Welcome back to the new Think Green. I'm David Barr. With me as always, as Alex Greer. How are you, Alex?
We're doing well, David. How are you? I'm doing well. And Greg.
I know he's doing real well. Greg, he just ran to the bathroom. He came back with a big grin on his face. Greg, why don't you tell the folks at home why you're so happy?
Well, I thought Alex, that Greg was at the, I think we established he's at the age where adult depends, actually, obviates any reason to run to the bathroom. But why are you happy, Greg? Well, I'm actually trying to hold that tears. I'm a little sad that the original guests, we've invited some ons for this episode, but due to some charges, let's just say we had to cancel his appearance on show.
We'll hopefully have him back on a later date in the folks at home. We can clear his good name and he's sort of in a ideal charges. I don't want to, you know, look, they're not true. And so I don't think it's worth repeating this salacious character of them.
You know, I don't think it's fair to him. He was happening, David. This is like one of these me too things where one guy comes out really defensive and then in a month you fight out, he has all these charges. That's Greg's situation.
Right? She's fellow cheeseburger. Hey, listen, yeah. Anyway, so who do we have to you guys?
We're doing the symposium, right? Are we doing the sort of, this is part 10, I suppose, of the symposium. We've done a number of episodes. Is that right?
Yeah, we're doing alsivide speech. We finished Socrates speech and two goes and then we're going on to alsivides. Yeah. So this is our last or penultimate episode on symposium.
We'll just put fields out there. So we thought maybe since we dragged it out, why not drag it out in another episode and do one sort of episode just on the whole symposium, pull it together, some general themes. We're not sure maybe it's repetitive. Maybe you've had enough.
Maybe you really just want to see us put Humpty Dumpty back together. So maybe on the same as a tweet or yeah, Greg. Or maybe you're a lazy professor and you don't really want to teach the last month of the course. So what you could do is you could just put this podcast out of it, students, lay back, put your headphones on and chill out.
This would be a nice 10 classes. We'll put a nice summation on it. A nice bow. But yeah.
All right. So Alex, before we jump into the show, can you just give us a summary of the symposium? Just remind us where we are, what's been happening so far? All right.
So well, we last left off with Socrates speech. There's been a long, long time coming. So where does it start? There's a comrade.
He inquires into, is it a, a Polydorus, right? Polydorus. There's a whole complex chain of communication, but he eventually gets it from Aristodemus. I'm here at Aristodemus's accounts account.
He bumps into Socrates. Socrates is looking hot for some odd reason. When she's going to Agathons, has his brain shoes. He bathes for once again.
Doesn't smell so foul. And so he goes off, they go together, they go to Agathons house and bears, you know, the creme de la creme of Athens, you know. And after a little bit of deliberation, some dismissing of the fluke girls, they decide, let's give speeches about what heros is not spoken about enough. So let's give some praise speeches, some in Komiya to heros.
That sounds great. What's that? I just, do you hear that? Oh, what is it?
I just, I hear somebody. It's kind of weird. Is that, is that, come in? No, no.
The door was open to the door. Yeah, the door was always open. Yeah, it's always open. You're at the new thinkery.
Who's this? Pardon me, guys. I'm looking for the crumbly crumb of the American Academy. You have found the creme of the creme, sir.
Is crapto la crappa? It's Larry Cooper, ladies and gentlemen, unbelievable. It's esteemed Professor of Political Science, Lawrence Cooper, who teaches at Carleton College. He's come to talk with us about this last speech in the symposium.
And David thinks this is corny, but I think this little show will be kind of fun. So let's all have a good time. So we're going to do this last speech. Larry at the end, since we usually sort of introduced guests at the beginning and do a long bio, but we'll do a sort of biography at the end.
But let's jump right into things instead. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who Alcibiades is maybe as a way of setting up this speech? A summary's over? That's it?
Did you have something else? I mean, there's five speeches. Oh, sorry. No, no, five speeches.
Sorry. This is the sixth speech now on arrows, right? No, this is seven speech on arrows. Yes.
Right. Yes. Phaedris, right? Well, this one is not an arrow.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. They kind of face a person is about arrows, right?
Phaedris, right? Right. Right, Eric, Eric, Stemicus is good. There is Agathon, Socrates, and then we get Alcibiades, which was not a plan speech.
It's not a person drunkenly, just like a letter of chance of providence here. There he is. Right. Like Larry here?
Yeah. Go ahead, Larry, go on. No, no, welcome. Please tell us a little bit.
Tell us who else about he says. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about his entrance into this dialogue and why that's important. Well, that was only a full interruption, but I have to leave it out now. Well, take my ladies.
You know, we have the criminal crime went until you have him there, I suppose. But he is an amazing sort of superstar, politically, militarily, culturally, in Athens, I mean, he's got a more specific, right? So he's a famously gifted young man who, if we can accept that the dramatic date of this dialogue is what we know what it is, like, before 16, you see what you see, I think the year that I get on was priced. So we know that we're in the midst of the Peltonage Athens, in the midst of Peltonage and War.
And more than that, they're on the eve of their great grand, beautiful, catastrophic, utterly ancillary expedition to Sicily, at the behest of El Cevades. El Cevades is a young Athenian soldier, statesman who has compelled the fascination, excitement of citizenry and persuaded the Athenians to break the piece that they've been living this truce in the midst of the Peltonage and War, in order to launch a grand new expedition. And so he's a political person of the highest war. And what else we know about him, I think we know about him, is the sort of thing that he gets to talking about in his speech, so maybe we wait for that.
That sounds good. So he's very handsome. I don't know if you mentioned that, that was just, I sort of was fan, I don't like to say that, but yeah, in my head, that's what I was just thinking about the whole time. So, okay, it was like, looking everybody wants to sleep with them men, women, right, men, women, other, right, we're not, yeah, that doesn't exhaust the list these days.
So Greg, we should probably take a break from the show right now, but I've got, I got my own confession, you give us a confession last week, can I shoot a question? Yeah, please. You know, I've written on Plato's also by these, I have a book manuscript on the Fiatia's office at statesman. Right.
And I got, it's just bad. It's all just bad. I know, I don't know why people are willing to publish this stuff, but it's pretty crap. And I got to say, I wish when I was writing this stuff, I had the opportunity that our listeners have today.
What can you tell about this opportunity? What are you talking about? It's an opportunity to take the Plato seminar at Devan and Hall. They have, yeah, Devan and Hall.
