Recounting the First Seminar

This was written on day numero uno at St. John's... but kept as a draft until I just now decided to post it. As frustrating as that first seminar was, on Plato's Meno, wherein Socrates was compared to a "torpedo-fish" in terms of his ability to numb the senses of his opponent, the seminar did provide me some humor, or rather I was able to provide it with some humor.... (What follows was written in a completely sober state, mind you...)


My first seminar and it's on Plato's Meno-- so not only am I forced to choke down the obfuscation of Socrates, I am forced to listen to twenty other people trying to tease out some meaning while channeling their own personal beliefs into the spaces where discussion of a significant point has broken down. I chose the Eastern Classics program in part to get away from the sophistries of Western philosophy-- the specious reasoning that frustrates the hell out of me. I wanted to find a program where I could discuss resonant aspects of Eastern Philosophy that are more practically applicable to my life. But as a primer, we are all supposed to participate in this introductory seminar, on Plato, bringing me back full circle to the Greeks.
Instead I focused on several things. First of all, one of the tutors was devilishly alluring and shares a "Van" in her last name, indicating that she is of Dutch extraction and thus good breeding stock. Sadly, upon further imaginings I must admit that the sharp angularity of our bone-structures would probably lead to horned progeny. Secondly: the other tutor is named Mr. Hand, which we must call him because all persons are to be regarded by the formality of their last names here at St. John's-- to ensure a proper degree of objectivity and respect for one anothers opinions. Mr. Hand, by the way, was the name of the anal-retentive teacher in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" starring the youthful Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, the quintessential California stoner. I wanted to quote the movie in my best stoner-voice, but doubted that more than one or two persons would "get" the reference and I would foolishly appear stoned out of the context of that stellar film.
Thirdly, a Latino fellow from New Mexico who I initially judged a jock but who proved to be quite articulate, sounds exactly like Quagmire from the Family Guy. Towards the end of the seminar, I could only wonder what he would do if I asked him to do the voice (aside from punching me in the face).
Finally, someone stocked the counter behind the oval seminar table with brownies, which became an easy reference point for several philosophers in the discussion of the morality behind the age-old question of Why-We-Don't-Just-Up-and-Steal-a-Whole-Damn-Plate-of-Brownies-When-No-One's-Looking. This offended me, being that I am grossly allergic to anything containing wheat flour. Another student brought up alcohol as another Object-of-Vice-We-Can-Choose-To-Be-Virtuous-About, which again I felt compelled to mention-- ahem-- some people have an obsession about and an allergy to. Of course, I just kept my mouth shut and let the serious philosophers do the thinking out loud. The discussion moved on to other, deeper matters, like Why-I-Don't-Just-Up-and-Stab-Somebody (presumably a rival for the plate of brownies). This ethic of No-Stabbing was traced to the fact of the social conditioning of innumerable consequences which we experience or see others experience, particularly the threat of a retaliatory stabbing being a deterrent to stabbing-- granting that the sensation of getting stabbed is of the not-so-pleasant variety. Someone offered that this whole No-Stabbing and Brownie-Stealing paradigm sounded suspiciously Epicurean (for, as we students of Classical Greece all know, Epicurius stressed the pleasures of the senses as the be-all/end-all, while downplaying the initial pleasures of getting stabbed as like "drinking a good cup of Joe only to find it's been laced with NutraSweet")...
I'm not sure if any of this philosophizing actually is a useful form of inquiry, or if it's just born from some insatiable urge to question and pick apart and undermine the ideas of those around you. What did I take away from the discussion? I began drawing a crown to symbolize Plato's philosopher-king, before recalling how I couldn't draw. I would have put the crown on Socrates, who was a rather ugly fellow from all clay and bronze accounts, but then I recalled how Socrates just questioned the hell out of everyone until they just wanted to retire to their pensione by the Aegean and drink some vino solo... That kind of guy could never lead a city. He'd get up to the podium and just throw out a few ideas he'd heard bantied about recently-- "It has come to my attention from an aide of mine that some of you wish to build an aqueduct to supplement our water supply in the event of a drought. Now let me question your best intentions behind this project, and wonder aloud if more water in pipes will not simply bring less rain to our fair city and our fertile fields. For, as the poet Pindar more assuredly and beautifically expressed it, the Earth is a concave dish of clay, made from the potter's wheel of God, in which water collects in various depressions and voids due to God needing that extra clay to make hills, mountains, and breasts. Waste of clay if you ask me, am I right fellas? (har har). There being only a certain limit to the water that can collect in these depressions, the excess is drawn upwards into the colinder that hangs prone over the Earth, lest the rest inundate our lands and drown our crops and goats. That water, if drawn in greater measure into our midst, will deplete the depression and thus prevent the colinder from collecting our excess, to return to our fields each April and bring us flowers each May. What I'm asking you, then, is do you truly wish to despoil our fields of flowers? Especially with Mother's Day fast approaching?"