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fandomhigh2010-07-15 02:55 pm
glasses-justice.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2010-07-15 02:55 pm
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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:
"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."
"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."