They have a Plato seminar where you cover just those texts and some shorter dialogues. Also by this, the Adidas, Sophans, statesman, some other shorter dialogues. You will grasp the essence of Plato's own thought firsthand from somebody who's giving you a second hand from Plato. Got it.
Yeah. And it's live, it's in person, right? Seminar. Wait, it's live online, right?
Live on Zoom? Yeah, live on Zoom. So this isn't a pre-recorded call. Oh, I see.
It's synchronous. Yeah, yeah, you can ask questions. But also, if you can't attend, you can listen after the fact that, you know, it's not like sort of you're there or you're not, right? You can actually still enjoy it.
Sounds great. How much is it cost? 10 million dollars. Good.
No, I'm not paying that. I'm joking. Actually, listeners of the show, we've just, we've been going to the original price of Devan Hall was 10 million dollars. And we said, we will not advertise for you, sir, at 10 million dollars a class.
Bring that down to the new thinkery price of $149. We will sell your ad on the new thinkery. So we got them down to $149. Yeah, tell them the new thinkery.
Essentially, we'll charge you $10 million. You don't want that? Yeah. So registration is open until mid-September and the course runs from September 27th until December 10th, 2021 in the year of our Lord.
That's a regular school semester. Yeah. And if, you know, a normal course across $2,000 and granted, this one did cost $10 million. That's us.
It's only $149. So we're getting you a deal. You're welcome. And if you're not into play that they got other stuff on ancient languages, other studies of great thinkers, just go to devananthall.com.
That's about D-A-V-E as in Dave, N-A-N-T as in Hall, as in Nance, H-A-L-L, as in Hall. Please tell me you know how to small. I'm going to give it to you one more time just since Davenantall, D-A-V-E-N-T-H-A-L-L. .com.
They are re-founding the ancient university for the digital frontier. Back to the show. And so let's see. So he shows up.
He's drunk. Alex, what does he look like when he shows it? He's hammered. How's he dressed?
And I don't know. All I can see is how handsome he is. He's very handsome. He's locked in his beautiful eyes.
How was he trying? Look, you know, come on. He's wearing a wreath, right? Yeah, he's going to use that wreath.
He's going to use that. He's carried in. He's hammered. What do we mention?
He was drunk. Yeah. So the last two speakers, Agathon and Socrates, they're going to crown a victor. And he comes in much like a Dionysus in the frogs to crown the victor in this battle of speeches.
And he comes in and says, I'm going to crown somebody for their wisdom. And what is it? Is it bodacious bod? It is not bodacious bod.
Wisdom and most beautiful. Wisdom and most beautiful, right? Why is it most beautiful? Yeah, right.
For wisdom and beauty. That's right. We mention that because later on when he decides to crown Socrates instead, it's not for his wisdom. It's for his power in speeches, his victory, his conquest in speeches.
So he shows up. He's drunk. Let's see. Everyone so far else, I'd mention this, is given a speech in praise of the Greek God of love, Eros.
But when he shows up after crowning Agathon and then noticing, by the way, he's drunk that he's sitting next to Socrates. He's sat down next to Socrates. After some argument with those presents, is it Eryxemachus who says he should give a praise of Socrates instead? Is that right?
He's not a yes. By the way, Eryxemachus also is like, are we just going to get hammered? Let's give speeches. Everybody's loaded up there.
Eryxemachus, remember from several episodes back. He's a bit of a, he's not very tough. He can't drink a and so he suggests continuing with the speeches things and also bidises up and instead of praising the God Eros, Alcibiades says, well, I'll praise Socrates instead. So I guess maybe the next transition to talk about here is Alcibiades, despite not giving a praise of the God Eros or love, seems to be a deeply erotic human being, if not Eros incarnate.
So I know that Larry you've written about and talked about Alcibiades on Eros or Alcibiades as Eros. Can you tell us a little bit about that? What's peculiar about Alcibiades' particular brand of love? Well, I'll try to say something about that in just a second, but I thought you said, we're talking about Eros tonight, so I have to correct you on something you just said.
Please go ahead. That, well, say you say that, the, the, the, the, suppose they asked their own degree to give speeches of praise for the Greek God of love, Eros, which is the case, of course, and I know you guys have mentioned some previous episodes. Socrates, of course, gives praise of Eros, but who he downgrades, right? From God to to Diamond, you know, just something in between him, human being, God.
And I don't know, I think Alex said, or what's not even saying that, so Alcibiades does give speech. It's not a speech and praise of Eros, it's a speech and praise of Socrates. Well, maybe it's both, right? So I want to say, especially when you've, when, in other words, he ostensibly gives, does give the speech and a sort of sort of complaint about Socrates.
But at the same time, his praise of Socrates could be read as praise of Eros, Socrates standing in for Eros, especially since so on Socrates, his own depiction of Eros, it sounded, well, Socrates, it sounded pretty self-descriptive. Yeah. And there's also, to back up that point, there's been this running theme about how the centrality of Eros to life needs you to beautify it, right? That's what every speaker did.
And lo and behold, Alcibi is his beautifying Socrates. So he's got a very sort of resplendent sort of beautiful Socrates that in some ways doesn't seem entirely accurate. So it stands to reason that he, he, Eros, Socrates in a way, plays the role in his life that Eros does for some of the past speakers, this sort of cirosana of happiness, right? The beloved who is, who is in a way identified, right?
The beloved is identified with, with the God in a way. Yeah. So you're asking about what Alcibi is, what's characteristic of a notable about his Eros, just what we know, starting with the fact that according to the Plutarch, he carried a shield, the shield that he took to battle was emblazoned with an image of Eros, not a family symbol or of any kind. So this is a way to identify himself with.
More importantly, I mentioned Alcibi, who was ambitious, right? erotic for recognition, for political distinction, for honor, for glory. And this is part of his Eros. And so I mentioned a moment ago, right, that he incites from a very interesting or a passion for military expedition to Sicily.
Now, this is all recounted in Thucydides. Now, with Thucydides, has Alcibi, the link is inciting the arrows of Gethinius for Sicily and for the six divisions. Alcibius somehow is understood to be erotic himself in the political domain and to, to satisfy that same passion in others. They're pretty perceived.
I have a question. And this is always unfair to ask you, but it almost seems like Thucydides and Plato were sort of pen palsers, or working together. I mean, just how convenient is it that Thucydides has Alcibiades speak of this Eros for Sicily, right? Or that, right?
That he's the one inspiring his love. I mean, it's hard. I guess unless they're actually describing a phenomenon that actually exists, it's just hard to believe that two guys independent of one another would write this, write this account of a guy. And there's like, he's fanning their erotic desire for empire.
