one love God or two love gods, there are many love gods, there's zero love gods. I think that the point is trying to figure out what these, again, sort of what these folks tell us psychologically about themselves. Are these people intentional themselves?
Are they going to understand themselves? Pausanias, I think he wants to bifurcate or divide the God into two because he's strangely moral. He wants to justify to himself and his sexual desires. He must be dimly aware on some level that there's something morally scandalous or morally shady or bad about what he's doing.
I think he's trying to persuade himself that what he's doing is actually moral. There's this kind of weird, strange moral self-hatred going. Look, listeners don't have to be familiar with Greek philosophy to know people who try to justify their sexual proclivities by sort of reference to moral matters. That's what he's doing here.
I think that we may not be interested in Greek pedaracity, we may not be interested in whether or not the Greek pantheon or something like this, but we can try to understand people who try to justify their sexual desires. That's what this guy's doing. He's trying to say, look, there are these low types who have these low-based sexual desires and there are these high types that have these high sexual desires. That's me.
I'm actually a really high type. I'm attracted to these superior types. I'm attracted to men who are, by the way, superior to women, obviously. This is Pausani's view, not necessarily anyone.
Two out of three of the members of New Think, or you don't believe that. He's trying to justify this. It is shameful. It really is Alex.
It really is Alex shameful. In any event, he's trying to persuade himself that he is, I think he's dimly aware, as Alex pointed to me, points out how this kind of sexual activity that he's interested in is nowhere as universally admired. It's to varying degrees punishable and punished in various places. He's trying to persuade himself that he's a decent guy, I think.
The first thing, I think he makes three attempts to prove that his sexual desires are morally superior to other people. His first is on the basis of intelligence. I think Alex mentioned this a moment ago. The reason my sexuality is superior to yours is because you're interested in dumb lawns and I'm interested in men who are actually intelligent, really promising young men.
Of course, that just raises the question of, well, why would you be interested in the promising young men and not the actual men who are wise, the old dudes in other eyes? Why would you be interested in young dudes who might be turned out smart as opposed to the old dudes who are smart? There's something wrong with that. By the way, I'm going through his three years.
Let me stop there for just one second. His first attempt to defend his activities is on the basis of intelligence. Men are more intelligent than women. That's why I'm interested in young boys.
Fine, but there are some women who are intelligent and be old men tend to be smarter than young men. But to give some credit to his argument, I would say that male-female aside, we do tend to think that people with intelligence, I mean, like intelligence is sexy. I've seen people wear this t-shirt or a button out there. We do think there's something to this higher form of attraction or something like this.
Albert Einstein is just a real hunk. I'm sure there's some ladies somewhere who can find some very... You know what's interesting? As you're going through this, I've never made this connection before, but this just struck me that...
In book five of the Republic, you get the three waves of laughter. One of them involves the equality of women and they're going to exercise nude with the men, old women and young men will exercise nude. According to the account of the Republic, the people who are in this class are all of equal sort of excellence, young and old. It's still some ridiculous points of the fact that intelligence isn't enough.
And Socrates is smart as a whip and Agathons into him. And Alcibi is in terms of something there. But it doesn't seem like it's as powerful, say, as Alcibiades or Agathons who Alcibiades has tons of hangers on, he's no near as smart as Alcibiades. So hot though.
Yes, he's a real hunk. So you skipped to virtue. I'm just pointing out the first two attempts he makes prior to getting to virtue. So yeah, I know.
Keep going on, Greg. This is actually very helpful. So Pausani says, trying to persuade himself and others that his sexual activities are high, not low. His first attempt is on the basis of intelligence.
I've already limited the way in which I think that that's not entirely true. But by the way, there's something noble about this. We are... There is something noble about intelligence as something we're attracted to.
His second attempt to defend Pederasty is on the basis of freedom or political freedom. This is around 182, CD. He's trying to persuade himself that these Pederasts are actually tougher and they have stronger friendships and stronger associations and they're somehow freer. I think this attempt also falls flat.
And then the third attempt, as Alex already mentioned, and I think it culminates in this for Pausanias, virtue. Somehow it leads us to be more virtuous. We can have his final attempt to defend Pederasty is that it's the relationship that contributes most to us becoming virtuous. Now, as Alex said, I'll just point out that I think you can actually make someone virtuous without sleeping with them.
It doesn't seem to be transmissible. Virtue doesn't seem to be transmissible that way, as Socrates jokingly makes clear at the very beginning. And I'll actually... David's tried to speak up line at a bar several times.
I'll make you virtuous, baby, back when he was a single man, of course. It worked. It worked. So that's an outline of what I think is going on.
That's a brief outline of the speech. And I've also hoped that I've touched on Pausanias' strange relationship with morality. Relationship with morality. He's engaged in an activity that was sort of a moral, but that he's nevertheless still within the grip of morality very much.
