Socrates: Why Shouldn’t He Be Here

(a continuation from the quip "Socrates: Why is He Still Here")

“Question everything!” This is indeed the correct maxim by which people should operate. It would eliminate ideology and the deception the system throws at us. It would eliminate ignorance and ignorant actions. It would, quite counterintuitively, even eliminate conflicts between people. However, at the same time, it is this very maxim that has been taught to everyone, and, to an extent, everyone has acted according to it. Isn’t this very maxim what the most ignorant people conceivable—the conspiracy theorists—operate on? Isn’t this very maxim what the system—the very agency that supposedly doesn’t want you to question everything—teaches us? Isn’t this maxim, as we perceive it, an origin of conflict between people?

What happened here?

Among all the philosophers who have answered this question, Slavoj Žižek (or at least, my and ChatGPT’s version of him) has the best answer: What if the very means by which we question is already skewed—what if we are wearing a lens that distorts our perception before we even begin to perceive the world?

Let’s start with Benny Shapiro’s favorite two things: facts and logic. Facts and logic, as Benny puts it, “do not care about emotions.” The immediate response should be: Why are you picking this fact and organizing this logic? It may seem like a dumb question, but allow me to explain.

First, it’s given that one cannot understand all the facts in the world (we need all the facts in the world to truly determine which are relevant and which are not—i.e., engineers designing GPS had no knowledge of the general theory of relativity’s impact on the precision of wayfinding until it was discovered). And due to this, one cannot develop the perfect logic to apply to all facts (since one needs the correct facts at hand to piece them into a coherent narrative). Therefore, it must mean one draws “facts” and develops “logic” from what one already knows.

Now we can ask: “Why those facts? Why that logic?” Because in reasoning with the facts and logic one knows, one forfeits the pursuit of truly correct Facts and Logic, materialized in the classical question: “Why don’t you do more research?” This question, rephrased, would be: “Why reason and speak with these facts and this logic when you know they are not 100% certain?” I will discount the superficial disclaimer—“Oh, there could be inaccuracies”—since one would still make their point after saying it (hence, a disclaimer). It does nothing but appease the Other.

This example hints at something deeper: a mechanism that compels someone to do this, something veiled from us and maybe even from the person themselves. Maybe this mechanism is greed, maybe malice, or—my answer—maybe ideology.