It's just curious to me that they both use the same term. So I don't know. So you're not making one of these like analogs or fake and unshaked spirits, right? So just, I mean, I could be.
I could be. I actually do have a small pet theory. There's some remark in the talk about, I don't know if that's going to die to these layers about Xenophonistic cities, but no, no, no, probably I should just Greg Greg was telling me the other day, the reason he thinks that Thucydides looks incomplete is Plato was trying to fake the death of his, you know, is character at Thucydides who wrote this book. I don't want to waste the time with Greg's.
I don't know. We should also mention that David Barr also has a hoodworm in the arrow. So it's the contemporary update of Elsway's getting a shield with Aeros on it. Yeah, it's what I replaced my Jaguar with.
So Jaguar. I'll just say that I played with the Purdue Song 35 dialogues, you know, those areas. So what account for the missing years is what I'm asking the Pelton Ejoron. But you know, to go back to the cities for a second, because Elsébides is not the only and not the first Athenian statesman to invoke arrows in public discourse, you know, and to either to use it or to try to try to incite it.
So it's it's Pericles uses guardian, right, who, like I said, a few famous funeral oration you guys have discussed, you know, just at the end of this first season of warfare, I think, and a lot of interesting things about that speech, as you know, but Pericles does involve, you know, the Athenians to cast their eyes on the city as particularly on its power, I think he says, right, until love of her breaks over your hearts, arrows over your hearts over your heart. So Pericles, you know, who had instituted it, you know, and held the Institute to a very straining and conservative difficult to maintain strategy, so he died and then, you know, and then then that was the end of strategy. Pericles who had kind of a cautious state crevice in Pelton, he's going to help me for it. It was at the same time, like igniting this fire or trying to manage this fire, which is, I think, very interesting and actually kind of relevant, you're going to be Elsébides in a way as kind of like what happens when the fuse has burned down some, we'll talk about that in a little bit, I think.
Yeah, I mean, one way to put the point maybe is whether they're colluding or not through cities and Plato, it's in the air. I mean, this is the erotic longings, the sort of ambition and the sense of beauty and, you know, trying to attain something great that will be loved and admired for all time. I mean, that's deeply in the end. And sort of going beyond the sort of conventional norms, right, it's sort of erotic, crazy that leads you to sort of be a lawbreaker and these kinds of things.
And so far as Empire seems to be a kind of what going transgressing of political norms in some way, right, it's sort of not paying attention to political boundaries, but. So you're saying that heirls is interested in the eyes of moderation. And it seems, yeah, I think so. Yeah, like a wild horse is at odds with being tamed, right?
So can it be kind of the kind of the, I wouldn't even use the word broken, you want to be restrained, kind of be managed. I mean, I think, I think the city's kind of played a better part of the skeptical about that kind of possibility, playing a fire, playing a fire. Right. One thing you want to say maybe is that it's incompatible with the moderation that's close to justice, right?
But there is a kind of self-restraint that has come from lovers, they'll try to look, you know, they'll work out, they'll do all sorts of, they'll sacrifice all sorts of things in their self-interest. So a lot of self-restraint is similar maybe to philosophic moderation, where one doesn't get wasted every night or something like that, it's not a stressors point. You don't get wasted every night because that would impede this overweening desire. Yeah.
You can weigh at least that right, that is characterized in Republic sex, for example. I think so. You couldn't be so fear so keenly possessed by disaster in moderate, in particular desire, unless the others were moderated. So I think, almost like I can imagine a kind of a hydraulic metaphor or something.
They're like that guy from, what's the movie where the guy's holding the speaker up? He's, you know, talking about come on. He plays a Peter Gabriel song in your eyes. It's John Q's act.
John Q's act, right? That's the act right now. So he's deeply in love, but so therefore he's immune to like the pain of holding up a boombox for five hours or something. They were heavy back in the 80s.
They were, well, you know what? One thing I liked when, so we read some of what Larry's written, I recommend you all pick it up. I'm a booker book, but one thing I thought that you pointed out that was really, I think important was why Alcibi is attracted to Socrates, which people often emphasize these beautiful images of virtue that he claims that Socrates possesses within him, obviously, that's very important. But you really emphasize the power, right?
This is what is it? 216 C. After describing the appearance of Socrates, Alcibi says, I and many others have been affected in such ways by the flute songs of the seder here before us, but as to the rest, hear me tell how he is like those to whom I have likened him, and how amazing is the power he has. So he's, you know, Alcibi is imagined himself, fancy himself, a very powerful, capable person.
And this ugly, weird, seder guy has even more power. So why don't you talk a bit about that power and the importance you think it has, at least with the political dimension of the book? Yeah, well, sure. I especially interesting to remember, you know, this isn't Amelia after Socrates's speech, you know, where you get this, I don't know, idealization or, you know, this extremely elevated depiction of, you know, that the true aim of arrows, you know, is found in philosophy.
And now you have an Alcibi, this probably erotic man, right, who is in love with his arrows for this philosopher. And but you know, what what it counts for? I don't know if you got a reference, the Alcibi, the Alcibi, he's won the earlier dialogue, where you have Alcibi, he's kind of taking on a green to take on Socrates, you know, as his lover, right, and giving up all the other suitors, the, the, the, the well-position means and the like, Alcibi is, is from the get-go, fascinated by Socrates, and, and the pervasive theme of his praise and critique of Socrates, is exact Socrates, Socrates's power, right? You know, you mentioned, well, you mentioned a little back, the reference to, well, Alcibi says, you know, he sees in Socrates, you know, moderation, he sees in Socrates, these divine, beautiful images within, right?
That's just about 217A, right? But notice what follows that. So Alcibi is speaking, and when he is an earnest, most Socrates is an earnest and opened up, I do not know if anyone has seen the images within, but I once saw them, it was my opinion that they were so divine, golden, altogether beautiful and amazing that one had to, you could pause there and say, he struck by something, you know, exalted, so how does he interpret this experience or how has he experienced this thing, this phenomena, that one had to do just about whatever Socrates commanded. So even when he sees or seems to see something that Socrates is seeing, Socrates is, you know, a strangeness, this greatness, and it may be beautiful and it may be wise, maybe beauty, maybe wisdom.
But Alcibi, once it holds a bit, let's see, but he understands in terms of his power, and he goes on to praise Socrates for his enormous endurance, power of self-control. And I think, you know, he praises Socrates and curses Socrates, both Alcibi does for his, Socrates' command hold over Alcibiades. Yeah, just to that point, you read it, 219 DDE, Alcibiades praises Socrates for his nature, moderation and courage, and then prudence and endurance. So this is all kind of just like toughness, more or less, right?
