Pick your Poison

I brought along all my Comparative Politics essentials today in an effort to try to cram some studying into the hour break I have between classes today. This was done with the hope that I would get some studying done before my test tomorrow. However, I developed an itch during my first class of the day to write, or at least vomit my thoughts on to a page in some coherent manner.

Hemlock. Recently, in one of my classes we have been talking about the nuances of the Greek word "Pharmakon." Pharmakon is one of those nasty foregin words that can be translated to many different English words. Ironically, it contains two conflicting words within it's translation making it all the more tricky to decipher. It can be translated as a remedy or a medicine, but it also can just be equally right if translated as poison. Humorous, but it makes alot of sense.

Alot of medicines in the wrong doses can become deadly. Alot of poisons they are now finding, if used right can actually be used to cure many illnesses. Don't believe me, watch the documentaries they have on Animal Planet about the uses of Venom. It's amazing. (This has nothing to do with my post but it's things like this make the exitence of a God just seem to hard to deny. The world is amazing, the human body, the universe, it's just too amazing and well crafted to possibly have come about because of some random ass big bang. You don't have to agree, but I for one, think it impossible to deny some sort of Supreme Creator.)

Back to the hemlock. Everyone knows of hemlock, probably because of it's famous use to kill Socrates. A tribunal was brought up in Greece, Socrates was sentenced to death by hemlock for corrupting the youth and preeching against the Gods. Whether that is true or not is up to Historical debates. I tend to lean on the Platonic side, Socrates to me, will always be a superhuman individual who changed the landscape of rational thinking. If greatness is determined by an individuals affect on history....there are few individuals who even come close to rivaling Socrates' impact. I digress though...

Socrates had the opportunity to flee prison and save himself. He could have lived in exile. Rather, he chose to drink the hemlock (a very very large portion in fact). His reasoning is unknown, whether or not it was to be a martyr is debatable. Years later, another famous thinker by the name of Aristotle was also charged with trumped charges. Rather than accepting death, Aristotle chose exile.

The point I'm trying to make from this drivaling nonesense is that maybe the hemlock was a remedy for Socrates. A justified suicide. Isn't accepting death over taking extreme actions just a justified suicide? I suppose the ethical arguments of such a statement would be another blog all together. The point is, Socrates was an old man, his capacities of knowledge far exceed anything I could ever hope to accomplish, the dialogues written about him often express his thoughts on the afterlife being the only way to truly acquire knowledge of the "forms," he even thought the soul was eternal. With beliefs like that, who wouldn't take the hemlock? If anything it became a remedy for Socrates. He escaped the increasing social anger directed towards his teaching, he escaped the decline of the Greek dominance, and most importantly he was released from mortality which hinders true knowledge.

So my question for all becomes.....what is your hemlock? What is your pharmakon? Pick your poison.....