fandomhigh | Great Trials in History, Class #2, Period 5 (7-15)

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Great Trials in History, Class #2, Period 5 (7-15)

Alex was tired from her trip to Gotham, and distracted by concern about her new client. All the same, this week, their teacher was actually going to show up and teach the class. Wasn't that a novelty!

"Welcome," Alex said. "You have my apologies for deserting you last week. I hope none of you fared too poorly in my absence. To make it up to you, we'll discuss two different trials this week."

And because the two went together, and she'd intended to discuss them jointly on the syllabus, but those were details.

"Let's say you've been arrested on charges that essentially boil down to, 'we don't like what you're saying, especially now that you have followers.' Treason, insurrection, blasphemy if the ruling government is a theocracy, possibly even corrupting the minds of the innocent. What now?

"Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived nearly twenty-five hundred years ago in the city of Athens. He disagreed with many of the ruling positions of Athens, and spoke out against the fledging rule of democracy there. For this, he was generally regarded as a nuisance, for most of his life. However. Two of his former pupils -- Alcibiades and Critias -- on two separate occasions led blood revolts against the standing government of Athens. The leaders stopped seeing Socrates as a harmless crank and started considering him a very real threat.

"He was arrested and placed on trial. Three accusers talked for three hours, and then he had three hours with which to defend himself. We don't have much record of the trial itself -- two of his followers wrote up Socrates' defense speech, but none of them recorded the prosecution. And considering they were his followers, we can't be sure how faithful their transcriptions were.

"What we do know is that he was largely unapologetic. He said that, 'whether you acquit me or not, you know I am not going to alter my conduct.' When convicted, he was asked to suggest a sentence to the court, and his initial offer was that he receive free meals from the state, the way honored athletes did. The jury liked the prosecution's idea of a death sentence better.

"After the sentencing, many of his followers tried to convince Socrates to escape prison, with their help. He felt that, as a resident of Athens, he should be subjected to its laws. If Athens saw fit to kill him, then the least he could do was die. Others have suggested he wasn't looking forward to old age -- he was seventy at his time of death. Perhaps he wanted to be a martyr."

"By contrast, we have Galileo Galilei. He was an Italian astronomer and scientist two thousand years later than Socrates. He used telescopes and mathematics to study the stars and understand their movements. In doing so, he was led to agree with the heliocentric view of the universe -- that is, the idea that the sun is at the center, and not this planet, the Earth, itself. The Church at the time considered such views heresy, as they absolutely contradicted what was found in the Holy writings. And so, Galileo, too, was arrested and placed on trial.

"Unlike Socrates, however, Galileo took everything back. He claimed that this was all a huge misunderstanding:

For several days I have been thinking continuously and directly about the interrogations I underwent .... It dawned on me to reread my printed Dialogue, which over the last three years I had not even looked at. I wanted to check very carefully whether, against my purest intention, through my oversight, there might have fallen from my pen not only something enabling readers or superiors to infer a defect of disobedience on my part, but also other details through which one might think of me as a transgressor of the orders of Holy Church. Being at liberty, through the generous approval of superiors, to send one of my servants for errands, I managed to get a copy of my book, and I started to read it with the greatest concentration and to examine it in the most detailed manner. Not having seen it for so long, I found it almost a new book by another author. Now, I freely confess that it appeared to me in several places to be written in such a way that a reader, not aware of my intention, would have had reason to form the opinion that the arguments for the false side, which I intended to confute, were so stated as to be capable of convincing because of their strength, rather than being easy to answer.

"In other words: 'my goodness, in rereading my own book, I see where you think I'm arguing that, because I just wrote it in such an unclear way. I never meant anything like that.' Clever. And it worked. Galileo's life was spared. He was placed under house arrest and able to live out his days in comfort.

"Why recant? Why hold to a position that will get you killed? Where do you stand, in this argument? That's today's discussion."

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Recanting! You take it all back!

Squall Leonhart

Edmund Pevensie

Bruce Wayne

Jonothon Starsmore

Take notes. Pass notes. Be impressed that the teacher showed up this week.

Bruce took detailed notes. The first note was completely in his head, though: No need to apologize for missing last week. So did she.

Edited 2010-07-16 02:48 (UTC)

You're on trial for your views. Taking them back might make you look weak. Not taking them back will probably get you thrown in prison, if not killed. Do you stand up defiantly to the system? Do you recant to live and fight another day?

Edited 2010-07-15 18:58 (UTC)

"If you were just saying stuff just to say it, then whatever, recant and it's no big deal." Squall shrugged. "You'll lose your dignity, but you'll keep your life. On the other hand, if you're trying to change the system, change people's minds, then recanting is a really bad tactical move. Becoming a martyr for the cause will convince more people."

"I doubt either of them were 'just' saying it to get a reaction," Alex noted. "If you know your words might land you in jail, you tend to speak carefully at the start. Martyrdom's a powerful tool, but it means you have to die."

Squall nodded. "But sometimes, that's what it takes. It depends on what the mission is."

"Mission?" she asked. "I'd imagine it would. At which point you have to ask yourself, what kind of mission would you die for?"