And then all the examples he goes that impress him, he's impressed that Socrates can drink a lot, he's impressed that Socrates can do her cold, he's impressed that Socrates can stand in one spot all night, this is actually quite impressive. And then there are two other examples, military examples, one in battle and one in retreat. And so you're right, and what's noteworthy, I drew this out of your chapter that you sent us in preparing for tonight, there's no mention of any of Socrates' intellectual virtues, even the standing still all might in thinking about something. It's not the thinking about something that impressed Alcibiades, it's that he stood still and thought about something for so long.
And it's even more noteworthy, I thought it sort of came home to me more in the very beginning, where again, he mentions to Agathon, I'm crowning somebody for wisdom. But then when he does crown Socrates, there's no mention of Socrates' wisdom, it's all about his power to use the word that you're using, his nature, his moderation, courage, his prudence and endurance. And so yeah, I mean, it's just sort of Socrates' toughness. And I'll just, like, as I mean, that he could be too silly about these things, but clearly Socrates would have gotten drunk if we understand him to have had a human body.
Now, maybe that drunkenness wouldn't have manifested itself in so far as like, maybe his behavior didn't change or something like this, but there's a certain kind of deifying of Socrates going on, right? Like he's impervious to cold, he's impervious to the knees of the body, he doesn't get drunk and sort of he's become a kind of god. And maybe I'll circle back around to what you had the wrong show is this part in parcel of his love of Socrates, or is this just part in parcel of love generally that we tend to deify the objects of our love. I'm thinking of in the Zenithon, there are a couple of characters who are noteworthy for their beauty and they both have quasi divine names.
So, I don't know, but that was a lot, there's a lot of, sorry, maybe too far field. I don't think it did, but this one thing to note, if it's true, as you say, I think that it is an Alcibiades, is the divine Socrates, then you can say that everybody, all of the sudden speakers here, right, you have six, including Alcibiades who praise arrows on the surface of the god, as assuming if you take his praise of Socrates, that's praise of arrows, right? Only Socrates is really unique here, then, and not according to divine status to arrows. Look, this deification, I think, one of the great things about this dialogue, and one of the things that I got to think about, in the country, the Alcibiades speech, though, there is action, you know, as there always is a protonic dialogue, I mean, it's not the best action for movies, right?
Like, maybe, I don't know, maybe in French, or Swedish, or, well, off, but... Well, the feet of somebody dies, that's pretty dramatic. Yeah, and plus, you know, it's comics, which is even better, like, you won't leave your seat. There's 60 pages of rigorous arguments about the immortality of the soul.
Yeah, like, please just die Socrates, so let's just say that. But, you know, the action, the symposium is the action of lovers, right? So, you know, Alcibiades, you know, in his speech, as opposed to yesterday, I understood, right, is demonstrating his love, you know, is acting out of love for Socrates. I would say also that Apologoras and Erusademus, well, Apologoras wasn't at this, at this party, at Erusademus, we don't know if he gave a speech there, right?
But they're in the dialogue, they're meaningful, and they're both clearly lovers of Socrates, right? Yeah, so here's your question, whether it's in arrows, I think, too, whether it belongs to Erusadia, I have to try. And I think the reason to mention action here is I think it's what the supposations just a lot of what people do. Not everybody doesn't do all the same things, it's one another, right?
But, yeah, I think we see that, you see at first, Apologoras, right, who can defy Socrates, a well-same time, or needing to denigrate, right? Everybody else, including himself. And he takes Socrates seriously and says, well, heirlos is the youngest, there's a diamond, not a god, and there's something for the million to say, get here. Now, you wonder that if it does give this trait of arrows of typical arrows, isn't it indicative of a large something more fundamental about the character of arrows in most people, or when I refer to ordinary arrows in my book?
There's one thing about Alcibiades is arrows are love for Socrates that, I mean, I sort of, I intuitively grasp, but I don't understand. And so I'd like, maybe you can help me out. So, not since I was in kindergarten, do I run away from the object of my love? And so I'm just having some trouble, you know, Alcibiades, he says he's in love with Socrates, he says it again at the end, everyone laughs, Plato tells us because they believe that he's in love with Socrates.
And yet he runs away from Socrates. So it's a curious kind of love. I mean, in other words, you know, I'm much more like a lover who pursues his beloved, and they just want me, they just constantly like pushing me away, right? I never relents, I'm relentless as David knows, as a lover and a few of you.
I'm more like, happy, look, you, yeah, so but I don't understand Alcibiades, I'm sort of being somewhat living here. But in a series of why does Alcibiades flee the object of his love? If you have any thoughts on that? Well, I do.
You speak like someone who's never been in love with Socrates, why would somebody to love him? But it happens that if you're Alcibiades and Socrates, you know, according to you to begin with, by promising you, you know, to teach you what you need to know to get what you really want out of life, right? And then you need to take care of yourself and do this under my direction, right? And so to go to, so Alcibiades is a love with a man who wants to teach him, wants to teach him especially to give up his other great passion, right, which is a love of honor, money.
So it's objective self to visit Socrates and subject himself as to his experiences, his enslavement to Socrates. And that means to experience, you know, the command, to lead aside this political folly. And that he can't do so he's in love with someone who wants to condemn the other. Thank you so much.
So then lovers do have a way, well, people involved with multiple others might have a way of darting back and forth, right? One thing I want to add to that is that, you know, you read the Alcibiades and even from here, you get it from his experience with Socrates. But even when he's also just describing this power, he says, know that he, Socrates, is not at all concerned of someone is beautiful. And he holds this in such great contempt that no one would believe it anymore than if someone is rich or has any other author honor of those deemed blessed by the multitude.
So what strikes how societies most about Socrates, what he interprets of Socrates soul is a great contempt for the things on which he himself has relied. And the peak of that contempt is a contempt for al-Sobius, his hubris, his refusal to accept the favor that no, that's just been offered. Yeah, so the dependence on the many you just mentioned, right? Something he knows about himself and he knows Socrates doesn't have.
And that makes him and it's, and it's a sign of the fact that though he tries, he has this ambition and wants to transcend and accomplish something great and he's going to rely on these various avenues, his looks, his wealth, his connections, whatever it is, his nature, all the things he invokes him, he also buys quite a few that he's itself built, I think built in by a kind of self contempt. I want to be better than I am. And he recognizes Socrates has a peak for al-Sobius, the sign is as you noted, right? The many he needs them all.
