A beautiful kitty-cat is here and she is ready to get a complete makeover. Everything on this cute little thing can be changed and made even cuter. You can change the color of her coat, color of her eyes and even make a different expression on her little face. Spots or stripes are also available if you want to make her look more wild. Options are limitless. And when you are done playing with all those options you can choose the surroundings for your new pet. Place her in African savannah, countryside, or in your kitchen and you can eve print it out.


The following addendum to Plato's Sophist was fabricated as a kind of experimental answer to a specific contextual question: What is the relation of Plato's conception of philosophy to the practice of the agōn in Ancient Greece? For the "contest-system," to adopt Gouldner's phrase, has long been recognized as one of the salient features of Greek culture in the centuries leading up to Plato's time. Yet in the dialogues Plato never gives an explicit critique of the agōn the way he does other cultural phenomena, such as politics, poetry, rhetoric, education, etc. Many scholars have therefore concluded that Plato is more or less ambivalent toward the agōn as such, or, if anything, he "objects to the conventional Greek contest-system and usual economic virtues" in favor of a more rarefied account of the human good. This conclusion seems to be derived in part from the fact that where Plato does mention agonistic activity and values, he seems to distance them from those of philosophy. One notable example is found in the Theaetetus, where Socrates warns his interlocutor that they would do well not to be like those sophistic "contestants" (ἀγωνισταί), who seem to care only about winning the argument, and says that they should rather pursue the truth in their inquiry as more prudent "lovers of wisdom" (φιλόσοφοι). The distinction between true philosophers and mere sophistic contestants is here somewhat offhanded, but it anticipates a more in-depth and formal discussion in the Sophist—the dramatic action of which takes place the day after that of the Theaetetus. Interestingly, while Plato further confirms and elaborates upon the sophist as a contestant, he also provides an opportunity for the stark opposition between philosophy and agōn to be challenged. As it turns out, the sophist is only a particular kind of contestant, that is, one who engages in "fighting" (μαχητικόν), as opposed to "competition" (ἁμιλλητικόν). But what distinguishes these two types of agōn? What are the characteristics of competition such that sophistry is not one of its kinds? Can it be that, just as sophistry is identified as a kind of fighting, philosophy can be characterized in terms of competition? Had Plato allowed his characters to survey these avenues of inquiry, the question of the relation between philosophy and the agōn would have a more definite answer. These questions, however, are left unexplored in the Sophist, and so they are taken up in the present addendum.
There is, admittedly, a certain amount of presumption involved in attempting a "dialogical addendum" to Plato. Suffice it to say, I do not claim to "add" anything to Plato's corpus in the sense of completing or improving upon it. Nor do I pretend to have discovered anything definite about what Plato himself thought concerning the relation of agonistic and philosophical activities. Rather, the purpose of this experiment is to see what happens when the possibility of what I will call "Platonic agonism" is tested organically, so to speak, with the contextual and philosophical constraints, as well as the creative freedom, that the form of dialogue affords. I undertake this enterprise to offer a new perspective on Plato's dialogues, yes, but also to evaluate the methods and practice of dialogue itself. In a time when dialogue—philosophical, social, political, intercultural—is commonly recognized as being so crucial and yet so deeply convoluted and contentious, there is potential value in embracing and perhaps refining the interpersonal friction, the contest of words and ideas, that seems to be inherent in ideological exchange. I mean to suggest that Socratic dialectic can be the model by which to engage this form of dialogical agonism. In addition, this introduction is meant to elucidate and offer extraneous support for the findings of the experimental addendum. It should be noted that, while I do consider their historical backgrounds and conditions, a thorough analysis of the complex relationship between the Platonic dialogues and the agōn as a cultural phenomenon in their socio-historical contexts is beyond the scope of this piece. My purpose here is to entertain and enliven the possibility of Platonic agonism as a dialogical paradigm by demonstrating that Plato's conception of philosophy can be conceived as agonistic (in a specialized sense), in such a way that is consistent with both the discussions of the nature of philosophy and portrayals of philosophical practice throughout several dialogues.
Before advancing the view that Platonic philosophy can be considered a kind of agonistic endeavor, it will be useful to consider a recent argument to the contrary. In her book, Socratic Charis: Philosophy without the Agon, Lisa Wilkinson offers a specifically non-agonistic interpretation of Plato's philosophical method. As the title of her book suggests, Wilkinson argues that the practice of philosophy in the dialogues is driven by charis, "grace" or "gift-giving," which she characterizes as a dialogical value that is in direct opposition to the agōn. By explicating the gift practices in ancient Greek culture in relation to the emergence of demokratia and the role of friendship (ξένια), Wilkinson presents charis as the egalitarian model of reciprocal exchange upon which Socratic philosophia is based. In the Apology, for instance, Socrates presents himself as one who wants nothing other than to benefit his interlocutors, not to defeat or harm them in any way. He is quite literally the god's gift to Athens; indeed, he explicitly asserts as much in his defense at trial. Accusations to the contrary, which tend to emphasize Socratic irony and disputatious examples of dialectic, are based on a misunderstanding of his task and purpose, and, Wilkinson argues, at the heart of this misunderstanding is the presupposition that the Socratic elenchos is driven by agonistic motivations.
Like myself, Wilkinson is ultimately concerned with more than just an accurate reading of Plato; she aims to "highlight the democratic possibilities of Socratic dialogue" by arguing that Plato's conception of philosophy (as she interprets it) "may have something to offer our present day concerns and practices," related to "democratic competence" and the open, honest exchange of ideas.  Plato gives us a model of genuine dialogue, motivated by Socratic charis, as interpersonal, egalitarian, non-elitist; it is "completely free of strife," "proceeds to a relationship of 'equality and reciprocity' by mutual willingness and action," and is "predicated on the possibility of a genuine combination of interests." The agōn, by contrast, is by its very nature elitist, operating as the winnowing fan that separates the better person from the worse, the noble from the base. This "competitive ethos" is specifically and essentially aristocratic, and stands in opposition to Socrates' gift of opening a "space between citizens that indicate the value of their relationships." Moreover, reading the Platonic dialogues as "perennial contests between words and deeds"  undermines the very purpose of dialogue to perpetuate an open and pluralistic economy of ideas. According to Wilkinson, then, the agōn is an unfortunate remnant of an antiquated, non-egalitarian societal model, to which Plato has little to no connection and which he does not want to perpetuate.
Much of Wilkinson's argument hinges on her interpreting Plato's Socrates as "non-elite in appearance, speech, and property," and generally subversive of aristocratic norms and values. It is necessary, however, to consider the possibility that Plato does not mean to subvert or entirely disavow hierarchical valuations (social or otherwise) as much as he means to challenge and transform their traditional contents. It should be noted, first, that the agōn had played an integral role in the institution of such valuations at least since the Homeric period. According to Oswyn Murray's account, "Homeric man . . . sustained his role as military champion" by means of contests on the battlefield (as in the numerous individual fights between warriors in so many books of the Iliad) and off (as in the funeral games of Book XXIII of the Iliad, as well as Odysseus' archery contest with the suitors in the Odyssey). Through the archaic period, as the agōn became a cultural activity in its own right, victory in such contests was the standard by which nobility was judged: "the word 'aristocracy' itself meant 'the rule of the best man,' and their aretē (excellence) was proved by success in contest." Now, Wilkinson may be correct to observe that, by Plato's time, aristocratic attitudes no longer had singular, or even dominant influence on Athenian culture, since democratic values were becoming relatively well established. And yet, given the longstanding and pervasive agonistic tradition, with the rise of an intellectual elite, including poets, political orators, dramatists, sophists and the newly forming schools of so-called philosophia, it was perhaps inevitable that the agōn continue to be a driving cultural force as these groups vied to become recognized as the veritable educators of Greece.
Aristophanes demonstrates this by means of comic satirization in the Clouds: the personified Right and Wrong arguments engage in a verbal "fight" (μάχης) to decide which is better for the Greeks, the traditional aristocratic education, or the new sophistic education (represented here by the parodied Socratic school). As the debate is about to begin, the chorus describes it as a "great contest" (ἀγών μέγιστος) in which the "entire crisis of wisdom" (ἅπας ... κίνδυνος ... σοφίας) is at stake. Here we see that, among the various intellectual groups, the agōn continues to function through the latter half of the 5th century as the trial by which virtue, specifically wisdom, is assigned and instilled. Thus, Aristophanes establishes a significant—if farcical and, given its influence on the fate of Socrates, dangerous—precedent for the conception of philosophy as a kind of contest.