You already hear first, folks. Gregor MacDughal, defender of Greek, Pederasty. That's right. Gregor, you emphasized a few times.
I think maybe you could spell this out a bit more because I really like this formulation that he's not just trying to convince others. He's also trying to ultimately, maybe most fundamentally convince himself. And it seems almost like a Woody Allen type. Yeah.
But I did you said earlier that he stumbles into this house. Well, I would say he stumbles into the fact that he's in this higher end, right? And that there might be this ascent past the body, but he won't let go of the body. Right?
Yes, I'll hold onto that. I mean, in a way, one might be more in one way. One might be more impressed if he just said, look, I just like hot young things. And that's, you know, there's nothing really, but that's not satisfying to him.
And I think it's probably not satisfying to most of us that we want. We want the object of our deepest longings to be more than a sexual encounter. We want it to be something deeper and more fulfilling and more spiritual maybe. And right?
That's why they're using all this divine language. You're bringing up that Woody Allen movie, Alex, where was the title? Someone died. What is it?
All of them, I think. Well, there's a scene where a guy, I guess he's going through a divorce. Woody Allen plays the friend. He's going through a divorce and he gets a girlfriend who's much younger than his ex-wife, but she's stupid.
And he gets embarrassed with her at upper parties on the upper west side. Yeah. Is that husband's or Mars? There might be a number.
There's another, this might be the same movie, but there's one where he falls, I mean, there's so many where he falls in love with a young woman who's beautiful and intelligent, right? And but it's never like an old person. And there's one where he kind of mocks this because there's this, his wife or his girlfriend leaves him and dates somebody and she talks about him as just like this amazing, you know, you know, he's intelligent and he's just this sexual dynamo. And it turns out it's the guy from the Princess Brian who says inconceivable or whatever, you know, that guy?
Inconceivable. And he, well, he all sees them together or something in a, in like a laundromat. And he's like, this homunculus, that's this sexual dynamo you were talking about. And he's, he's horrified.
So it's, it's a pretense that we all kind of recognize people fall into, right? But we need that sometimes just so that we feel like it's not just this sort of, right? He's animalistic. Another thing I'll add to that is at 182 C, he talks about the barbarians rejecting this practice, right?
Saying it's shameful. He says, in the eyes of barbarians on account of their tyrannies, petarassie, as well as philosophy and the love of gymnastics is shameful, right? So he suddenly drags the philosophy and it's not good. But there's a weird, not without some justification.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Good. No, no, I mean, you look at Socrates.
You see his relationship with Alcibi's, which is what Socrates was a petarassie. What? I don't, what dialogue does that, that's weird. No, I know.
No, come on. This is a strange interview. But as a society, you hear about him and Alcibi's and he won't put out for Alcibi's, right? But on the hour, right?
This is in private, right? They're still sleeping together. It's a private chamber, right? So what?
There's a way, there's a way in which there's a way in which from the outside it looks like the way the lysis, I think has this pretense, right? Where Socrates plays the pick up artist, right? And tons of other dialogues where there's a real similarity between Socrates and a Pausanias type, Pausanias type. And then there's also a subtle difference, right?
The car, he thinks car, he's beautiful, but he's not so taken in by him that he doesn't notice what's going around him. But nobody notices that, right? Yeah, Greg, you want to? I want to amplify this actually.
I think that there's actually more to Pausanias's identification of petarassie with philosophy than even what you just alluded to that Socrates does have these weird, potentially physical relationships or doesn't. But there's at least some hanky panky going on. For me, the more striking similarity is that, you know, why don't men want other men stripping their sons because it corrupts their bodies, right? You don't want some guy, some four-year-old guy, stood up in your 15, 16, 17-year-old son.
But the real, even more problematic if you actually think that the soul is of a higher dignity than the body, what's worse even than peterassie would be some old dude corrupting your son's soul by engaging him in dialectics and sort of undoing his good upbringing. So that in a way from the city's point of view, from a father's point of view, what Socrates does is actually quite worse than what these peterasts are doing. That's a good point. Yeah.
I don't know how he's doing it for its own sake. It's almost like, right? Not just trying to like hoodwink them for some sexual jollies. He's actually trying to just corrupt their souls for their own sake.
Yeah. I think that is one of the things that makes him so strange. But I think this outward appearance is important, right? There's a similarity in the focus on virtue, right?
The exhortation towards virtue. There's a kind of privacy and intimacy of conversation, right? That is, can be a prelude to sexual intercourse or to philosophy, right? And there's that overlap.
But I think you're right to say that when there's no sexual gratification, it's even more strange and unconventional and subversive. Yeah. And it does have something in common also with gymnastics, a third example of you. I'm so glad you brought this passage up, right?