Very good. Yeah. That is self contempt, though, it doesn't mean it's a self contempt. It's virtually universal.
Okay. So I could just do a spire to something sounds like is to betray self contempt. Is that for a rod of human beings? Yeah, I would think one who are deeply erotic and do want to transcend themselves, I think it's for sure as part of it.
But it's, I don't think it's an accurate reading of Socrates, right? This idea that he has all these perfect virtues and self restraints and all that. And he's just, you know, the bee's knees of moral virtue, that seems to me to be a al-Sobius projection, right? Are you talking about about my Socrates?
I'm not a mother. What? Are you talking about about my Socrates? I'm talking the best possible about him.
You're saying you don't get moral virtue, Alex? I don't know why you'd be so concerned. We all know what you get up to, Greg. This is part of your argument, though, right, Larry?
That part of his al-Sobius is chief misunderstanding. Therefore, he's part of al-Sobius's chief misunderstanding of Socrates is that Socrates, I already mentioned this courage, endurance, moderation, these kinds of things. His chief misunderstanding is that Socrates is devoted to moral virtue, which is interesting, then, insofar as he misunderstands deeply the object of his love, which is sort of a curiosity as well. Yeah, which makes us love something a bit of, well, either, either a lie or an abstraction.
Can I just say Socrates' reputation here? There's a lot going on between the symposium and the Republic, I think, going about that at some of the time. I just think of the case, even aligning that with the latter of love, right? Seventh-part of Socrates' speech, maybe that matters or not.
So I can offer a quick defense of Socrates, right? In the Republic, all four of these carnal virtues are justice, moderation, courage, wisdom, are given definitions, you know, kind of in a far as a goal procedure in book four. These are the answers, what these, what these virtues are, and we don't recognize them, I think, as moral virtues, probably speaking. By the time he gets his book seven, you find out, oh, by the way, the virtues, as we earlier described in those aren't those virtues.
Those are phantom virtues, or vulgar virtues, are mock virtues, you know. And so it may well be that Socrates is moderate in the way that a person is moderate who was devoted, ultimately to the moral virtue of moderation. But Socrates may be moderate for a different reason, not because moderation is beautiful, right? But as Alex was saying earlier, right for the sake of sort of harnessing, cultivating, you know, building resources for his philosophical passion.
Similarly, you know, he might be courageous, not because, you know, he keeps a bay, you know, certain, terrified, certain fears, certain horrors, but because he knows something about what there is and isn't to be afraid of. So each of the virtues, right, gets to be defined, redefined, but in books, out of the Republic and their earlier definitions before approved to be, you know, inadequate. So I would want to say that Socrates has a way to depict some, I believe you can say, could you just rightly, it looks like a more looks like a morally virtuous person. Right.
But whether it's a moral virtue, that depends on the why. So one of the things that in the maybe we can talk a little about what we learned about Socrates in this speech, one of the things that strikes me is so one could describe him as courageous, also by these disagreements, courageous. And he gives two military examples, two martial examples to sort of buttress that assertion, one of which strikes me as easily understood as not being courageous at all, one is the retreat from the the battle of de Leon, right? And so the Alcibiades, it's description of the match of that of our softness, he even says they're softness, you know, this is your description, he's sort of retreating and looking from side to side.
I think one could easily describe that as a prudential retreat, not necessarily courageous, maybe the same thing. In other words, I think one could describe Socrates as military actions without having recourse to courage, one could just be like, this is the most prudent way to go about conducting yourself more, less or less easily explainable. And Chris for the middle of those who do think Socrates has possessed him more, virtue is his saving of Alcibiades in the battle of Padadea, that strikes me that Socrates seems to have put himself at risk to save another human being, right? I mean, doesn't that seem right?
And he saves Alcibiades, now he doesn't want the rewards and he doesn't want to be known as courageous. But that example does seem to sort of display something like more courage, no? Well, it can seem to us, so can the other, by the way, we would just go back to the retreat for a moment, you know, alongside Lakhades and Socrates was walking with, yeah, it'd be the most stressful thing to do, why you want like you got something to give them pause, right? It's true.
That's how Data walks down the alleys in DC when he's one of the bars late at night, he just sort of, you know, he doesn't want those hoodlums giving him him grief. When I lived in New York, in the 1980s, I cultivated just that walk for late, walk home, yeah, on the street a little bit. You don't want to give me beef. But you're about to say, it's a very, it's a sensible thing to do.
Right, that's therefore everybody does it, right? Well, actually, no, right? People freak out, people are panicked, they're terrified. So somehow to do the prudent thing there was arguably a more difficult thing than to do the, you know, to equitable, the virtue of courage, you know, I mean, in any case, you've got a guy with with a ceiling as a vision with this kind of a stoutness of soul there.
Why should the safe thing? I mean, sometimes this only safe option, you know, the only option that gives you any hope for a happy resolution, you know, is before you're rising you're afraid to do it. Because it seems like it's crazy, but it's human. Yeah, I had one detail to this just on the question more over to you in his saving alsabites, right?
Alsabite says, and I even then, Socrates asked the generals to offer you the price of excellence, right? I would say, and in this too, you will not blame you and say that I lie. So he gets a sense that Socrates might try to deny this, right? Don't try it.
As a matter of fact, when the generals looked at my rank and wanted to offer me the price of excellence, you proved it more even than the generals than I take it rather than yourself, right? So, and he was eager, right? He wanted Socrates to give this price. So for whatever reason he's doing this, it's obviously associated with alsabites, right?
Whether it's, it's some hope he asks for alsabites for philosophy or alsabites for Athens political condition, unclear. I'm not sure one can answer it on the basis, but I'll simply say this, it's not for the sake of doing something noble directly for the city of wanting to have those prizes of excellence. Yeah, I would even go so far as to say that. This seems to be one of the last moments.
And I think here, Socrates realizes that alsabites is too or into towards the many. He wants Socrates to be famous for what he sees in him. And Socrates cannot cannot have that. Which is a game in which Socrates could maybe distinguish himself and never equal alsabites.
So, lovely for alsabites to be the senior partner, right? In the political front of the partnership. That's right. Socrates has his own purposes.
What we're saying here, right? They're at, you know, he shows a great strength. You know, he's not afraid. He's not panicked.
He's going to take chances. But these purposes aren't, you know, say whatever stottle would give you as the purpose right for the virtue of courage, which is to do it for the sake of the noble for the beautiful. All right. Do we have any, uh, Teaster, Dodd and I used to cross?