Now, one might think Plato should want to deny Aristophanes' unflattering depiction of Socrates and distance his methods as much as possible from the agonistic characterization of philosophy. As I will show, however, Plato does not unequivocally oppose this precedent of dialogical agonism so much as he revalues and realigns it to fit the true philosophical paradigm, as actually established by Socrates. In this, I am in agreement with Nietzsche: with his dialectical method, "[Socrates] discovered a new kind of agōn," and this is precisely why he inspired such fascination—and frustration—among Athens' elite. Only, the combative element of dialectic is not born from a spirit of ressentiment, as Nietzsche would have it, nor is its purpose even primarily to determine a victor, but rather it is to cultivate real human excellence. Throughout the dialogues, philosophy is presented as just that practice by which the meaning of aretē is transformed: true excellence is no longer identified with the heroic virtues of the Homeric period, the aristocratic virtues of the archaic period, or the sophistic virtues of his own day, but rather with the virtues of the psyche, secured by knowledge of the good, as established by his own philosophical paradigm. By means of the dialogical agōn, a new kind of "best man" is decided, one who is led by wisdom, who is good and just of soul. This is, in any case, the underlying thesis that the addendum is meant to demonstrate.
The specific context in which I take up this thesis is the rivalry between philosophy and sophistry, and more specifically, between the dialectic of elenchos and eristic argumentation. Scholars have often admitted that Plato and the sophists were engaged "in a competitive struggle for the allegiance of Greek youth." Yet few seem willing to grant that this agonism meaningfully informs Plato's conception of the methods and goals of philosophy itself. In fact, many scholars have tended to represent the sophist's eristic method as an "agonistic" mode of argumentation, a shameless contest in which the interlocutors are quarrelsome and litigious "opponents," seeking "victory in argument." Platonic dialectic, on the other hand, is often distinguished as an essentially cooperative, dialogical endeavor, in which the one being questioned is not necessarily the defender of a thesis, but rather an active participant in the investigation. A closer look at the operations of both eristic and dialectic, however, reveals a subtler distinction.
Especially relevant here is the Euthydemus, which is referenced throughout the addendum. In that dialogue, Socrates introduces the sophists Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as experts in fighting (μάχη) and pankratiasts (παγκρατιασταί), or "all-around fighters." The pankration was an especially brutal athletic contest that combined wrestling and boxing with kicking—almost any move was allowed except for biting and gouging the eyes—which was won by making your opponent admit defeat. Using this image, Socrates characterizes the brothers from Chios as masterful pankratiasts of argumentation, who are "so marvelously skillful at fighting with words (τοῖς λόγοις μάχεσθαι) and refuting (ἐξελέγχειν) any argument, whether it is true or false." This is the supposed "wisdom" that Socrates labels as "eristic" (ἐριστικῆς), and which he claims to be so eager to learn.
Of course, Socrates' praise of the Chian brothers as wise and skilled (σοφώ) prankratiasts is an especially candid performance of irony. It is, however, necessary to ask, what precisely does Plato have in mind that makes the irony work, that gives it its bite? Given a non-agonistic conception of dialectic, the typical interpretation would be that Socrates' praise is ironic because the pankration contest is itself an inappropriate model for philosophical elenchos. On this view, Plato's association of eristic with the pankration and agōn in general is already an indication of it being opposed to the cooperation and reciprocity inherent in dialectical exchange. There is, however, an alternative interpretation, according to which Socrates' irony is not directed at the model of the agōn in general, but rather at the brothers' specific eristic method as a deficient example of proper argumentative contest. That is to say, Plato means to represent Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as tricksters and cheats, rather than as serious competitors.
Indeed, throughout the dialogue Plato consistently uses language to show that the eristic method is not a contest at all, but rather an inane and brutal joke. After the brothers demonstrate the eristic on the young and inexperienced Clinias, Socrates repeatedly accuses them of engaging in "child's games" (παιδιά) and only "making fun" (προσπαίζειν) of Clinias, "tripping" and "overturning" his mind with their equivocations and word games, like pranksters who pull a stool out from underneath someone who is about to sit. These childish tricks are opposed to what Socrates was (ironically, perhaps) expecting to see from them, namely a "serious demonstration" of their expertise, which from the beginning he had characterized as a new and impressive kind of contest. It is only with great difficulty that Socrates is finally convinced that the brothers are speaking in earnest.
Even when Plato uses agonistic language to characterize the brothers' eristics (and he often does), he makes it clear that they are not allowing for a fair fight. For example, when Dionysodorus whispers to tell Socrates how the eristic will make a fool of Clinias, Plato notes that Socrates "was not able to warn the boy to be cautious." In other words, Clinias is not made fairly aware of the conditions and motivations of his questioner; he enters the arena blind, already at a great disadvantage before the conversation even begins. Socrates describes Clinias as being pummeled by the brothers' arguments—as if they were pelting him with a ball, or throwing him, as in wrestling—and finds it necessary to intervene on his behalf, "wishing to give him a chance to breathe." When Socrates himself faces the eristic, he resists Dionysodorus' devious tactics, asking him if he really believes the question to be "fair" (δίκαιον). These examples point to a characterization of the brothers not as competitors in any proper sense, but rather as bullies, tricksters, and cheats, whose argumentative method falls short of Socrates' initial expectations. Socrates cannot even ironically praise the eristic; rather than make anyone even appear to be wise, Socrates concludes that their argument "has made no progress and still has the old trouble of falling down itself in the process of knocking others down." On this interpretation, Plato's problem with the eristic method employed by these sophists is not that it is agonistic, but rather that it is antagonistic. That is to say, it subverts any kind of genuine contest by which the veritable "best man" could be decided or produced.
Plato provides a contrast to the brothers' eristics in Socrates' dialectical conversations with Clinias, which Socrates introduces as demonstrations of the sort of contest of words he wanted to hear from the beginning. If Plato does mean to depict eristic as deficient and antagonistic, then we should expect Socrates' dialectic to appear as an example of a true philosophical competition, conducive of virtue and wisdom—and this is what we do find. Between Socrates' first and second conversations with Clinias, Plato displays a significant development in the latter's dialectical role, which can be understood in terms of a philosophical agōn. While Socrates is questioning Clinias during the first demonstration, for the first time in the dialogue Clinias asks questions of his own. That is to say, Clinias becomes an active participant in the contest, rather than a punching bag. He is, at least, not allowing Socrates to dominate the conversation unchallenged. Admittedly, these are at first only simple questions of clarification rather than real challenges—but even these mark a critical distinction between dialectic and eristic, since, as we see later in the dialogue, the brothers, wanting to maintain their unfair advantage, become quite agitated when Socrates asks similarly harmless questions. In the second demonstration, Clinias actually disagrees with one of Socrates' conclusions, and challenges him with an account of his own—an account with which they both come to agree! So, Socrates not only allows Clinias the breathing room to stand up for himself in the cross-examination, but actually is himself refuted by Clinias. By means of these two demonstrations, Socrates is training Clinias to contend for the true account using the methods of the elenchos. It is important to note as well that, unlike the brothers, Socrates is congratulatory and delighted at the progress they have made, even though his own thesis was defeated. So, what we see in the Euthydemus is a stark contrast between two kinds of discussion: the antagonistic, eristic fighting of the sophists, in which the aim is simply to thwart the opponent, and the dialectical agōn of the philosophers, in which both interlocutors strive productively for the common goal of truth.
Let us all be lovers of victory when it comes to virtue, but without envy. The man of this sort—always competing (ἁμιλλώμενος) himself but never thwarting others with slander—makes cities great. But the envious man, who fancies he must gain superiority by slandering the others both lessens his own efforts to attain true virtue and makes his competitors (τούς ἀνθαμιλλωμένους) dispirited by getting them unjustly blamed. Thus he makes the whole city a flaccid competitor in the contest for virtue (ἅμιλλαν ἀρετῆς) and does what he can to diminish its fame.