"I mostly agree with Squall," Edmund said when it was his turn. "You have to balance the importance of the words with the importance of your life. If there happens to be a greater cause at stake, then one man's life may be the price for the truth. But then it may not. Sometimes you have to retreat to fight another day. From a personal perspective, it would depend on what would serve my people best. I serve them and if my death or imprisonment would allow my views to stand longer than my life and be to their benefit, then the choice would be simple, but if it's only my pride at stake and I could better serve them by recanting and regrouping to later go on the offence on their behalf, then so be it."

"An interesting consideration," Alex mused. "Do you think Socrates did right by his followers? They pleaded with him to live, and he refused. Maybe they would have been better served by his life."

"It's hard to say without knowing his motivation. Despite the stories of a great and noble thinker, it may have been a selfish choice based on pride. Or he truly could have believed he was doing what was best by his followers and their society as a whole."

"Great and noble thinkers aren't immune from pride," Alex agreed. "I have to wonder if age isn't a consideration, there, as well. If he felt that most of his teaching was behind him, better to go out a martyr than to allow himself to look weak."

//I already know that my views don't align very well with popular opinion,// Jono noted, shrugging his shoulders faintly. //And that where I'm from, at least, th'justice system isn't exactly made to work in my favour. What good will saying that I'm wrong do? I'd feel... more like a coward than anything, if I did. And on top of it all, they'd be right.//

"Sometimes, they only need you to say it, in order to make the charges go away," Alex said. "For both Galileo and Socrates, taking back their words would have saved their lives. It ran the risk of diluting their message. Which means they both had to choose."

//I suppose what I'd do really does depend on th'trial,// Jono hedged, after a moment. //I can imagine things that I might have to answer for, someday, but not many of those things are ones I'm going to lie and say I'm wrong about.//

He shrugged.

//Some things are worth martyrdom.//

"Our current government is better about not prosecuting thought crimes," Alex added, "so it may not be a position you find yourself in. I agree. It falls to the circumstances, and it's hard to say for sure what anyone might choose unless you've been in that position. Happily, I haven't."

//Neither have I,// Jono noted. //Yet.//

Apparently, he did not put a great deal of stock in the governments back where he was from.

//I can't imagine it'll necessarily remain that way. At least this way, I've been given some food for thought.//

Alex nodded. "One thing to remember," she said, "is that recanting won't always destroy your message. Galileo knew that science was on his side, and that the Church couldn't oppress progress forever. He recanted, but it was clearly a statement made to save his life, not a refutation of his discoveries. You don't always need to martyr yourself to the cause."

//For as much as I want to believe that, in my case, with th'way things are back home, should I ever find myself in a situation like that I can't imagine my taking it back would do me any good, at any rate.//

Odds were stacked more thoroughly in favour of him being carted off to some mutant concentration camp, instead.

//Taking back my opinion doesn't make much difference. What I believe in is what I am.//

There's more at work here than simply the fact that one recanted and the other didn't. How did their positions (and viewpoints) differ? Why might it have been harder for Socrates to recant, or meaningless for Galileo to die? Speculation goes here.

"Well, Socrates was probably wrong to speak out against democracy," Squall stated flatly, "because democracy is usually good. But it depends on a lot of things, and it's complicated, and it's an opinion anyway. Galileo, on the other hand, was just telling people scientific facts. He really shouldn't have recanted."

"It was more complicated than that," Alex said. "Socrates worried that democracy would lead to a rule by mob, that average people didn't know enough to make decisions for everyone. Galileo, on the other hand ... I think the fact that it was scientific fact made it safer for him to recant."

"Well, of course average people are too stupid to be in charge," Squall replied. "But that's better than having the wrong person ruling."

She had to smile at his knee-jerk cynicism. "You don't think there might be another option?"

Squall shrugged, and glared at her to combat the smile leveled his way. "Assume for a moment that you manage to find someone who could actually rule well. And that you manage to put him in power somehow. And that he's not corrupted by the influence of the power, he doesn't compromise his values in order to get things done, he isn't swayed by bad advisors, he doesn't make mistakes, and he isn't deposed."

He raised his eyebrows at her.

(And just how likely is all that, anyway?)

"Even IF you manage all that," he asked, "what happens when that person dies?"

"Both were struggling against a higher power that disagreed with them. Socrates took the more difficult path of trying to change a practical system and those in power often disapprove of that." He would know. "Galileo, while he did eventually change an entire system of thought, at the time he was only contradicting what people believed to be the facts of the time. That's why I think it was easier for Galileo to recant his views than it was for Socrates. Also, Socrates had been rather more vehement about his beliefs and had quite a strong following compared to Galileo. His impact was greater at the time."

"Do you think Socrates may have been afraid of 'backing down'?" Alex asked. "Too stubborn to want to lose face in that manner, to some extent? And I agree, I think that it was easier for Galileo. I think he knew time would vindicate him, recantation or no."

She's here to chat.

Many thanks to

whateverknight for posting class last week. I was still recovering from the dehydration of doooooooom and unable to put words together in anything resembling a coherent fashion.

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Great Trials in History, Class #2, Period 5 (7-15)

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Discussion #1: Recant or Be a Martyr? - TRI01

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