More Diogenes, Less Plato
and less Alexander.
Plato, the original academic. Full of shit and pride and pomp. Managerial peer reviewed (p)research. Sees man as chicken without feathers, (to be) stuck deep in cave screens. Govern-minded by noble liar philosopherTM kings. Soon to be fantasy bird flu-ed, maybe.
For their own good. For the planet. For the R(e)ich.
Plato must be esteemed. Distorted in elevating ways. To keep Greek pride and Fascists and Globalists and noobs in obscure, platonic love. Attached, out of touch. Plato is faith in the system, status symbolism, authoritarianism. Supreme virtue aesthetics. Upper class BS1.
Diogenes is simplicity is freedom is sacrilege. Effortlessly fart checks the scienceTM church academy of old. At the rich man’s place, spits on his face and mud steps on his vanity rug. At the sponsor theater, he enters as the shitizenry exit after the play. True world citizens mock the thirst for power; thus Plato (and Alex, and Aristotle who dines when Alexdad is hungry) and those modern ‘Global Citizens’.
Diogenes must be cartoonified. Distorted in degrading ways. Why?
Plato was about to travel to court Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse2. On his way he saw Diogenes eating olives. ‘Visit Dionysius and you won’t have to live on olives’ said Plato. ‘Live on olives and you won’t have to visit Dionysius’ replied Diogenes.
Then again, Plato is ‘elite’; a power hungry ‘aristo/merito crat’ decepticon3. Why live on just olives when you can be served by slaves as you influence governance.
In a grand day for the Athenian Democracy and world enlightenment, Plato revealed his definition of man as a ‘featherless biped’ and he was applauded4. Diogenes returned with a plucked chicken, shouting ‘Behold Plato’s man’.
‘With broad nails’ was soon added to the definition, turning it to unfalsifiable scienceTM. Take that, Cynics!
AlexDaGreat was one more ‘VIP’ intrigued by Diogenes. One day he was in Corinth, where Diogenes lived after he had left Athens5. The Cynic refused go meet Alex, so Mr DaGreat himself paid a visit to Diogenes’ majestic pot (or barrel) home.
‘Are you afraid of me?’ asked Alex.
‘What are you, good or evil?’ was the answer he deserved.
Alex couldn’t say he’s evil in front of his servants and others. Possibly he didn’t even consider himself such. He also couldn’t say he’s good. He wasn’t, and perhaps it would also make him seem weak.
‘Ask me for any favor’ said AlexDaMagnanimal.
‘Enlighten me’ requested Diogenes, as per the best possible translation6. ‘Fuck off my sun’ fits too. The former is excluded by mainstream modern scribes. I want to say always, since I’ve seen many of those, but maybe I’ve missed some inclusive ones.
The philosopher asks if Alex holds The Truth, knowing he doesn’t, while telling him to step aside, let then sun pass through, stop forcing himself to the spotlight. In not atypical Diogenes dual (or multi) meaning fashion.
‘If I wasn’t DaGreat, I’d be Diogenes’ concluded Alex, only to hear ‘And if I were not Diogenes, I too should like to be Diogenes’.
There’s many surviving anecdotes on Diogenes, some in multiple versions. Haven’t found them all concentrated together, even in published theme books or long online lists.
There’s no way to know which of those events really happened (and some don’t look like they fit the same personality; some could originally be by other Cynics or later edits/additions). As with everything history, they tend to be misreported anyway. In negative occult bias, unlike the usual positive occult bias on Plato or Alex or any other forced hero figure.
The Cynics were not power-friendly, thus little on them has survived, in perhaps very distorted forms. Antisthenes, the first Cynic, propably expanded on the honesty and aversion to wealth of whoever was Socrates, while Plato appropriated (or stole) their tutor’s legacy. Hipparchia of Maroneia left her luxuries to live a Cynic’s life with Crates of Thebes, whose puppil Zeno of Citium started the corruption of Cynicism into Stoicism. In the end, only Diogenes remained relatively well known.
Can we be more like Diogenes, or at least more like the ideas personified in his surviving legend7? Do we fear truth? Need whatever the Platos and Alexanders of this world have in store for us? Are people like me ‘just jealous’ of the have-it-alls and their power? Was Plato right when he supposedly compared Diogenes’ vanity to his own?
I think the answers to questions like those above are becoming easy, if I speak for myself. I’m increasingly more Diogenes, less Plato. Less programmed, closer to nature. ‘The more I see, the less I need’. I never needed much anyway.
One of the things I fear is unreachable truth, but I’ve learned to live with it’s frequent inevitability. And no ‘royalty’ or ‘academia’ will ever enlighten me, and probably not even themselves.
One day I might tolerate to read all of his scripts to further prove my point, but deep inside you already know. The guy was/is an esteemed by repetition scheming oligarch, the face of mainstream ‘wisdom’. I mean fucking come on...
Either Dionysius I or II. Plato courted both. He later helped a coup against ‘II’.
And predecessor of the autobots and other transhuman side effects.
In his own writing, Plato even has a ‘wise man’ propose this classification, then to be further studied, eventually to lead into governance by the shiny charioteer statesman the ‘philosophers’ would produce to rule the state.
Helios? Apollo? Constantine? Am I taking this too far? Plato influenced ‘Christian Thought’, didn’t he?
Either way, perhaps the ‘wise’ see us as I will see my chicken flock to be? Perhaps Diogenes’ reported reaction holds even greater meaning than plain honest righteous mockery?
Long story involving pirates and slavery.
Of at least one ancient source I’ve verified. ‘Αποσκότησόν με’ in Ancient Greek, close to ‘Undarken me’.
Most of those, a few kinda suck.
Just love this:
"Plato is ‘elite’; a power hungry ‘aristo/merito crat’ decepticon³. Why live on just olives when you can be served by slaves as you influence governance."
"Plato revealed his definition of man as a ‘featherless biped’ -- a plucked chicken."
Thoughts on Democracy:
Athenian Democracy as created by Solon, was a Representative Tyranny benefiting the Archons at the expense of the common man. The central part of the control that Democracy offers is the illusion of choice to those who are willing to believe they have a say; this creates public acquiescence, a mind prison called legality, where some can write law, some are told to enforce it and the rest wear it around their necks like a yoke.
In the US, this is what has happened to Freedom, it has been put on a Leash called "Liberty." A dog on the end of a leash is said to have liberty, without the leash, he has freedom.