This passage clarifies the sense in which agonistic activity can also be productive, cooperative and beneficial, not only for the victor, but for the entire city, including the defeated. What's at stake in this contrast between the honorable and envious competitor is the attainment of true aretē, as opposed to an ill-defined and ultimately insignificant sense of superiority. And this amounts to nothing less than a transvaluation of the agōn as an aristocratic institution. In the dialectical "contest of virtue," the philosopher does not strive simply to win the argument, for winning is not the goal. The goal is to become the "best man" (ὁ ἄριστος), one who "lives through truth" (ἀληθής ὤν διαβιοῖ), with "temperance" (σωφροσύνης) and "wisdom" (φρονήσεως). If he is oriented correctly toward the truth and willing to receive it, progress will be made toward wisdom whether he is shown to be right or wrong. Wilkinson is not wrong to insist that a certain egalitarian spirit hangs over the practice of dialectic: both interlocutors (i.e., competitors) potentially benefit from dialectic, and are equal insofar as they share a common rational nature; socio-economic class is irrelevant, a mere adornment that is probably better cast off before one enters the ring. On the other hand, it is neither possible nor desirable that the competitors be equal in every sense, not least in the relevant respect: if virtue is to mean anything, the more virtuous person must really be better, a more excellent human being, better acquainted with the truth, wiser, and not simply and unequivocally equal. To follow the classic Platonic line, the point is that one who is better with respect to knowledge and the virtues of soul really is a better human being, while the old aristocrats and victors in contest only appeared to be. Since these new "lovers of victory" have no care for appearances, they compete without envy (ἄφθονος): even while they contend and "strive with all their power" for truth, they work productively for a common goal, virtue, the benefits of which inevitably overflow from the victor's cup. For if one who is "victorious in virtue" (νικηφόρος ἀρετῇ) is truly the "best man," then he "is able to possess [the virtues] not only for himself but can also share with others . . . in the spirit of love" (διά φιλίας). So, even while the philosophical competitor sincerely strives against the other, presenting the best argument he can in accordance with the judgment of reason, his love of wisdom, along with his Socratic skepticism and propensity for self-examination make him ready for and open to defeat whenever reason judges him to be wrong.
Thus, to return to the Euthydemus, of course Socrates is delighted at being refuted by Clinias, since he too has made progress toward the true account. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, on the other hand, employ every dishonorable and absurd tactic in order to appear to win the argument by making the others admit defeat, without any regard for the truth whatsoever. We may conclude then that Wilkinson is right to recognize a degree of charis present in Socrates' practice of philosophy: by refuting his interlocutors, Socrates undoubtedly aims to benefit and not simply oppose them. In fact, this beneficence is essential in distinguishing dialectic from eristic. On the other hand, it is simply wrong to infer from this that "in the dialogues no one ever wins, and no one ever loses." Wilkinson's assumption that beneficence is entirely absent from all agonism appears to be rooted in a rather constrained conception of the agōn, which disallows the possibility of true virtue as its prize. In the dialectical agōn each interlocutor strives against the other's account insofar as it is the other's—but in the same act they are striving together for the true account insofar as it is conducive of wisdom. Eris and philia come together in the philosopher's contest for virtue. As Pierre Hadot has put it, Socratic dialogue is "a combat, amicable but real." When there is only strife in dialogue, one is left tangled up in the tricks and games of the eristic, the sophists' "fighting with words." But without any strife, without the friction of critical challenges and counter-arguments, without actually trying to refute the other for the sake of something greater than both participants—greater even than agreement between them—dialogue is in danger of becoming stagnant, disingenuous, all concession and compromise, a game of superficial agreement or ideological flattery. In this way, a non-agonistic dialogue of mere "exchange" can be as intellectually stifling and unproductive as the antagonistic eristic debates. It might be worse.
This contrast between the honorable and the envious competitor in the Laws, along with the displays of dialectic and eristic in the Euthydemus, provide the background and model for the essential distinction between fighting and competition made in the following addendum to the Sophist. While much of the interest in Plato's Sophist has been aroused by its metaphysical themes, the more dramatically explicit concern of the dialogue is to discover the nature of the sophist, as distinct from the philosopher and statesman. Before the point at which the addendum begins, Theaetetus and the Eleatic Visitor have defined the sophist's expertise in five different ways, all falling under the broad category of acquisition (κτῆσις). In the last of these five accounts, the sophist's expertise (i.e., eristic argumentation) appears as a kind of contesting (ἀγωνιστική). This has, again, contributed to the common view that sophistry, as opposed to philosophy, is agonistic. But the Visitor goes on to divide contesting into two kinds, namely, fighting (μαχητικόν) and competition (ἁμιλλητικόν)—the latter being the same term Plato uses in the Laws to describe the honorable competitor in the contest for virtue. Then, the Visitor relegates the sophist's eristic to fighting (specifically, the money-making kind of "fighting with words" for which sophists had become infamous), leaving kinds of competition unexplored. From here they move on from the broad category of acquisition to types of expertise that involve separating (διαιρετική), which has nothing to do with the agōn. When they follow this track, they come to an account of refutation (ἔλεγχος), which they describe as a "noble kind of sophistry" (γενναία σοφιστική). Like a doctor who removes illness from the body, this type of thinker "purifies the soul" of that most shameful kind of ignorance that does not know that it does not know, which can easily fester into inflated opinions and false claims to wisdom. While they admit the expertise of this "noble sophist" bears some resemblance to the eristic, they are reluctant to conflate them, since the methods and goals of the elenchos are more honorable. This marks a point in the dialogue at which it would have been natural to digress from the main investigation in order to better classify this new type of thinker they have distinguished. Instead, following his Muse, Plato has his characters move on to try for a more definitive and general account of the sophist.
While the philosopher is not explicitly discussed until later in the dialogue,  this discussion of the noble sophist is a thinly-veiled reference to Socrates, who famously engages his interlocutors in just the way the Visitor describes: he "cross-examines someone who thinks he is saying something while saying nothing at all. . . . and, bringing together the things they say, he compares them and, by comparing them, demonstrates that they contradict one another. . . . and by refuting the opinions that impede learning, he shows that the soul is purified, believing it knows only the things it does know, and nothing more." There are of course other models for the philosopher than the Socratic skeptic—Plato insists on this point in the dialogue—but since it is the textually relevant type, I make it the focus of the addendum as well. Not to mention, as I demonstrate in what follows, it is this type in particular for whom Platonic agonism is the operative philosophical paradigm. Indeed, this is one reason Theaetetus and the Visitor are baffled by the noble sophist. Their account in terms of "separating" has not clearly shown just how this thinker is both contentious and beneficent, both similar to the disputatious sophists and yet really able to make people better and happier. This is where the addendum picks up, with the Visitor and Theaetetus wondering about this strange, noble sophist and resolving to investigate further, this time in terms of their original category of acquisition, which leads them to consider again the agōn.
The addendum begins at Sophist 231a, after the first two sentences of the Visitor's response to Theaetetus. Plato's original text is bolded (my translation).
Theaetetus: But clearly there is at least a similarity between the sophist and the one we were just talking about.
Visitor: Indeed, and between a wolf and a dog, the most savage beast and the gentlest. To be safe, we must be on our guard most of all when it comes to similarities, for the kind of person we are investigating is a most slippery sort. Let us therefore not let stand our description of this strange person, who seems both like a sophist and in some way more honorable. But perhaps if we seek him out in the way we sought the others before him, we will be able to see him more clearly.
Visitor: By investigating in what way, if any, he engages in the same activity as the others, namely, acquisition (κτῆσις). You see, Theaetetus, although it was not without purpose, I am afraid I may have obscured this noble sophist from the beginning when I made discrimination our starting point, rather than acquisition. For it seems to me now that, if the noble sophist engages in acquisition, then it must be of a different, more honorable kind than those others; and if we can find this and agree, then our difficulty should disappear, and we will be able to answer the question of whether this man we've discovered is indeed a sophist, or really something else, which is only in some ways "similar," as you said. So, then, based on what we have said about him so far, does he in any way engage in acquisition?
Theaetetus: It's difficult to tell, Stranger.
Visitor: Didn't we say that those whom this noble sophist refutes (ἐλέγχειν) lose their contradictory opinions, as well as their obstinate and inflated beliefs about themselves and their apparent wisdom?
