This week I gave five talks at the impressive Universidad de la Libertad, a new university focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship. My hosts snapped this pic of me beside a favorite quotation adorning one of the walls there.
For my fellow gringos whose Spanish could use an assist:
“No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning oneself.”
(The quotation is in the spirit of Nietzsche, though it is from Kipling.)
I like also this one ascribed to the audacious and determined Hannibal:
“I shall find a way or make one.”
The character preconditions of innovation and entrepreneurship, indeed.
Hello Dr Hicks, I hope you’re doing well.
Its me Matthias from UL, and I’m happy to say I found the Plato line I was telling you about.
Book 2 of republic, around page 360 depending on the copy:
“We must tell it, then; and even if my language is somewhat rude and brutal, you must not suppose, Socrates, that it is I who speak thus, but those who commend injustice above justice. What they will say is this: that such being his disposition the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified“
Now the word that gets translated as “crucified” is “ ἀνασκολοπίσει” which can also be translated as “impaled”, but given the context it’s still quite startling that Plato laid out a framework so similar to the passion of the Christ, 400 years in advance.
The best hypothesis (as far as I’m concerned) regarding this seeming prophecy is a naturalistic one: That Plato was part of a powerful esoteric cult, which was spread throughout the shadows of the Mediterranean and the near East, that the same cult sent 3 magi to see baby Jesus (much like the magi that attended Plato’s funeral), and that the same cult trained Jesus in Egypt, preparing him for his ministry and imminent public execution, following the framework laid out by Plato.
I would be delighted and honored to hear/read your thoughts on the matter.
Thank you for consistently listening and being kind to me, despite my odd demeanor and even odder utterances.
Wishing you happiness, prosperity, and above all, liberty.
– Matthias
Well met in Mexico City, Mattias.
Thanks for tracking down the quotation!
In Intimatiions of Christianity Among the Greeks, Simone Weil comments on that “crucifixion” in Plato. (As Adam Zagajewski says, In Deferse of Ardor (I think): she’s the only thinker after Nietzsche not to be touched by him. I would add Willa Cather.) Michael Platt Friends of the Republic