@@> On Apr-25-98 Frank Masingill wrote to David Martorana                    
    Msg #822, Apr-
 @@> "Self examined SHEEP and GOATS"
 
 FM>> I remain disposed, many times, to divide the world of people into the
 FM>> Socrates and the Callicratics.  As Voegelin remarks, Socrates had 
arned
 FM>> in the earlier Platonic accounts of the trial and execution of Socrates
 FM>> that "others will come."  In the Gorgias, "others" have come and the
 FM>> debate continues in all of its deadliness.  I hope you noted that.
 
 FM>> ....which Jesus is made to say, "depart from me, I never knew you to 
he
 FM>> goats who thought they were sheep."
 
 DM>> Once I realized that a debate of *serious concern* had slipped by me
 DM>> almost unnoticed, I thought we'd come back to it.
 
 DM>> It was the word "deadly" that caught my attention........
 
 FM> I think you have missed the point, David, considerably.
 
         ..............What's new ? 
 
 FM> The call in both instances is for real self-examination sub specie
 FM> mortis. In the everyday life interaction it is quite easy to fool
 FM> people as to the kind of person one is but the self-examination
 FM> being discussed in both instances (under different cultures) is
 FM> one in which a life has been lived and (is BEING LIVED) and as
 FM> in that Myth of the Judgement, "more recently in the age of Zeus"
 FM> the judges have their clothes off and the one to be judged has HIS
 FM> clothes off so that NOTHING is hidden from beginning to end -
 FM> everything is seen clearly in the ancient symbolic purgatory
 FM> delineated by Plato.  Thus, the judgement can be fair and truthful
 FM> because it is one that the ONE BEING JUDGED HAS ACTUALLY PRONOUNED
 FM> UPON HIMSELF.  Whether or not you choose to agree with an ancient
 FM> myth is hardly the major issue.  What is important, I think, is to
 FM> understand what is being said.  Socrates advises life lived under
 FM> the aspect of death.  One is free, of course, NOT to do that. Many
 FM> wouldn't think of it.
 
  I have thought on it (death) considerable, but CANNOT find in it any epic
  turn of serious meaning beyond some self-immediate bio-mental concerns.
  ...an instinctive rush to gather the hoped for "near end" valuable edges
  of a life consciousness ...as if to place it on an altar before a "next
  door".
 
 FM>> I readily confess that *I* wasn't thinking of it much in my twenties.
 FM>> In the first place, the "myth" as told by Plato is a "conscious" myth
 FM>> used to point up an experienced truth.  As I've mentioned before,
 FM>> Ecclesiastes ALSO advises hanging around funeral homes and in that
 FM>> marvelous symbolism of the 12th chapter brings it clearly home to us
 FM>> elderly folk whose suns are declining.
 
  Just Reread "Ecclesiastes 12" .....and Yes it IS rich in
  thought provoking "getting-old" symbologies (nice senior
  citizen poem)! Pretty much how I'm starting to feel !!!
 
     The "Preacher's" beware comment on the still unborn Plato:
 
     "..... My son, beware of anything beyond these.
     Of making many books there is no end, and much
     study is a weariness of the flesh............"
                                          Eccl. 12:11
 
     Frank, it is not so much that I am unappreciative of life's
     poetry, as it is my confusion when it is raised to a serious
     fake of REASON. You and I both know that knowledge of the motive
     and meaning of ALL existence, let alone human, is *ABSOLUTE
     ZERO* (0), other than that FABRICATED by religions to placate
     those fragile of heart. It is your enthusiasm to bridge
     historical voice into assumed importance, that sometimes
     bends my sense of humor. Such manufactured knowledge "raised
     to reason" is hard for me to understand, especially from
     someone I have come to appreciate as a most knowledgeable
     "QUALITY THINKER".
 
 .....Sorry, your use of the term "deadly" and the emphasis on it
 being important, distracted me from the more benign; generally
 expected everydayish philosophical explorations..... I erroneously
 thought you were invoking it in a more "warrior sense" of the mutual
 human need for idea contention. I can appreciate that: in the shadows
 of death, some few concerns trailing in the backgrounds of younger
 minds, quickly rise to importance. I'm still not sure that "relay-man",
 as a long term species, is actually important in any way of self
 meaning (or any meaning)-   *BUT* !!! I always listen for that
 fragmentary spark that might change my mind! I find our brief flicker
 of consciousness, *FUN* upon both mind and senses (the thinking mind
 probably the most addictive of the senses )!
 ......... NOTE: I do not see my glib pessimism much more than just
 a comfortable private ledge to look out upon my limited sense of
 world......
     As you've gathered, a very small Plato has grown to be too big
 for me to "warm with". I can only peer in a bit on you and Hal
 and Day, your seemingly enormous grasp on what that 'ol Greek'
 mind had to give his world. Too lazy, too slow in comprehension,
 or just disinclined, I am unable to "bond meaningful" with his
 time projected offerings.......
 
                        .....@@ ... Dave
 
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