So the Greeks, if folks know or don't know, they typically exercise naked and they found a barbaric to exercise with clothes on. And so again, there is something strangely naked about philosophizing or sort of exposed about philosophizing or sort of being shameless in a way, all the things that one associates with not having clothes on. So in a way, it really is a nice analogy to what's going on in the sort of philosophical relationship. I suspect anyway.
Yeah, I think you can make a number of parallels like that. It's a great point. Yeah. One thing I do want to move, I mean, it brings up philosophy a few times.
Do you want to move on from positive speech because I had a point that I want to bring up about the lead in to a speech that we've passed? I just hope it's some point we come to, look, I think that one of the things a speech is trying to do is trying to defend a fairly common but controversial Greek practice. But I think that the attempt fails. It's internally inconsistent, self-contradictory.
So I hope at some point we get to on its own standards, this speech cannot defend this activity. I think you were going to talk about that. But I have a quick question. Is the foolishness of, is the way that this speech is received, is it received with a bunch of eye rolling and laughter?
Is that why? So the next in line to speak is Aristophanes, but he suddenly has the hiccups. And sometimes I get the hiccups when I'm laughing really, really hard. Are people just kind of like, I was clever and then they're just cracking up?
There's hiccups. They're sneezing. I think that's great because both Ericsson and Marcus, the speech, Eric Simikis, that's another one that's controversial to pronounce. And I was saying he's a speech, relying on the kind of nobility.
And what emerges after his speech and all throughout Eric Simikis' speech is this lowliness of the body, bodily functions, which I think sends up obviously the nobility of the sort of cosmological account that you get next. But certainly it shows up with the positivity of speech, right? That ultimately what is sexual intercourse with the body involves fluids, right? I mean, it's...
Ew, ew, no. Ew, come on. Ew, no, no. He's gargling and sneezing stuff, right?
And you see, Greg is highly committed to Iranian arrows. Iranian. His arrows comes from Uranus, yeah. So to get back to...
Listen, I'm very, very, very gladly. Did I flee that tyrant? Thank you, sir. So you are about as old as Kefla, sorry.
Yeah. Thank you very much. So just to kind of put a summary on this, right, that okay, Plato represents this practice. He gives what looks like a kind of dignified justification.
I'm not like those people. The higher end in mind, the higher end turns out to negate the necessity of turning to the body. In fact, turning to the body would undermine it because it would indicate another goal other than virtue, right? And so ultimately what his speech does is it critiques this practice, but it also points to the fact that if we're going to judge erotic longing, we need to have its proper object in mind, right?
Phaedrus was the beloved, right? Posenius was the lover. It turns out Phaedrus as beloved, right? The beautiful young man as beloved is not an end in itself if it's going to be noble, right?
It's going to have to have something else in mind. And that question I think persists throughout the rest of the work, and it's only really given adequate voice in Socrates' speech, which is one of the reasons his speech becomes so powerful. Another point I'd like to make is that so prior to his speech, he says, I should say, Aristodemus, where a Paula Dora says, he said that Phaedrus made some such speech, and after Phaedrus, there were some others that he scarcely could recall. So I guess this would be Aristodemus is the heatiest.
He has them over and told him Posenius to speech, right? Okay. So we learned that some speeches were cut out fine. Astrologic philosopher speeches.
After this, we hear with Posenius's, the wise teach me to speak in such balanced phrases, Aristodemus said that it was Aristophanes' term to speak. However, he had just got the hiccups. So instead, Aristoemicus speaks, right? But we found out that Aristodemus sat down next to Aristoemicus.
So here's my question. Does it skip Aristophanes and go to Aristoemicus, because everybody just looks past Aristodemus, they just don't care what he has to say. Does Aristodemus cut himself out? Was Aristodemus sitting on the other side of Aristoemicus, right?
And he was cut out because they had switched it around and they forgot. Or again, does he leave himself out because his speech is somehow inadequate? I think it's very interesting that he's sitting in the circle and they're going around the circle. Um, and Agathon is a, is a kind host, right?
And we just don't even hear whatever happened to his speech, if he even spoke where exactly he might have been. So, uh, just a thought on that point. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on that, but. No, I think that's a great question.
I usually try and draw these charts out for myself, where people are sitting and these kinds of things. It's also possible that there's a, I guess maybe you mentioned this near list of possibilities. There was a, it's, it's over his own speech. Because after Passani's this position, every sediments is the one who says that it was there a stop in his turn.
So, he could have been spudging that. Yeah. Did you go the mailbag? Mailbag anything else on this episode that we, this part of the speech that we missed, I mean, it's, I should say that it's a very long and complicated speech.
I think Greg did a good job of breaking into pieces and parts, but it's pretty long, I think, especially considering some of the others. Uh, and it's very winding. It's not his reasoning, um, which I think is one, uh, way in which Plato might, uh, sort of mock the torture logic a little bit, right? That he's, uh, circumlocutions are used, right?