Theaetetus: Yes, we did say that.
Visitor: Then he takes from them these things, which, before they are shown to be false, they hold onto as if they were prized possessions?
Visitor: Then the noble sophist does engage in acquisition, since possession-taking (χειρωτικός) was one of the types we distinguished earlier. Or do you disagree?
Theaetetus: Well, there does seem to be a difference between this kind of taking and the kind we distinguished before.
Visitor: Yes, I see what you mean. Before we meant not only taking away, as the doctor takes away sickness, but actually bringing the thing into one's own possession. Surely the doctor does not take away sickness so that he may possess it for himself. Likewise, the noble sophist does not take away false beliefs in order to acquire them.
Theaetetus: No, I should think not!
Visitor: But then again, perhaps the analogy is not exact. Perhaps the noble sophist, in taking away false beliefs, also acquires something else in the same act, whereas the doctor does not.
Theaetetus: How do you mean? What do you say he acquires?
Visitor: I have an idea, but before I say it, let us continue, assuming he does indeed acquire something when he takes away false beliefs. Later, we shall see if it bears out.
Theaetetus: All right, but let's not forget to come back to this, since it is an unsupported hypothesis.
Visitor: Indeed, we won't neglect it, since everything that follows depends upon it.
Visitor: So, we'll assume that, of the two types of acquisition, our noble sophist engages in possession-taking. Of possession-taking we distinguished contesting (ἀγωνιστική), which is done openly, and hunting, which is done in hiding. It seems clear enough that our noble sophist performs the cross-examination openly, in the marketplace, for instance, where anyone can watch and examine him. Isn't that right?
Theaetetus: Indeed; he does not so much go hunting for ignorant men so that he may refute them, as he openly challenges them when they make some claim to knowledge.
Visitor: Precisely. Then his expertise is a kind of contesting. Now, of contesting we distinguished fighting (μαχητικόν) and competition (ἁμιλλητικόν). But we didn't before say what distinguishes one from the other, so let us say now. How do you distinguish them?
Theaetetus: A worthy question. What do you think?
Visitor: If you ask me, fighting is the type of contest that is not governed by formal rules, which limit the actions of the contestants, nor by a proper judge, who is able to justly declare a victor. The victor, rather, is just whichever one happens to prevail over his opponent, even if he is not really the best man.
Theaetetus: If he prevails, is he not the best?
Visitor: No, not necessarily, at least not "best" in the sense I mean. Often the worse opponent can find a way to win. In a fight, the combatants are racked not only with passion for victory, but also with great envy, so that in the end each wants only for his opponent to lose and for himself to win, with little or no regard for the means to his victory. For this reason, and because there are no rules to stop him, a fighter, especially if he knows he is at a disadvantage, will often act dishonorably and unjustly in order to thwart his opponent and outdo (πλεονεκτεῖν) him. It is in this sense that I would not want to call such a contestant "the best"—such a title should never apply to the unjust.
Visitor: For example, in a fight of body against body, he might throw a cheap blow, and pummel his enemy before he has a chance to catch his breath. One who acts in such a way is likely trying to compensate for some weakness, don't you think? In a fight of words, such as the eristic debate we mentioned, the worse man might slander his opponent, so that he becomes dispirited, or play tricks with his words, so that his opponent becomes confused and disoriented.
Theaetetus: Yes, I'm familiar with the type, or at least Theodorus has warned me about them.
Theodorus: That's right. And I believe Socrates almost mistook you for one of those pugnacious sophists when I was introducing you earlier.
Visitor: Yes, I overheard that, Theodorus. But I don't think that's what Socrates meant when he said I might be some kind of "god of refutation" (θεός ἐλεγκτικός) in disguise. On the contrary, there could be nothing further from a god than those who engage in eristics. For, when men act in this way, enviously debating and trying to refute their opponents no matter what they say, it is surely dishonorable. But I refuse to believe the gods act dishonorably; certainly they would never condescend to envy. In fact, a god who will stop at nothing to refute a mortal is not only honorable, but exceedingly gracious (χαριστικός), since the gods are wise and possess all knowledge, while "men are void of understanding," as Heraclitus said. And a man can only benefit from seeing his ignorance so clearly displayed before him—or don't you think Thamyris benefitted from his divine refutation?
Theodorus: You refer to the tale of the poets?
Visitor: Indeed, the very one in which that man, a mere mortal, claimed to be especially skilled in singing, wiser even than the Muses, and challenged them to a musical contest. Of course, he was shamefully defeated, as no mere mortal could be wiser than the gods in anything, least of all in that art that is dear to them. Do you remember Thamyris' fate in the story?
Theodorus: As I recall, he was punished rather harshly for his hubris. I believe it's said that the Muses blinded Thamyris and "took from him his marvelous song," making him forget all his musical knowledge. Do you really suppose he benefitted from being left in such a pitiable condition?
Visitor: Certainly. After all, was not Thamyris in a rather bad state, before he was refuted?
Theodorus: I think I see where you are going. Since Thamyris was all puffed up and guilty of hubris, which is a heinous crime against the gods, the Muses were just in exacting a harsh punishment. And a person who has committed an injustice always benefits when he receives justice in return, in soul if not in body. Therefore, Thamyris benefitted insofar as the wickedness in his soul was not left to fester like a disease, but was removed through the harsh means of punishment. Is this what you mean?
Visitor: An excellent point! I see that you were paying close attention to my discussion with Theaetetus earlier. But that's not exactly what I have in mind now.
Visitor: I am not thinking of Thamyris' hubris so much as the cause of his hubris.
Visitor: Didn't Thamyris hold false beliefs about himself, concerning his knowledge of singing? He thought he was exceptionally wise in the craft, and it was because of this inflated idea about himself that he claimed to be more skilled (σοφός) than the Muses and dared to challenge them to a contest. So, while Thamyris is rightly said to have been guilty of hubris, it seems to me that the primary cause of his wickedness was ignorance about himself. And like good physicians, the Muses removed the cause of his wickedness, and not only the symptom. This is the reason I've called the Muses' response a "refutation" (ἔλεγχος) and not primarily a "punishment." In fact, if I were more brazen I would say that the poets should modify the myth, so that the Muses are not said to have punished Thamyris by blinding him and taking away his wisdom, but rather, by means of the contest, they simply revealed to him his true state of blindness and ignorance, which he had before failed to perceive for lack of knowing himself. And it is in this way he truly benefitted. For of course, one who knows he is ignorant is much better off than one who is ignorant and does not know it.
Theodorus: Yes, I agree with that.
Visitor: Then even Thamyris benefitted in this way, and the Muses were gracious even in their harshness. We would be wrong, therefore, to pity him, since the state in which his soul was left was undeniably better than the state it was in before.
Theodorus: I think you are correct.
Visitor: Before we move on, we should note too that any part of this myth that suggests the goddesses were envious of a mere mortal when they accepted his challenge, rather than acting out of beneficence, we will simply dismiss as fabrication, since we do not believe such ignoble things about the gods.
Visitor: Now, Theaetetus, let's return to our discussion. But oh! It seems that, in our digression, we've made some progress in our inquiry. The nature of competition, as distinct from fighting, has already come clear into view.
Visitor: Well, it's clear at least that this story about the Muses has not to do with fighting. For we agreed, first of all, that the goddesses have no envy, and envious opponents was one of the main conditions of fighting. Not to mention this contest was clearly governed by a just judge. For the greatest judge is one who is most wise about the contestants' art—and there is none wiser about singing than the Muses. And let it not concern you that in this case the judge is also a contestant, for it is not beyond the power of the goddesses to act in both roles. Aren't we right, then, to say that this is a myth of competition?
Visitor: Then let's give a more direct and general account, which will include competitions between human beings. Let's say that competition is the type of contest that is governed by a proper judge, who justly enforces the rules and is able to declare the right winner, since he has knowledge of whatever art the competitors are displaying—whether it be singing, flute-playing, tragedy, wrestling, or what have you—and understands the virtues of that art; and it is by virtue of his knowledge of the art that the judge is most qualified to tell which competitor performs more excellently, and to proclaim a victor. Furthermore, the participants are without envy (ἄφθονος), and do not wish to diminish their opponent. Rather, in defeating the other, each hopes to benefit his opponent, and the victor is gracious (χαριστικός) in his victory. That is to say, the true competitor genuinely wants the best man to win, whether it be himself or his opponent. For in either case, both will benefit, since they will have stirred up (ἐγείρειν) one another to cultivate their virtues and become more excellent in their craft, and those in attendance will have witnessed a just display of excellence, so that not just one man, but the whole city is made greater (αὔξει) by the competition. This, it seems to me, is the best account of competition.