Well, I was just wondering, I mean, Larry, when I read the passage for introduction in chapter four, you, we've already done the episodes where we talked about Apollo Doris and Tristedema's. But can you maybe draw out for us some more of the differences between, you identify all three of these man. They're all A's by the way, they just occurred to me. Apollo Doris versus Deem as Sausen byates as lovers of Socrates.
But they're different kinds of lovers of Socrates. And you think they're all, if I'm putting this in your mouth incorrectly, they're all sort of distorted lovers. There's something deficient about their kind of love. Also about the, go ahead, please.
I was saying from a static standpoint, yeah, there's some platonic, but there's something deficient about their love. But I think we can say about all three clearly that they're all lovers of Socrates. And, uh, and I'm not sure there are any other characters apart from maybe Socrates in the symposium, whom we can say actually act upon or express love, you know, in it, under our sight, you know, our sight. Everyone speaks about love, and they may indicate that their lovers were not.
But, uh, also by ease that people smile and chuckle at his speech because it's, you know, he's he's he's he's actively, you know, expressing his love. He's he's doing something on behalf of it, you know, or the service of it, right? With his praise, I was slashed, you know, indicting with Socrates and also by andorissa Deemis is their, you know, in tow, flavors, you know, following Socrates out of love. And Apollo Doris is exploding at the Port Conrad early on, right?
You know, also like, reliving his socratic passion right now. So yeah, what I think I call three manifest lovers, people like love you in front of us. And they also have a comment that they're all lovers of Socrates and they're awfully un-socratic themselves. Okay.
No surprise. Maybe the lover will be so different from the beloved, but maybe if the beloved is Socrates, there is something deficient if you don't, uh, me or some of that back or follow his way or love what he loves. Um, is it, it occurs to me, you know, in case of al-Sivites, I think this is at least suggested maybe a bleakly in a prior episode, I've been listening to them very recently. Thank you very much.
Certainly. You know, al-Sivites, we know what he, what he does politically. And so for him to show up is already to bring to mind, you know, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, helping award, the Sicily next edition of the catastrophe is treachery and all the rest. So he is an erotic character who has arrows for Socrates and one of Socrates and is a deeply, uh, politically problematic person.
At a minimum, you can say, well, Socrates didn't do too well with him. You know, for Athens to standpoint, you know, in teaching him some kind of political moderation or disinterested politics. As a minimum, you might well want to argue that in, in the course of either trying testing else about these or seeing about a, you know, a philosophical education for him, that Socrates may have had the ultimate effect of sort of unshackling else about his all the more, of disobeasing him of certain conventional restraints, right? Uh, but not seeking redirecting his arrows away from, from, from politics.
So you could say, you have a guy here who's a lover, a lover of Socrates who doesn't bad things for and to Athens and maybe doesn't because of the effect that Socrates has had on. So that's also, you know, Aristodemus and the Pauladorus are obviously very different orders of people. There's sort of comical figures, I certainly apologize. But it seems to me there's a, those who are both recognizable as other kinds of like problematic cases or types of political arrows.
You know, the fanaticism of a Pauladorus, you know, this, uh, severe, you know, utopianism, it reminds one, maybe of a certain kind of ideological politics or religious politics. And Aristodemus is pretty similar in that regard, right? He, uh, xenophon will tell us that he's, you know, he's known to go around un-secretically and to mock people for their, you know, traditional faith, you know, their, their old time religion, uh, having seen that as sworn for their neediness. Just a small point.
I mean, you, you should keep going. I don't mean this to derail you at all, but I found this one of the more interesting parts of your, your book, uh, the chapter that we read at any rate that there's this weird, I think in contemporary political discourse, we would use a word ideology. There's this distorting effect that it has on these characters where they become ideologies and there's a human type that is likely to be drawn to these impressive Socrates types and then sort of become like zealots of sort, I guess, something like that. So I really like what you'd say about Pauladorus and Aristodemus on that score.
Well, it does seem to me I played out of it sometimes, sometimes I can't wait seems to see political possibilities that were, at least in my knowledge, might not have realized in his own time, but later, a kind of full realization, you know, with the kind of ideological, you know, ideological, you're talking fanatic type. Um, and I think both of Pauladorus and Aristodemus seem to arguably not to fit that. And you say, well, so what is it? Well, it's arrows for Socrates.
And of course, you could say, I think you have to say, right? As far as we know, Pauladorus and Aristodemus, where, you know, never did Athens any harm. And it could be that, that even if Socrates somehow inflamed out of ideas, his political immodoration, for all we know, you know, he was a benign, you know, pro-social influence on these other types, right? Because it's from Athens standpoint, so let a guy walk around flaying himself for not being on par with Socrates, right?
It's better than going up and flaying, you know, infidels or something else like that, right? That's very good. I have a friend who is, um, oh, man, he's vehemently political. And one of my, one of our mutual friends said about him, if he'd been born in Afghanistan, he would have been a Taliban member, right?
Like, it's just so obvious that that's the type that he has, he latches on to an ideology and becomes very impassionate. So I like what you said there about that. It's really good. And a little fanciful to think of it this way, but it's worth a shot anyway.
So why is it that, you know, loving Socrates should somehow be like, you know, loving an idea or an ideology or an ism. But if it's true that Socrates, you know, depicts him under the offices of the big arrows, is the big himself, himself, as arrows or as love. So these lovers of Socrates are lovers of love. And actually that's a term that does come up in the House of Baddie speech, and I'm like my finger right on it.
So it puts him, you know, to love not another human being or, you know, a community but to love, love is a love and abstraction. And that's what I've got to be thinking, you know, about that, that's, that starts to sound real ideological. So maybe a last question from we went from the mailbag because I enjoyed that discussion. I think there's something there.
But I was surprised you didn't include Agathon among these lovers because right he he's initially, you know, saving the seat for Socrates. He really wants him to sit next time. He wants to soak up his wisdom by any means possible. Right.
So there's a there's a there's a obviously some kind of attachment. I mean, it's clearly not on the level of House of Baddie's Apollo doors or a VISTA demons, but there's an attraction to Socrates for his wisdom. Maybe he wants to sort of go the easy route, but I'd be interested to see what you think on their relationship. I really appreciate you reading about Agathon's speech.
You know, it'll make more sense of various other respects. He seems to have a status and dialogue that's what can be impatient with. But I mean, but is he a lover? I mean, even the way I mean, he says all the right things or who was he in love with or what is he in love with?