And he, he pairs his arrows with all these noble things, like philosophy of these exalted things, like philosophy to make him, you know, look better. But yeah, I think ultimately that's, that's part of Plato's irony in the way that he's written it. All right, let's go to the mailbag. Mailbag, wait, no odds and ends.
We're just going straight to mailbag. Do I do some odds and ends? What you got? I don't know how much time we have.
How we doing? Uh, we got to go 50 minutes. Maybe a little more. I don't know.
You want to go, I don't know. It's up to you mailbag or odds and ends. David, what do you got? He was looking sleepy.
It is after four p.m. Yeah. It's 11 30 p.m. Uh, I say we just, I say we do the mailbag mailbag.
Mailbag. Okay. So how about lightning round? You want to do a lightning round?
Yeah. Why don't I ask you one of the questions while you pull up the question and you can post a lightning round questions. Okay. All right.
That's what I was thinking. So Bruce A. Hunt Jr, long time friend to the show, says, is posanisist concept of the Iranian beloved meant to apply to Socrates. And then he refers to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.
I don't know what this is the second thing is about. Um, I think here's the best answer I can give to Bruce. I suspect that as we mentioned with these, we're talking about how Pederasty is a sort of perverted image of philosophy. I do think that his account of your Iranian love is somehow another image of what Socrates is up to.
The Socrates is genuinely interested in the intellects and the souls of people. And that's why he doesn't, um, conflate the sexual with the, uh, the interest in the souls of people. So I, I do think that there's a way in which, uh, posanis is on to something there. Yeah.
And the Iranian beloved, right? Just like Socrates is ugly with a beautiful soul. I mean, it's, it's what, I mean, posanis were really true about what he's doing. Uh, you'd be after Socrates, but in case studies after handsome.
That's right. And if you're truly interested in the wise, you'd be interested in the wise, not the young, young boys. Yeah. I, I know the question from Colin at Colle Bex, I suppose any seems to have this complimentary view of first time, first time, first time color.
I think he might be. Yeah. All right. First time caller complimentary view of Iranian love, the lover teaches improves, the lover to then gratifies the lover in reality.
It seems like all relationships are more complex. I don't know if I have a specific question. But maybe you could explore this topic. Any thoughts on that, Greg?
Dude. Uh, why don't you go to shot, Alex? I mean, it does seem like relationships are more complex, but I mean, at some level, there's questions of body and soul, right? You know, character and appearance.
Um, but, uh, certainly as you get older, he talks about the, we didn't really touch on this too much, but the, uh, the lover who remains in states, right? Who's, you know, with you for a long time, right? It doesn't flee after they get what they want or when you get a little too old. Um, he says, that's a big sign of it.
And it's a striking that, you know, older couples can be very much, like my grandparents are very much in love. They're in their 90s. And, uh, my grandfather used to be a strapping young man, you know, uh, you know, you know, strong. Are you, are you adopted?
What? Was there, were you adopted? It's diluted. The jeans are diluted.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, but you know, they love each other.
And you know, I remember on my dad's. That's things have changed. So I don't know if I'm on this list on this long memory. I was just, I was just, uh, 60, if there's 70th birthday, she gave him a kiss on the lips and said, ah, I never thought I kissed a six year old man.
Yeah. But you still love somebody. You know, if you really like, like those things, hold on, hold on, like I was just teaching the ethics. Felia at that point, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. So arrows is well, we're going to have to cut that part and one in the made it so long with no edits.
But let's go to the lightning round. Lightning round. Okay. All right.
David Barr. Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm going to go back and forth.
What's your favorite work of literature? David Barr brothers, Karen was off by Kostoyevsky Alex Preu, nickname. I've never had a nickname. That's really, that's really sad.
Okay. Uh, David Barr, David Barr. I have one person calls me Al and it's David Barr. And it was initially revenge because I used to call him Dave and he hates it.
I've seen it and he still calls me Al, but I like it. It's kind of affectionate thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, David Barr, uh, worst politician in your lifetime. Kamala Harris. All right. Kavala.
I don't know. They're all bad. They're all bad. Alex Preu, uh, physical accomplishment you're most proud of.
Uh, this is pretty good. Yeah. Lifting 500 pounds. Did you really lift 500 pounds?
Yeah. Dang. That's impressive. David Barr.
Grigger. So what's your, what's your favorite hobby? Non-intellectual. Uh, should ask him his favorite, uh, is best, uh, physical accomplishment.
He got a statue for eating all those hot dogs. I don't, I don't, uh, hobby other than other than reading. Other than reading. Yeah.
Of course, other than reading. It's called lightning round, David. I don't really, I mean, reading is my, that's what I'd like to do. All right.
Okay. That's fine. Yeah. Favorite place you've ever visited, David.