Theaetetus: Bravo! A competition such as this would be a delight to witness.
Visitor: Indeed, it would, and you should consider yourself extremely fortunate if you ever witness one; I doubt I ever have.
Theaetetus: Why do you say that, Stranger? Have you never been to any games?
Visitor: Never any like what we've described. For while there is no lack of so-called competitions throughout Greece, competitors who are completely honorable and without envy are rare indeed. Most of the events that Greeks flock to see at Olympia and Delphi and the others I suspect are really, according to our definitions, a kind of chimera of contests: they are like competitions, since they are governed by rules and a judge, but they are also like fights, since the competitors typically strive with an envious spirit, and are especially begrudging when they are defeated; at least Pindar seemed to think so when he sang to the Nemean victor, "envy always clings to the noble." Nevertheless, we should not retract our account, but insist that the account we gave is what a competition should be, even if in its pure form it is a rare thing. And perhaps some divine human beings, when they compete, are capable of virtue and of being gracious in defeat, as well as in victory; some may before the contest lift up the prayer to Zeus, "Give to both of them equal strength, make equal their honor." Now, we better apply this lengthy account to our noble sophist before we neglect him any further. But surely by now it's obvious to which category he belongs.
Theaetetus: You tell me, Stranger.
Visitor: Did you not notice how closely he resembles the Muses in our story of competition? Remember, what we said about him: when people think they are very wise, like Thamyris, and presume to teach our noble sophist, he does not simply admonish them, since he thinks it won't do much good, but rather accepts their challenge, as it were, and proceeds to cross-examine them, since he wants to benefit them. By collecting their opinions together and artfully scrutinizing each one, he shows that they are in conflict with one another. So, like the Muses, he reveals that the people being examined do not have the knowledge they thought they had. And by undergoing this refutation and seeing their own ignorance displayed before them, the people being examined lose their inflated and rigid beliefs about themselves and become calmer towards others. Thus, they benefit greatly from their defeat, since, being emptied of false knowledge, they are now well-disposed to learning, and believe that they know only those things that they do know. And as you said before, that's the best and most healthy-minded way to be.
Theaetetus: And I still think so.
Visitor: Can we fail to agree, then, that this art of refutation is the most important kind of competition as well? For those who engage in this competition with our noble sophist are happy and blessed indeed, since, if they are defeated, they benefit in the ways we mentioned, and if they are victorious, then they have only better secured their knowledge by having to defend it. And in either case, their soul has been well tested through this competition, so that it can be assured that it has correct opinions concerning the things it knows and the things it does not know. And anyone who is to be really happy should be tested in this way.
Visitor: Now, let's try and be more specific about what kind of competition our noble sophist engages in. Can you divide competition into two kinds?
Theaetetus: Well, there are competitions in musical arts, of which we've already spoken, and they are different from those in which one body competes against another.
Visitor: The latter we call athletics (ἆθλος), which clearly do not apply to our noble sophist. But just as athletics have to do primarily with the body, do not the other kind have to do primarily with the soul?
Theaetetus: Yes, that is the true distinction.
Visitor: And it would seem that this art of refutation would fit into the category of musical craft, falling under the supervision of the Muses, since, like the others, it has to do with knowledge and the soul. Not to mention those who engage in it often seem to be divinely inspired. Tell me, Theaetetus, is there a single name for competitions in musical arts?
Theaetetus: Oh, I doubt there is one word in particular.
Visitor: Then since we've already demonstrated their likeness, let's use the same word the poets use for that musical contest between Thamyris and the Muses. Do you know what it is?
Theaetetus: To be honest, Stranger, I've only heard such competitions called erides, a word closely related to the eristikos, the debates of the sophists. I must admit, I realized this before, but I was hesitant to bring it up, since it seemed to contradict everything.
Visitor: Oh, don't be so boyish, Theaetetus! And do not be afraid to admit anything you think is true, even if it defeats our whole argument. Rather, imitate those honorable competitors and invite defeat if it makes us better and brings us closer to our goal, which is the truth. But still, we are right to strive for victory and resist defeat if we can, for only in this way can we be sure the best theory is victorious in the end. So, what will be our countermove?
Theaetetus: Shall we say the poets are wrong in calling the episode an eris?
Visitor: Only if we have a good reason. To be fair, the poets have their own reasons for using one word over another, such as it fits the meter or sounds more pleasant. Therefore, we allow them more liberties with language, and do not expect them to undergo rigorous analyses of words, such as we've done. So, if they have used the wrong word, we shouldn't be too hard on them. But it seems to me that we do not have to contradict the poets at all, if we only take a cue from one of them, namely Hesiod. He says, does he not, that there is not one, but two kinds of Eris: one he calls "harsh Eris," who "promotes pernicious war and battle (δῆριν)," and seems to preside over all of those activities that we have labeled as kinds of fighting (μαχητικόν). But the other is more benevolent to men; she "stirs up (ἐγείρεν) the shiftless to toil," in just the way that we said two competitors stir up one another to enhance their virtues. We need not accept everything Hesiod said, especially about the gods; but that there are these two kinds of eris in which men might partake seems reasonable enough. So, while the sophistic debaters engage in the one that causes discord and chaos, our noble sophist and all honorable competitors engage in the other, which is productive, and arouses men to cultivate excellence by placing in them a desire to strive for the best. Will that distinction satisfy you?
Visitor: Well then, the strange man we have been searching for has appeared now in another form, as a competitor in the musical eris that tests the art of refutation. And our account is nearly complete, for we see that his expertise stands in direct opposition to that of the sophists we discovered before, since he engages in the opposite kind of eris. It seems we were right to resist calling him a sophist, and not let our account stand as it was. What's left, I suppose, is to say what he is, since we shouldn't be satisfied with knowing only what he is not. But first we should return to that concession we made earlier, which made this whole account possible. You didn't forget, did you Theaetetus?
Theaetetus: Of course not; it's paramount to our discussion. We assumed that he engages in possession-taking without ever really saying what precisely he takes when he performs his refutation. Since you intimated that you have an idea of what he takes, we trusted you and let that remain as our foundation. So now, tell us what you were thinking then, so that our account can be completed.
Visitor: Well, rather than simply tell you—for then you might too quickly agree, without proper examination—let me ask you some questions and we will see if you come to same conclusion.
Visitor: Tell me, is the person we've been searching for a god or a human being?
Theaetetus: Now what kind of question is that?
Visitor: A serious one. We did agree that he resembles closely the Muses in our story, who graciously refuted that happy mortal. But let's say clearly, is he himself a god, or only godlike?
Theaetetus: He is certainly a human being, although it seems to me right to call him in a sense divine (θεῖος).
Visitor: And what distinguishes gods and human beings? Clearly there are many qualities, such as the gods are immortal, while human beings are mortal, and so forth. But didn't we also say before that gods are wise and have perfect knowledge, while men are "void of understanding" and lack wisdom?
Theaetetus: Yes, although I think it's safe to say that some men are wiser than others.
Visitor: Do you mean that some men have a part of wisdom, and yet are also ignorant in other respects; in other words, they are in between being wise and being ignorant?
Theaetetus: That's what I mean.
Visitor: In that case, how does one acquire a part of wisdom?
Theaetetus: Through learning, I suppose.
Visitor: But isn't there something prior to learning? Remember, we agreed before that the soul cannot acquire any knowledge of a thing until it has been emptied of false opinions concerning that thing, by means of refutation. Won't you agree, then, that it is impossible to gain any part of wisdom without first perceiving one's own lack of knowledge?
Visitor: Then, in order to have any part of wisdom, one has to know oneself with respect to the things that one knows and does not know, and to comprehend the extent of human ignorance. And since all further knowledge depends on this, this seems to me the first, and in a sense the most important part of the wisdom anyone can acquire.
