Oh, right! I should have been clearer. Smith actually said those very lines in that video I linked to above—during the Q&A period.
Actually (lol!), I missed the fact that you created a link to a video. My apologies! I think a brain cell or two of mine was turned off while reading at the pointwhere you provided the link to Smith's monologue; I thought you had merely highlighted his name in blue for emphasis. I've since checked out the video and I heard Smith saying something about irony around 14:30.
I’m a bit of a fan of Socrates/Plato, so maybe I had an overly sensitive reaction to what came across like Bauerlien’s dismissal of Socrates as an ironist. Socrates’ tactics were those of the ironist—he did use methods to elicit answers he knew were coming eventually from his interlocutors. So, he’s a couple of steps ahead of everyone he talks to in the dialogues. But he’s also engaged in serious discussion too. Socrates isn’t just making fun of humanity and always full of irony, you know? Ha, listening to myself I’m probably just defensive about him. “Fan” is short for fanatic, right?
I hear you. In fact, in your defense of Socrates against Bauerlein's light handling of him, I think Kierkegaard said some things which parallel, or least echo, your sentiments on Socrates. I've had a taste of what you're bringing out about Socrates style of inquiry and debate since even though my own reading of him is scant, I have made it through Plato's
Euthyphro, Apology, and few tidbits of
Republic and
Crito in college.
Yeah, there’s a sense in which Bauerlein’s article sent that message—like he’s afraid that our youths will all be unserious and disengaged ironists. A generation of them. I’m probably more hopeful than he is in this respect. I’m not afraid of that.
Well, I too understand Bauerlein's attempted point, but maybe he needs to balance his article out by bringing in the fact that Kierkegaard was ironic as well in his own rhetorical practice, even if his was more attuned to paradox, and Bauerlein would perhaps serve his thesis better by being more specific by saying that what we don't want to see is a large swath of younger people giving into Nietzsche's 'transvaluing of values.' But do we need more Kierkegaard's either? Well, maybe not, but a few more of them might not hurt to have around these days.
The first time I read the Crito, I was like, “give me a break, Socrates, just let your friends save you! What the State has done to you is unjust! I don’t care if the same State had raised you and nurtured you—it’s about to kill you!” No hemlock for me either.
Amen to that!
I do think that. He’s snarky and ironic in many places. But I believe he was somewhat serious and prophetic too in his surveying of the demise of religion and the scary consequences that would ensue. Is that how you see Nietszche too? Do you think his arrival and scathing critiques of religion were good for religious folks? As in, did it help us to realize a problem and that we needed to reform? I’ve always loved the medieval phrase ecclesia semper reformanda est. There seems to be a lot of truth to that idea. We constantly need to grow and evolve. Stasis and stagnation can be deadly for religions, I think, as it can be for our individual lives.
From just the pieces of Nietzsche that I have read--which thus far hasn't been many since I have hard time stomaching his snark--I guess I can see him as a kind of ironist, if I take seriously what Merold Westphal says about him. It seems to me that it is true that Nietzsche, through his prophetic **cough, cough** tones of philosophical/ethical pedantry, skulks the low valleys of Christian complacency and passivity and seeks to overturn what he thinks are their disservices to European humanity. The problem is that when I see him cheaply hitting the button of blame, tapping someone like Pascal on the head in passing, I no longer feel I'm reading 'irony' but effontry.
So, yeah. I guess Nietzsche, like Pilate, is a mild kind of 'ironist.' But I wouldn't make as much of it as Beaurlein seems to do. No, I'd probably apply that oft ignored delineation offered by Pascal: The Indifferent.
Still, I realize I haven't touched nor read much of Nietzsche, so I'm maybe not the most objective critic he can have. I guess I can still hold out a small olive brance in his direction by admitting that there was one (only one?) other lesson I learned in a philosophy & film class where we were introduced to Nietszche's idea of the 'Eternal Return' and how, in a way, it was reflected in that now classic Bill Murray movie,
Groundhog Day.
Thanks for your comments, Magnanimity! From the sound of it, I take it that you've also had a few rounds of Philosophy in college???
