On the Christian-ness of Socrates on death

On the day he is to be executed, Socrates is asked by some friends why he does not fear dying. He replies as he said in his Apology, that it would be irrational to fear death. More, he even claims to be happy about his impending doom. Why? Because he holds that there is more and greater good waiting beyond this life:

“I believe, my dear Simmias and Cebes, that I shall pass over first of all to other gods, both wise and good, secondly to dead men better than those in this world; and if I did not think so, I should do wrong in not objecting to death; but, believing this, be assured that I hope I shall find myself in the company of good men, although I would not maintain it for certain; but that I shall pass over to gods who are very good masters, be assured that if I would maintain for certain anything else of the kind, I would with certainty maintain this. Then for these reasons, so far from objecting, I have good hopes that something remains for the dead, as has been the belief from time immemorial, and something much better for the good than for the bad.” [Great Dialogues of Plato, trans. W.H.D. Rouse, 1956, pg. 466]

When I read passages like these, I understand why Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others are called “virtuous pagans.” Maybe, pace Dante, we will one day see them in Paradise, and create new Dialogues.

On Remembrance Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, on which we commemorate those who have fallen in war. This year is especially poignant, since it marks one hundred years (to the day) since the end of WWI. I have just a few thoughts to share.

This day is dedicated to remembering. This is a radical act, since it’s not something do easily or naturally. In fact, I’ve come to believe that forgetting is a fundamental part of what it is to be human. This is both good and bad (or neither, if you prefer). It is through (partial) forgetting that we move past sorrow and trauma in our lives. This is natural, and healthy. But at the same time, we often and easily forget things that should not be forgotten. We are quickly distracted by things immediate, pressing, and important. Either way, forgetting is a critical part of the human experience. Thus it is that to remember is an inhuman, even a superhuman, act.

And this is what raises this ordinary day to a holiday—even to a holy day.

Remembering is also what will break us out of the cycle of history. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (attributed to George Santayana). But it’s hard.

There is a saying among the Mennonites of my area: “To remember is to work for peace.” On its face, I agree with them. Peace is better than war, and one of the reasons we remember is to avoid the horrors of the past—horrors like the World Wars. But that is not the only reason we remember. We remember because the dead deserve it, because we owe it to them, because theirs is a glory that will never fade. And this is why I simultaneously dislike this saying of the Mennonites. I resent the implicit denigration of the sacrifices of the dead, the reduction of noble and tragic sacrifice to sorrow alone, and the co-optation of the campaign to remember for the pacifist agenda. When something is already “rare and pure and perfect,” it should be left as it is. There aren’t enough of those in the world.

Two poems I recommend for contemplation and commemoration are the famous “In Flander’s Fields,” by John McCrae, and “For the Fallen,” by Laurence Binyon.

There is a line, though I cannot remember where I read it: “May this death be always in my memory.” Originally applied to the death of Christ, and I think also to one’s own death (memento mori), I think it may well be adopted without disrespect for Remembrance Day.

Lest we forget.

On the fear of death in two fantasy series

I (somewhat) recently finished a reread of Chris Walley’s Lamb Among the Stars series, and it was just as good as I remembered it. It’s a thoroughly Christian sci-fi story, somewhat in the vein of Lewis’ Space Trilogy (which is also very good).

While I was reading the third and last book (The Infinite Day), I was suddenly struck by a thematic connection between LAtS and Harry Potter, which I’d finished a few days prior. Both series feature antagonists who are driven by and obsessed with a fear of death.

I have written of my suspicion of the etymology of Voldemort’s name before; I think it may be French (maybe crude/incorrect? I don’t speak French) for “flight from death.” This interpretation makes a lot of sense, given Voldemort’s drive to attain immortality—it is the main driver of all Voldemort’s acts. He refuses to go the way of all flesh. He is so obsessed with avoiding death that he commits evil acts for the sole purpose of tearing his soul apart, thereby ensuring survival, of a sort.

This idea isn’t original to me. (I doubt that any commentary I make on Harry Potter will ever be original—there’s such a huge fan base that has preceded me.) It’s mentioned (for instance) in episode 33 of the Fountains of Carrots podcast (around minute 15-16), where host Haley Stewart notes how Voldemort fails to realize that there are fates worse than death, which allows his obsessive fear to drive him right into one of them—committing acts of horrendous evil and deliberately tearing his own soul apart. A life devoted solely to prolonging itself is barely worthy of the name.

In Walley’s series, the Dominion is a civilization of humans long separated from the larger Assembly. Bereft of the benefits of God’s Intervention, they are (unlike the Assembly) still plagued by strife, division, war, power struggles, greed, selfishness, etc. In the course of the series, they come into conflict with the much larger, but less weaponized Assembly. Through the trilogy, one theme keeps coming back—that the inhabitants of the Dominion, unlike those of the Assembly, are terrified of death. It shows, for instance, in the things they make, especially in certain sentient machines called Allenix units, which can comprehend both the idea of a soul and the reality that they do not have one. Thus, they are all afflicted with existential terror. One of the Assembly humans notes that this is both cruel, and yet only a reflection of their makers’ own flaw.

In another instance, the lord-emperor of the Dominion at one points uses a sort of astral projection to scout out the Assembly forces. While doing so, he decides to attempt to terrify the crew of a ship—and succeeds. However, the manner in which he does so is instructive, to the Assembly humans and to us readers. The lord-emperor appears as Death—not a benign or peaceful escort, but as horror, emptiness, and forsakenness. Not having encountered this feeling before, the Assembly crew is particularly affected by it, panicking, and even causing a serious accident. But later on, another character asks: when one wishes to frighten someone else about whom they know nothing, what do they use? The answer is “whatever frightens them.”

And so it is. The lord-emperor (spoiler alert) is in fact a figure from legend, long thought dead, but kept alive by the Powers (read: demonic forces). Once again, the theme of escape from death, at all costs.

What frightens the people of the Dominion most is death. Thus, they project the same fear onto the Assembly, assuming that they must share it as well. But (and this is the critical point) they don’t. Instead, they trust in the sovereignty of the Most High and hold firm to what they believe, even when actually facing literal death.

Incidentally, this all reminds me of G.K. Chesterton’s novel The Flying Inn, specifically of a rather cultish commune of people who, endeavouring to live as long as possible, subsist on a diet consisting entirely of milk. Deliberately ridiculous, this nevertheless succeeds in making the same point as the more serious examples already discussed—that life is to be lived. More, it is to be celebrated. (This is a central concept of Chesterton’s thought.)

Voldemort and the lord-emperor both exemplify the classic trope of making “deals with the devil.” They call to mind Goethe’s story of Faust, and many other characters, real and fictional, who (were said to) make similar deals, with various outcomes, often horrific. They all serve as warnings that some deals are better left untaken; that you have to know when fold ’em, hold ’em, and when to run; that “we may never do evil that good may come of it.”