Visitor: Do you think this is something our man is likely to understand?
Theaetetus: I should think so, since he is constantly seeing the ignorance of men displayed before him through his refutation.
Visitor: Precisely. Now, tell me, what kind of effect do you think this has on him?
Theaetetus: I am not sure what you're getting at.
Visitor: Well, always perceiving the ignorance of men, and knowing himself to be one of them, won't he be extremely cautious in making any claims to knowledge whatsoever, lest he fall into that most shameful kind of ignorance, in which the soul does not know that it does not know?
Visitor: So, when he accepts the challenge of someone who claims to have knowledge of something—the nature of justice, or virtue, or whatever it is—our man will either not already have true knowledge of it, since he is only a mortal, or even if he does, he will be cautious and suspicious of himself, in case he is wrong. So, he will remain undecided as to whether his own opinions or the other's are truer, wishing only for the best and truest theory to come out on top, allowing reason to be the judge. And during the cross-examination he will be constantly examining himself as well, so that he is sure the appropriate questions are being asked and the best answers are being given. In other words, our man will place himself on equal footing with the person being cross-examined, so that their virtues (or lack thereof) can speak for themselves. Is all of that consistent with what we've said about him?
Visitor: Now, keeping this in mind, tell me, when they have reached the end of the refutation, and the opinions of the other have been shown to be contradictory, and all his false knowledge has been removed, do you see what our man will have gained?
Theaetetus: I see it clearly now. For by conducting the cross-examination and scrutinizing the other's opinions as well as his own, at the very least he will have acquired knowledge of himself, whether he knows the thing being investigated, or not. And if not, he will be in that healthy state of mind that is necessary for learning.
Visitor: Then you have reached the same conclusion as me: our man does engage in acquisition, that is, the acquisition of knowledge. I suppose this answer was staring us in the face all along. For, as we said, the person being cross-examined, even if he is refuted, gains the very same thing in his defeat. Isn't it right that the victor gain something as well?
Theaetetus: Most certainly, for the victor always deserves a prize.
Visitor: Indeed, but I doubt the most honorable competitors care much for crowns of olive, or any other vegetable for that matter. Our man strives for something much more precious than the extravagant gifts offered to Olympian victors. Indeed, he will settle for nothing less than the greatest and most valuable thing of all, the highest of all the virtues, which he will not be reluctant to share. By now it is obvious what prize he seeks.
Theaetetus: It's nothing if not wisdom.
Visitor: Right. Of course, he cannot gain the whole of wisdom in the course of one conversation; that might take a lifetime, or longer. But he will at least have taken a small step towards wisdom, by gaining either the knowledge they were seeking in their discussion, or if not, then knowledge about himself, which, in truth, is no small thing, but perhaps the greatest knowledge a man can gain on earth.
Visitor: Well then, if not a sophist, what are we going to call this honorable competitor, who is always striving for wisdom and trying to motivate others to do the same?
Theaetetus: We would be wrong to call such a person anything other than a lover of wisdom, a philosopher.
Visitor: I could not agree more. You've confirmed the suspicion I had since the beginning of this long digression, that, while looking for the sophist, we seemed to have stumbled upon the philosopher. So, let's say again: the philosopher's expertise belongs to acquisition, possession-taking, contesting, competing, and the musical eris that has to do with the art of refutation and wisdom-seeking more generally. This, Theaetetus, is the supreme agōn, since it tests reason, the highest part of the soul, and its prize is wisdom, the highest virtue. Everyone who wishes to be happy should be a philosophical competitor. We should not think, of course, that we've exhausted the account of the philosopher; I suspect he will appear in other guises as well. But for now, let's return to our original question: What is the sophist?
 By "contest-system," Gouldner means to convey the sense that the agōn is a systematic cultural entity, almost on the level of a formal institution. By agōn there is certainly meant more here than the sum of the various types of contests in Ancient Greece, let alone a particular type or instance of contest. Alvin Gouldner, "The Greek Contest System," in Enter Plato: Classical Greece and the Origins of Social Theory (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1965), 41-77.
 Theaetetus 164c. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
 Lisa Wilkinson, Socratic Charis: Philosophy without the Agon (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013), 6.
 Oswyn Murray, Early Greece (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 202.
 See Aristophanes, Clouds, lns. 890-1104. Quotations are from lines 934 and 955 respectively.
 Of course, we know very little about the historical Socrates, so it is necessary to note that in the dialogues Plato might not be reflecting an inherited so much as an invented paradigm of philosophy.
 Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Problem of Socrates" §8 in Twilight of the Idols, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin Books Inc., 2003), 42.
 Thomas H. Chance. Plato's Euthydemus: Analysis of What Is and What Is Not Philosophy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 63.
 George Kerferd has been most influential in this reading. See his The Sophistic Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 62-63. Also, Chance, 27, 30, 48, 51, 56; Walter Watson, "Dogma, Skepticism, and Dialogue," in The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies, ed. by Francisco J. Gonzalez (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995), 197-200; Francisco J. Gonzalez, Dialectic and Dialogue (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press), 105.
 Notable exceptions are Alexander Nehamas' excellent article "Eristic, Antilogic, Sophistic, Dialectic: Plato's Demarcation of Philosophy from Sophistry," in History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1990), pp. 3-16 and Gregory Vlastos, "The Socratic Elenchus," in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 1 (1983), pp. 27-58.
 Euthydemus 272a-b. It is worth briefly noting that there is a stark similarity between the brothers' method in the Euthydemus and the method of the Wrong argument in the portion of the Clouds mentioned above, almost to the point that one is tempted to read the dialogue as a direct response to Aristophanes.
 Euthydemus 278b. C.f. 288b, 299b.
 Euthydemus 277b. Interestingly, a ball game called phaininda existed in Greece, which, like the pankration, was especially brutal, as almost any violence against opposing players was allowed. The description of fourth century comic poet Antiphanes provides an interesting parallel to the brothers' eristic game depicted in the Euthydemus: "He caught the ball and laughed as he passed it to one player at the same time as he dodged another . . . ." (c.f. Euthydemus 276a-277b). Moreover, the name of the game might be derived from the verb pheinizein ("to deceive"), which connects it further to eristic. See Stephen G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 120-125.
 Euthydemus 288a, trans. by Rosamond Kent Sprague in Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), 725.
 Laws V, 730b, trans. by Thomas L. Pangle in The Laws of Plato (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1980), 117.
 Laws V, 731a, trans. Pangle.
 Laws V, 730c-e. My translation.
 Laws V, 730d – 731a.
 Pierre Hadot, "Spiritual Exercises," in Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson, trans. by Michael Chase (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1995), 91.
 See Sophist 249c, 253b - 254b.
 See Sophist 219d. χειρωτικός more commonly has the sense of "mastering" or "subduing," but it might literally be rendered as "getting one's hands on." I've adopted White's rendering, "possession-taking," which better captures what is meant here, even if it is somewhat awkward. See Sophist, trans. by Nicholas P. White, in Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997.
 See Sophist 219e. According to Rosen, the idea seems to be that "the hunter must conceal himself from his prey" [Stanley Rosen, Plato's Sophist: The Drama of Original and Image (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 97]. But how this is supposed to apply to all the types of hunting the visitor mentions is somewhat problematic, not least in the case of the sophist "hunting" young men. Rosen points to Protagoras 316d as a hint.
 At 235a, the Visitor and Theaetetus will agree that the sophist is a "cheat" and "someone who plays childish games." C.f. Euthydemus 271c-272b, 276c, 277c, 278b, 283d. By Socrates' time, the ability to "make the worse argument stronger" (Apology 18b) was already considered characteristic of the sophists, as is made plain by its satirization in Aristophanes' Clouds.
 Heraclitus, DK 1 (ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι).
 See 228b, where wickedness in the soul is considered to be analogous to a disease in the body.
 C.f. Theaetetus 178d - 179a.
 C.f. Laws II, 658e - 659b.
 Iliad, VII, ln. 205 (trans. Richard Lattimore).
 At 259e, the Visitor distinguishes true refutation from eristics, calling the practitioner of the latter "altogether unmusical and unphilosophical" (παντάπασιν ἀμούσου...καί ἀφιλοσόφου). Plato's characterization of philosophy as the supreme form of music is well-known. See, for example, Phaedo 60e-61a and Cratylus 406a.
