why Socrates was not a grey vampire

Just a quick post on this topic for now, because I really want to do a whole book on Plato. He has been getting a bum rap in our circles for a long time, to say the least.

First of all, if Socrates were going to be classified according to the bestiary inspired by K-Punk and fully endorsed by me, the correct name would be “troll”, not “grey vampire.” Grey vampires tend to be somewhat passive. They pretend to follow along with your argument, but always come up with some niggling reservation at the last second. They also work best one-on-one. (K-Punk has a good theory as to why this is so, but I’ll wait for him to post it.)

By contrast, trolls flourish best when there are witnesses, which is why the internet is so full of these useless pests. Trolls are not passive, but mildly sadistic. They want to take things away from people. All of this is a much better fit for the usual portrayal of Socrates than the grey vampire classification, which doesn’t fit him at all.

But I want to say two things:

1. Socrates was not a troll in real life

2. Socrates even in Plato’s portrayal of him was not a troll

The first point is somewhat speculative, but not entirely. People should read Xenophon too, not just Plato, in an attempt to try to subtract the Platonic encrustrations from the Socrates known from the dialogues. It’s been over a decade since I read Xenophon, but the Socrates he presents is in no way a troll. He’s a very sincere elderly wise man, much concerned with the public good. He’s not nearly as sarcastic, if memory serves, nor does he find it quite as impossible to reach answers to questions as the Platonic Socrates does. Given that Xenophon was no dummy, and was unlikely to miss much in his interactions with Socrates, I would conclude that the apparently “trollish” aspects of Socrates are a Platonic addition.

That brings us to point two. Socrates in Plato’s dialogues is obviously always sarcastic and mocking to some extent. But that is not what makes someone a troll. Zizek is also sarcastic and mocking at times, but is clearly not a troll. Why not? Because Zizek has a project. He guns people down in passing, for merely tactical reasons. His whole point in existing is not just to knock other people down, or to stage duels in the presence of witnesses and score points before their eyes. Sarcasm and criticism are not yet trollish traits.

This is a key point that many have missed. The troll is someone who is more interested in reducing the status of the person they are arguing with than they are in the subject matter under discussion. They are focused on people, not on the things that people talk about. One way to recognize them is that they never make any concessions on anything. They linger around the fringes and appear only when some possible gaffe has been made. They hit, then run away into the shadows once the controversy has dissipated. And they always need witnesses… You will probably never receive a one-on-one emailed criticism from a troll (there are a few complicated exceptions to this rule, but more on that some other time). This is one of the ways I learn to recognize them quickly. If someone really has an honest critical point to make against me, either they will first contact me personally, or if circumstances require that they first do so in public (as in a critical response to a public lecture) there is generally some flexibility and openness in the way they phrase the criticism. You get the sense that it is at least possible to satisfy their objection; their whole purpose is not to put you on the defensive and keep you there. By contrast, trolls can be recognized by behavior traits such as never sending philosophical correspondence, but always saying something aggressive when you appear in public, or always setting up a small website and inviting others to visit it whenever they have a criticism to make.

And here’s another point, though I don’t want to pre-empt whatever K-Punk has to say on the matter. Trolls also can be recognized by a severe disproportion between the high temperature of their aggression and the low temperature of their own productivity. This makes them differ from grey vampires somewhat, because there is such a thing as a “high-functioning grey vampire”, though not with trolls. Trolls are all getting nothing done, at least not on their main intellectual tasks. I’ve never known any exceptions to this rule.

But back to Socrates…

It’s true that there are a few dialogues where Socrates is a bit of a troll. The Gorgias is one that comes to mind. He’s a real jerk there, and that’s the only dialogue where I find myself rooting for the Sophists.

However, unlike trolls, Socrates is not tearing people down for the sake of tearing them down. Socrates has a theory, a “project”. The theory of the Platonic Socrates is the rather paradoxical theory that the logos of anything is somehow deeper than any of the attributes that can be ascribed to it. Notice how he scolds Meno for asking whether virtue “is a fine thing” before first knowing what virtue is. The same thing happens in virtually every dialogue. And it’s not just a matter of Socrates scolding his interlocutors for impatience. It’s not as if Meno just needs to wait another 5 or 6 pages to settle the definition of virtue before being allowed to ask again whether it’s a fine thing. No, the definition of virtue will never be achieved. And a fortiori for the other things to be defined in the dialogues, since at least Socrates gives three approximate definitions of virtue (wisdom, true opinion, a gift from the gods), which is more than he usually does.

In short, Socrates’s constant cut-downs of his interlocutors are made in the name of a positive thesis: that only love of wisdom is possible, not wisdom. That the quest for definitions is paradoxically doubled by the impossibility of obtaining any.

The other interpretation of Socrates (as a forensic star good at knocking other people down a peg) has had a disastrous influence on philosophical style over the years. In some circles, scoring verbal points has come to be seen as a key philosophical skill, rather than as the minor or auxiliary rhetorical technique that it actually is.

Socrates had a project. He was not a troll.