There's something I don't know, it's awfully sort of self-satisfied to me about or narcissistic, you know, about to me about Agathon. You know, so yes, he wants that wisdom. He wants it to, you know, just through contact, right, to see into him to beautify himself. You know, it's hard.
It's sometimes hard to find a language, but you know, that doesn't, that doesn't, that's kind of dubious arrows. So he's arrows for Socrates. Just to your point there, Larry, I mean, Agathon has identified as the beloved of Pausanias. So, right, at least as far as the scheme goes, I think that's, yeah, I think that's Chris Fiermel, that his love for Socrates is sort of not real or cold or something.
That if each one there is a lover or a beloved, he's playing the role of beloved more than lover. And everyone's there to actually shower him with praise. And so he's the ultimate beloved in a way, I suppose there. And he's like a scientist.
Sorry. No, just the other or Socrates seems to usurp that title by the end, but you know, you get the point. Yeah, he was notoriously promiscuous. Right.
There's something that smacks of badity, right, from this fellow, you know, like he wants, it matters to him to have praise. Now, he knows enough, not just the one that praises the many, right, but also to get the praise of Socrates. And yes, Socrates catches him out and shows that he care loves the praise of the many more than he lets on because Socrates is well, you know, your wisdom was just confirmed last night before 30,000 of the demons and Agathons is something like, well, but it matters to me not that many, but what you think, people like you. But forgetting that Socrates and others were that crowd.
So, you know, he wasn't, but when they were part of the crowd, it was the crowd for whom he was performing. So I think he shows there, I think he's got to use his heels in some very subtle way for that. That doesn't convict him or demonstrate that this isn't ironic. It doesn't say, now somebody's just saying, he's just saying, he's ironic.
But I'll tell you, you mentioned a self-contemptive discern in the lover and Alcibiades. I guess maybe that he's just way to capture Agathon to me is that he has not seen the figure who is at least conscious of any self-contemptive. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah.
So at the end of Alcibiades' speech, he sort of engages with Agathons and Socrates again, and then another group of drunken revelers comes in. So we get kind of his, Alcibiades' speech is marked by, or bookended by two sort of groups of drunken revelers, revelers. I just thought, before we turn over, sort of David's going to give a proper introduction, and we're going to try to learn a little bit about our guest tonight. Before we do that, I was just wondering, Larry, if you could take a step back and maybe just help us situate this speech in the dialogue and just what does this teach us in the grand scheme of things, this speech by Alcibiades?
Well, it does seem to me to bring us to the political, and to say something about the interaction for Good or for Ill between politics and philosophy. So I think there's a kind of a multi-prong, not comprehensive, but multi-prong critique of political arrows, but in particular, a critique of a political arrow set is kind of ideological or abstract. Now, so I had a reading, a Socrates' speech, according to which one might say, is Socrates' right, and if he's read as I think correctly, then one seasoned him, what one could call true arrows or fill with solid arrows, but it's a different arrows from every other kind of arrows. And the easiest way to capture that would be to say, we're taught through the team that arrows somehow is arrows for immortality, you know, you generate the beautiful for the sake of immortality.
And that's what lovers do. Well, Socrates, I think one can say is distinguish as a philosopher, arguably, by really understanding that immortality is not available to him, so we're not through any efforts of his own. So his arrows, let's say, if it is arrows for his passion, it has like a or it was looking for something beyond immortality. I have a reading for which it's an eternity as where it's at, and that the word immortality is kind of a standard for me.
That's the way to intricate to try to get it to right here, I think. But all these other lovers are angry, you know, or the aim of their arrows is immortality, which means based on a delusion. And also behind these, I think it's the most vividly, you know, it right, if he shows you maybe, at least after the poets, he shows you what arrows looks like, you know, when it's sort of fully or nearly fully realized, but not, you know, educated or enlightened as Socrates' is. I think it's a good segue to the mailbag.
Let me ask two questions because I did want to let's think, let's thank Larry for sharing his thoughts on alsobai speech first. I mean, that was that was great. I think you bring out some aspects of his speech that people don't don't take seriously enough. So thank you.
Can I ask my question? It's me, it's called a mailbag question. I don't know if the internet's an authentication to be truly a symposium, right? They're rituals.
And they're like, was this gathering really a symposium before alsobaiites arrived? Because the drinking was optional. I have a thesis about this. If you trace the way where symposium is used in the dialogues, used by two characters, I think maybe three, Plato, the author in giving it the title, and alsobaiites calls it a symposium as well.
Maybe Socrates later, but up until then, it's called two different things as soon as he got together and a certain deep noss, right? So dinner, right, a gathering dinner, gathering. So soon deep noss needs eating together, symposium means drinking together, as soon as he gets together or having sex, right? So I mean, that's a really good question.
I would say from players who are sector, it's been a drinking party all along, whether they're actually drinking or not, they're sort of intoxicated, I think, with themselves is one of the themes about the dialogue from, that's my does my take on it. So maybe alsobaiites is a rival that makes it a more conventional kind of symposium, either way, the title, Plato was the only underscoreing with his title, something about the significance of that. That's right. He turns it to an all-out here, after him.
All right, bar. We got a fifth member. My son's really upset. He has sons here.
He showed up like alsobaiites drunk on milk from the mama. So, so later your background, let's let's talk first about the book that you have coming down the pike. Is it on Rousseau's reveries? Am I correct?
Yeah, well, I hope it's coming down the pike. It's on the pike somewhere. Now, I've written a longer than maybe it was desired by a study of Rousseau's reveries and solitary walker. The reason is telling us, really, being a narrative, telling us a story in a very complicated way, the story being the story of the coming to be and then the being of the philosophic life, a philosophic and they're with an apology for the philosophic life as well.
In a way that's not so so different really from the philosophic life as it seems to be articulated around the class of philosophers. Now, is this a continuation of the themes of Rousseau in nature? Rousseau in the problem of the good life? Is this your first book or because you had this interlude?
So, you have the first book, then your second book, Eros and Plato, Rousseau and Nietzsche. But so, are you returning to themes that you began in the first store? So, I think, I think thematically, it's probably more, it's probably better to think in terms of one, two, three, or six seconds. And this, but of course, this is just over.
So, the real unity of the things that I write is like, I can only recognize this from my life story in thought, things that are really on my mind when things be worked out. I don't know if it's, I don't know that this very book could be considered too continuous with the Rousseau book, but because I think the story is necessarily not it, but Rousseau's teaching, let's say, delicate, potentially parts of verse. I think that this philosophic life or this turning that kind of through which he enters onto it consists in attaining us a viewpoint toward virtue or toward morality. That's geographic, which one interprets virtue basically as knowledge and vice as ignorance in there, when moral lapses or moral evils are therefore interpreted as mistakes, errors or ignorance.