 Poetry, history, astronomy, mathematics, etc.
 Socrates' daimōn is the obvious reference, but also see Euthydemus 291a.
 See Euripides, Rhesus, ln. 917, 923. Also see Apollodorus, Library, 1.3 (μουσικῆς ἤρισε). Xenophon uses the related verb ἐρίζειν to describe Marsyas' musical contest with Apollo (Anabasis 1.2.8).
 Hesiod, Works and Days, lns. 11-27. In anticipation of this distinction, I have had the Visitor include the quality of "stirring up" (ἐγείρεν) in his original account of competition above.
 C.f. Sophist 216b and 254a-b.
 At 219c, the Visitor mentioned "learning" (μαθηματικόν) and "acquiring knowledge" (γνωρίσεως) among his examples of types of acquisitive expertise. Also, c.f. Euthydemus 288d, where philosophy is defined as the "acquisition of knowledge" (κτῆσις ἐπιστήμης) and Theaetetus 197b-199c, where Socrates discusses the difference between "the possession of knowledge" (ἐπιστήμης κτῆσιν) and "the having of knowledge" (ἐπιστήμης ἕξιν).
Aristophanes. Aristophanes Comoediae, ed. F.W. Hall and W.M. Geldart, vol. 2. F.W. Hall and W.M. Geldart. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1907. Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (accessed: January 10, 2015).
Burkhardt, Jacob. The Greeks and Greek Civilization. Translated by Sheila Stern. Edited by Oswyn Murray. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Chance, Thomas H. Plato's Euthydemus: Analysis of What Is and What Is Not Philosophy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.
Gonzalez, Francisco J. Dialectic and Dialogue. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Gouldner, Alvin. "The Greek Contest System," in Enter Plato: Classical Greece and the Origins of Social Theory. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1965.
Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson. Translated by Michael Chase. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1995.
Heraclitus. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. Edited and Translated by Charles H. Kahn. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Hesiod. Works and Days, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (accessed: January 10, 2015).
Homer. Homeri Opera. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (accessed: January 10, 2015).
—The Iliad. Translated by Richard Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Kerferd, George. The Sophistic Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Miller, Stephen G. Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Murray, Oswyn. Early Greece. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Nehamas, Alexander. "Eristic, Antilogic, Sophistic, Dialectic: Plato's Demarcation of Philosophy from Sophistry," in History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1990), pp. 3-16.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. New York: Penguin Books Inc., 2003.
Plato. Platonis Opera, ed. John Burnet. Oxford University Press. 1903. Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (accessed: January 10, 2015).
—Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997.
—The Laws of Plato. Translated by Thomas L. Pangle. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1980.
Rosen, Stanley. Plato's Sophist: The Drama of Original and Image. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
Vlastos, Gregory. "The Socratic Elenchus," in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 1 (1983), pp. 27-58.
Watson, Walter. "Dogma, Skepticism, and Dialogue," in The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies. Edited by Francisco J. Gonzalez. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995.
Wilkinson, Lisa. Socratic Charis: Philosophy without the Agon. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013.


text:
As British Unions shift to the Left - Don't get angry, get even!
The victory of Tony Woodley as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union, Britain's third biggest union, is a further confirmation of the continuing swing to the left in the British trade unions. It is also a clear indication of the discontent within the union rank and file with right wing trade union leaders and the policies of the Blair government. The victory of Tony Woodley as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union, Britain's third biggest union, is a further confirmation of the continuing swing to the left in the British trade unions. In the process, Jack Dromey, the candidate favoured by Downing Street and husband of the solicitor general, Harriet Harman, was trounced, as has happened in all other union elections. This is a clear indication of the discontent within the union rank and file with right wing trade union leaders and the policies of the Blair government.
Woodley won the election with 66,958 votes, beating Dromey into second place on 45,136. Another left-winger Barry Camfield gained 28,346 with Jimmy Elsby, another right-winger, on 13,336. If you add the left vote together, this gives the left within the union a commanding lead.
Woodley stated that the union would be "spelling out to ministers that our loyalty to Labour does not mean the abandonment of our socialist ideals or a willingness to acquiesce in policies that damage the interests of working people". He also announced that "we are putting employers on notice that the days of phoney partnership are over - of thousands of jobs being exported, and of British workers having the fewest rights in Europe". Woodley is to create a central office "disputes team" to help run strikes. He has also given notice that he intends to hold a summit with other left wing union leaders hostile to New Labour to "put the Labour in the party".
"I'll fulfil my promise to call a summit of affiliated unions to discuss how to get Labour back representing working-class people", said Woodley. "The T&G knows better than most that the Labour party is a broad coalition whose destiny has been guided since its beginning by the trade unions. If the progressive ideas of the unions appear now to be ignored, the solution is not to withdraw and sulk in our tents.
"It means representing members rather than ministers as we take the arguments for progressive policies into every area of the Labour party to which we are affiliated."
This could provide the catalyst, as Socialist Appeal has argued, for such a transformation of the Labour Party. Together with the other left union leaders, the TGWU can set the agenda for the labour movement, both in the TUC and the Labour Party.
Without any doubt, there is massive dissatisfaction in the trade union movement with the pro-business stance of the Blair government. Public sector unions in particular are bitter at the government's continuation of Tory policies in the form of 'Best Value' and PFI, resulting in further attacks and cuts against workers.
High hopes in 1997 have turned to disillusionment. This is reflected by the tumbling turnouts in elections, most recently in the local, Welsh and Scottish elections.
Interestingly in Wales, where the Welsh Labour Party distanced itself from Blair they scored a great success. Promising free bus passes for the elderly, free school meals for pupils, abolition of prescription charges, no to tuition fees and no to foundation hospitals, Old-style Labour, trounced the nationalists and won back Llanelli, Islwyn and the Rhondda. In Scotland a small party standing to the left of Labour, the SSP, won six seats and the Green party also picked up seven seats in the parliament.
Opposition to Blair's policies has also come from within the Labour Party. Even within the parliamentary party there have been a series of backbench revolts over tuition fees, the Iraq war, foundation hospitals, restrictions on trial by jury, and legislation against the firefighters, the last three in the space of two weeks. The resignations of Robin Cook and Clare Short over the issue of Iraq were a massive blow to the government. Short's attack on Blairism was especially to the point, as we have analyse in a previous article, and will have far-reaching consequences as the groundswell of opposition builds up.
The trade unions, however, have always been the key to the Labour Party. It was the right wing trade union leaders, such as Sir Ken Jackson, who supported Blair and his cronies to the hilt. With their help, Blair was preparing to break the union links. Now the project has started to unravel. His props within the trade union movement have fallen by the wayside, one after another.
Over the past few years, in a string of union elections, the Blairite candidates have been resoundingly defeated. Leaving aside Woodley's victory in the TGWU, the biggest setback for Blair was in fact the defeat of his erstwhile supporter Ken Jackson of the AEEU (now known as Amicus). The executive elections in September could see a further victory for the left. Again, the recent election of Kevin Curran in the GMB, a powerful industrial union, also served to reinforce this shift to the left in the trade unions.
Again, there has been the recent defeat of Blair supporter, John Keggie, deputy general secretary of the CWU, by left-winger Dave Ward. "The result is a further setback for Downing Street, which is losing its grip on the TUC and Labour Party machinery", states The Guardian newspaper. (23 May 2003)
With the union conference season in full swing, discussions about the Labour-union links have once again resurfaced. Last month, Bectu, the 26,000-strong broadcasting and entertainment workers' union, overwhelmingly agreed to ballot its membership over its links with the party. It is possible others, such as the FBU, may follow suit. However, the attempt to carry a motion for the Communication Workers' Union to disaffiliate from the Labour Party was resoundingly defeated.
With Blair on the run, is it time for the trade unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party? We say ABSOLUTELY NOT! Such a move would simply play into Blair's hands. It is exactly what the Blairites want. They want to eliminate the trade union (i.e. working class) base of the party, so as to transform it into a capitalist party. Up until now, they have completely failed in this 'project', as they call it.
