From: Badger01@yabbs
To: maedhros@yabbs
Subject: re: Just a thought...
Date: Fri Jun 24 10:20:52 1994

Having just read Socrates, I know what he said, Maed.
I have it right in front of me, and he said that
"I am known as wise, but it is not so, and I sought to disprove the 
oracle, doubtless that it meant some other Socrates, yet when I spoke to 
the Politicians, who surely must have more wisdom that this poor old man, 
I saw that they, too, knew nothing, yet did not know it...and therefore 
were righteous and angered with me when I pointed this to them." From An 
Auden transaltion of the Apology. It goes on for far longer than I have 
patience to type...Find either the Auden or Tomasson translation: Although 
they are different in appearance and syntax, the meaning comes through. 
Socrates searched Athens, asking everybody, and found that although nobody 
knew anything true, just like he knew nothing, they did not even know 
THAT, which meant that the oracle was true, for he was indeed the wisest 
man. He knew ONE THING> They knew nothing.

That's all, there is no more to say. As far as dictatorships go, Stalin 
let a lot of intellectuals live: He killed just enough to keep them too 
afraid to act. The people he HAD to kill were the unthinkers, those who 
act on the ideas of others. And the motivators. Not the Intellegencia.
Them he let live, knowing what our government knows: Most of them are too 
spineless to oppose inhumanity and evil in their leaders.

Badger01