Heidegger

> It was self-imposed, …in the same place (Phaedo)
> he’s offered exile and refuses.

Socrates was faced with the choice: “Should I run as a coward or face the
legal sentence for my deeds?” He chose that he should not run as a coward.
It is true that the sentence was punishment by death. Again, by running as a
coward, he would have betrayed his teaching about the immortality of the
soul. He maintained that death is not to be feared, that after death either
the gods reward the just for their deeds or else there is complete absence
of any experience, which, compared to the adversities of earthly life, is a
pleasure and a rest.

The legal sentence was applied by the representatives of the city, after his
trial. He was not dying because he wished so, but his death was caused by
the will of the city. He was not killing himself, the city was killing him.

He did drink the hemlock himself, but this was in order to avoid the
dishonour of being forced by the prison guards to swallow the hemlock. It
was not his wish to drink the hemlock, but it was the city who wished that
he drinks hemlock, and he simply found a way to make it happen without
having the shame of showing fear of death.

The same could be said about Christ. Could Christ call upon twelve legions
of angels, who could have rescued Him from crucifixion? He claimed that that
was possible, but he did not desire it. Christ was sentenced to death, He
was not killing Himself. He did wish to die on the Cross, because this was
His mission. But He did not call upon His disciples to crucify Him for the
fun of being crucified.

Christ preached His revolutionary message, and the power elite had no other
option than seeking to punish Him in an atrocious way. At the instigation of
the Jewish power elite, the Jewish masses appealed to Pontius Pilate, that
he should crucify Christ.

Christ said something like: “You have the option that you listen to my
message and obey it, but I know that because you are wicked you won’t do
that, and you will punish me unjustly. It is not Me who is robbing Myself of
My Own Life, but it is you who are killing me unjustly. It is true that this
has been predicted by the prophets, because they too knew that you are
wicked and you won’t listen to my message. And God, in His infinite wisdom,
did not make My predictable death be in vain, but He made it be for the
salvation of the sinners. I had the mission to preach My message, and if
death is part of the package, so be it. It is your choice, not Mine.”

The same way, the law says that citizens should not make use of violence
against each other (except legitimate defence). Those who wrote the law knew
that some people will not obey the law and will commit arbitrary violence
against other people. And then, the law defines the actions of the police,
which seeks to catch these offenders and punish them. Now, the police and
the law enforcers use violence against some people (the offenders). But this
violence is just. Although the offenders were compelled by their anger or by
the chemical imbalance in their own brains to act that way, the law provided
that in such cases violence should be used against these offenders in order
that they answer for their own deeds. It is not the law who pushed those
people to commit violence. The law is meant against arbitrary violence and
it only tolerates legitimate violence in order to punish those who commit
offences.

In the Netherlands, there is a different situation. There is a legal
principle, the principle of opportunity, which says that a crime is to be
pursued and punished only if it is opportune to do it. If the Dutch were the
occupants of India, Gandhi would have never succeeded to liberate his
country. The prosecutor would have said in such a case, “Well, it is indeed
a crime that Mr. Gandhi did this or that, but I know very well that he is a
troublemaker and he meant it in order to stir trouble. It is not opportune
to prosecute and punish him, so this case is closed.”

Gandhi would not have succeeded under Dutch rule, because the Dutch are too
tolerant to allow him gain public recognition. He would not have succeeded
under Nazi rule either, because the Nazis would have finished him off before
he could gain public recognition. His strategy was only good enough for the
British, which were neither lawless murderers as the Nazis nor as pragmatic
as the Dutch. If the Dutch were in charge of Christ or Socrates, they would
have surely not killed them, simply because the Dutch would not want even
more troubles.

Greetings,

Tudor

Posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
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