I think I've got a little terminology for a couple basic stances for these things, but I think that for so becoming a philosopher meant transcending what I call borrowing from a former teacher, mentor much, the ordinary moral perspective. That's good. And so, while we're on the subject mentors, we always ask for a guess a little bit about their education and touchstones on the way, intellectual touchstones on the way to where they are today. So that touchstone references the last I'll come to him and I don't mean to be.
I wasn't even a teacher in any place that I was enrolled. But that's the same thing against those who preceded him. So, a little bit in my background if you're asking, I was under graduate University of Virginia, and I'm really pleased that my favorite two professors who I just stumbled into while I was there in the early 80s are still teaching, which means no way, which I really can be as old as some people would have. You believe that I am.
I saw that Jim Caesar and put a science Paul Cantor in English. I majored in government as I called it back then and political theory, special interest. But I wasn't thinking it was eye opening and it was exciting. It wasn't exactly so crowded.
It was maybe more, I don't know, my trash and political philosophy, I think was out of some kind of attraction of nobility rather than sort of questioning for truth. I went to graduate school in the class to get to where I was happy to study with Ruth Grant and Michael Gillespie, primarily also Tom Sprigens, a couple others in between those because there are a lot of years between the two degrees, a lot of other things. One of the things I did was to master's degree in psychology. Tell us about that.
That's really interesting and different. Well, yeah. I majored in government and I remember having a conversation with somebody as a year out of college and how to understand my interests. I'm thinking about the paper topics.
I took Philon religion, Aristotle and friendship. One of the things, of course, I'm talking to this was funny. Well, that's psychology and that's psychology. It is.
I thought, okay, I'll study psychology. I did, but by the time I left, I was almost having to spend a deal with the director of graduate students to do a shorter that I was not going to stay on the discipline because I was reading Nietzsche and one of the people who predated Freud and it was problematic. Can I press you on this? For the folks at home who are thinking about getting an advanced degree in psychology, maybe they're thinking about getting an undergraduate degree in psychology.
It sounds like you have a sort of critique maybe of the discipline, but maybe tell us what's good and what's bad about psychology. Well, so my experience goes back a long way, so I don't want to claim to know anything about what it goes on to, especially in my home institution. Sure, all psychologists that are currently living and teaching at an institution where we're all affiliated, they're all very good, but apart from those guys. So in a way, can I remember the introductory psych sequence in college?
I didn't take those. The first one was like one on one on two was called, first one on one was psychology is natural science, one on two, psychology is a social science. Yeah, perfectly legitimate. But what do you want to say?
There was always seem to be a great effort to or yearning to be able to put quantitative measurement and certainty to things. And if those things can't be treated in that way or captured that way, then maybe they're not real. That's a little over exaggerating maybe. But at least in academic psychology, I discovered that there wasn't any going forward with the argument that Plato was a great psychologist and Nietzsche was a great psychologist.
I had what was most point you learned in the lessons. I had an advisor, thesis advisor, it was real excited. And we didn't know too much very well. I realized it pretty quickly because I was first student in a while, I guess, to be trying to study the kind of things I was trying to study.
And there wasn't much space left. So to study the great psychologist like Shakespeare and when Aristotle and Tocqueville, it was actually for the sake of continuing at learning critical science. Interestingly. I have a friend who's right now, his studies, studying psychologist's project, he's working with a professor, is to try to blend clinical psychology with platonic political psychology by attending the people's opinions about the good life and why they've made their decisions in light of that overarching question rather than going to the stuff about measurement and development per se.
I do think the clinicians, not academic researchers, but clinicians understand that what they're doing is found out with the humanistic. I was going to pivot to the mailbag, but I think we covered a lot of those questions. Do you want to do lightning round, Greg? Do you want to ask Larry?
So he's sort of skipped over. Who are you? I guess you mentioned Jim Caesar and Paul Cantor. But there's some other folks you want to mention.
And I mentioned when I mentioned when I mentioned when I mentioned when I was grab. Oh, yeah, of course. But it was the last. So I did postdoc in Michigan State and shared an office with Arthur Melzer, you know, a rotary dissertation that was leaning pretty significantly on him, you know, a few years earlier.
And so while I was just there for that year, I sat in on a seminar he gave on Nick McKinn ethics. And well, so what was the particular point which would she arose? Oh, just just teachers along the way or contemporaries? No, I know I referenced them earlier.
Well, there was a lot of value there. I was actually the first course I'd taken since college, right? That was based on the reason one book. It was also, we're talking about psychology and we're not using the word worldview or understanding of things.
But let's just say when we read together in that class, the first five chapters of book three of the ethics where we're addressing, you know, respect. Yeah, exactly. You know, there was a kind of a dazzling moment of brief, but thankfully, like a little bit recurring in sight over the years or something really powerful in that in that text. And I think I would do an injustice to last things if I went any further.
I really like dissertation in large part in those five chapters. So yeah, I'm deeply drawn to them too. Very nice. Well, maybe it is appropriate to go back at this point.
So Larry, thanks for coming. You know, thanks for dropping by to talk about the also about the speech and to intrude in a way that seems very much in the spirit of also about these. We just have a few questions for you. It's called lightning round.
You can answer them quickly if you can. And you know, you can pass of course, if you're like, that's too personal or if you think that maybe it's a question that you use to hack your bank account as some guess of thought. So we'll start simple. What was your first job?
Oh, first job. Camp counselor. Very nice. What kind of camp?
There was a Jewish day camp. There was understaffed. I was 16 and I had the responsibilities to be three people. Two of them should have over the mid.
Very nice. What was your first car? Well, first car that was it. I would like to say we had 65 must dang must dang.
But it was never in my name. First one that was my own outright was a 1975 Ford Granada Brown with like a beige vinyl. Top now school is the Mustang, but still here. Just a little tip.
Just lie and say Mustang. Yeah. Did you drive the Mustang in high school? Probably.
Did you drive the Mustang in high school? Yeah. Mustang Mustang. Mustang wins.
Okay. Okay. So I thought that you know, you would the I mean, I mean, I have to let me ask you a question. It has to tell the truth.
But now I know, no, no, no, no, it's just has to be beautiful. Where did you grow up? In Philadelphia and then the South Jersey suburbs, Philly. Cool.