The task facing the trade unions, which created the Labour Party, must be to kick out the Blairites and take back the party for the working class. There has been a lot of talk, but now we have to transform words into deeds. We support Woodley's initiative to call a summit of leaders to reclaim the party. To begin with, the 12 trade union representatives on Labour's NEC must represent union policy or be removed. Secondly, if the unions were to send 50 members into every constituency party, they could take it over. It would be sufficient to trigger the full reselection process of sitting MPs. Thirdly, the unions should give full backing to a '300 Club', aimed at signing up 300 trade unionists to each Constituency Labour Party. Lastly, they should draw up a list of potential replacement candidates who will consistently fight for union policies.
The unions have the resources to help its members join the Labour Party. In the past trade unionists were given a special rate of £3 to join, which has now increased to £12 a year. The unions should reinstitute the original scheme. The members' political levy should be used to subsidise members to join the Labour Party. This is not to cut the finances to the party, only that they will get this money through membership fees instead of donations, sponsorships, etc.
The FBU has just donated £12,000 to the Labour Party. This could have been used to help hundreds of FBU members join the party, a number of whom could have joined say, John Prescott's party in Hull East, or maybe Nick Raynsford's party in Greenwich and Woolwich. On the basis of the rules, which stipulate 'One Member One Vote', every potential Labour candidate would be judged by the policies they support. Obviously, the trade unionists would caste their vote for those most closely associated with union policies. Together with other trade union members, they could decide, at the snap of their fingers, the best candidate to represent Hull East and Greenwich and Woolwich at the next election! Think about it.
The victory of Tony Woodley has witnessed a decisive shift to the left in the unions. The unions have the power to change the Labour Party. Now is the time to act.
Britain: 'Megxit' and the crisis of the Monarchy 16 Jan 2020
Britain: Labour leadership election – go on the offensive against the right wing! 14 Jan 2020
Britain: Labour leadership race begins – mobilise members around socialist policies! 8 Jan 2020
Britain: where next for the Labour Party? 17 Dec 2019
Britain after the election defeat 16 Dec 2019

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Some authors manage to grasp you by the collar and never let go, and Scott Lynch is one of those. With his stories often described as "Ocean's Eleven, but fantasy," Lynch has proved to be top-notch at writing exemplary characters, as well as fantastic plots and plot twists. When his name appeared on the WorldCon 75 guest list, we knew that we couldn't let the week go by without having a few words with him.
For those sensitive to swear words, we advise caution reading onward from here.
First of all and unrelated to the rest of my questions, but congratulations on getting married and moving.
Thank you! Moving was the bigger problem.
How's everything going these days?
Everything seems to be going pretty well, except for… I'm constantly at science fiction conventions when I should really be working on my next book.
Getting the obligatory question that no one wants to answer out of the way then, how is the book coming along?
Everything with my fourth book, The Thorn of Emberlain, is coming along really well. I'm only being slightly facetious when I'm saying that I should be at home working on it [laughs] rather than here in Sweden and Finland traveling between conventions, but some of these things are unavoidable; as strange as it seems to look at this as a professional commitment, I suppose it really is.
My wife and I will have an uninterrupted 2 month period after we go home, during which I basically hope to get the book turned in, and then we can begin setting a firmer schedule for its publication. For the most part I'm very pleased with it. I'm pretty sure that I can fix the stuff that I'm not pleased about in the next 8 weeks or so.
Great! Now for example, George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss get a whole lot of crap from people about being late with their novels...
[sighs] They do, yes, it's kind of ridiculous sometimes. Pat gets a tremendous amount of vituperation, online in particular. I mean, George gets it, but George is also kind of above it. George doesn't really give a shit; George is big enough to not give a shit, and Pat is still, relatively speaking, a little bit closer to his readers and does not quite have a Scrooge McDuck money-bin to dive into just yet. I mean, he doesn't do badly for himself, but Pat gets, I think, the most vicious of all the online comments, and I just don't understand it. We are human beings, we are human artists, we produce at the rate we produce, and telling us that you really want our work, but that you fucking hate us and that we should nail ourselves to our desks and produce until it's finished… it doesn't make any sense. You can't have both. "You're a lazy bastard! Now give me that thing that I really want that's beautiful, that only you do!" [laughter]
Do you feel like you get a piece of that crap pie, or have you been avoiding it?
I've just begun; it's just started in the last, let's say 2 months especially, because there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to be able to talk about, a lot of developments not just related to my books but to various other things, which have to stay under badge for the time being. As it turns out, I have not been able to talk about any of them at all. And that, for a change, is not entirely my fault. So it's just one of the ways in which the wheels of publishing and the industry just grind very slowly. What I expected to be a gigantic series of announcements has actually been a long, stupid summer of silence. Possibly we can fix that soon-ish, but still…
It's one of those things where my wife and I both discovered, as we've become more involved in our careers, that the travel and publicity aspect of it is very valuable and it's wonderful to meet readers. It's good to get out of the house and take vacations, meet editors and agents and so forth in other countries, but no work gets done while we're doing this. A little bit here and there, and a lot of research, a lot of useful stuff, but no actual production of the next book. So I'm looking forward to finally nailing that son of a bitch.
In that vein, is there anything that you wish people knew about writing that people clearly don't understand?
Inherent in producing anything, basically - and very few people realize, or think about it - is that something you consume in hours or minutes takes months or years for someone to actually make. A 20-page comic book or a portion of a graphic novel... it takes a writer and an artist a month to make. It takes you 20 minutes to read it. So as far as you're concerned, it's 20 minutes of emotional investment.
With regard to writing itself, how long would you say your compositing period is before you even actually start writing? That phase where you're just thinking things through.
For The Thorn of Emberlain, it's different because this is the book that I set out to write originally back in about 2000-2001, so I've had 15-odd years to think about this one, and that's not usual.
Ordinarily, I would say that the lead I process to any given novel - which usually involves the writing of the previous novel - is a year or two, and ideally the writing of it would be a year or two. That's how it went with my first two novels, but things have been a little more difficult since. I would like to get back to that point where the actual writing of a novel is a 6-8 month affair, rather than a long, drawn-out, anxiety-filled 4-year process.
Again, if someone's going to read it, it's going to take them 8-12 hours, and it took me 4 years to make it. The discrepancy in the emotional involvement, I think some people just don't think about it.
Related to what you just said there, I've read that the seven book series was meant to have the first three as the introduction to the world and characters, with the four later books being the actual starting-point of the story. Is that true?
Yeah, that's still pretty true. I was originally dead set on starting the story with what will be book 4 in the sequence, The Thorn of Emberlain, and I realized about two chapters into trying to write it that I did not feel that I knew the characters involved well enough. It just did not feel right. So I went back and essentially wrote three prequels to it. That cheapens the other novels, you know, in memory - that's not entirely what I mean to do to them - but I wondered how my readers could feel involved in a setting and these characters if I myself did not feel sufficiently involved in them.
So yes, there will be a major structural difference in the first half of the sequence and the second half, in that the first half was location change, location change, location change, and the second half will be a lot more anchored in place. We will see some new locations, but we're always going to be returning to Emberlain and the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows, as returning scene settings.
Is there anything you're allowed or willing to tell us about The Thorn of Emberlain and what to expect, such as who we might be reading about, or is it still very hush-hush? [ed: for those who want to avoid any and all story spoilers, skip down to the next question]
It's not entirely hush-hush. I can reaffirm stuff I've already said and try hard not to spoil anything. It does follow about 6 months after the end of The Republic of Thieves. It picks up on the northwest coast of the continent Locke lives on, in the city-state of Emberlain. It does focus on the actual civil war in the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows.
Every book has had a thematic shift and a plot shift. The first book was essentially the revenge tale, the second book was a heist novel, the third book was politics and romance, and this book is war. Locke and Jean will engage in a scheme that brings them into direct contact with an unfolding civil war and their efforts to profit from it are going to complicate their lives forever.
We're also going to meet a new cast of recurring characters, who are going to be in total political opposition to everything Locke and Jean want to accomplish, and that is Anton Strata and his family. He's a teenager who finds himself essentially fighting in a suddenly very vicious portion of the civil war to stay alive, let alone claim his eventual succession to the throne.
Locke and Jean, in previous books, have used the rumored threat of a civil war in the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows to make money as part of a scam, and now it's actually happened and it's going to severely fuck the world up, pardon my French.
So it is the biggest of the Gentleman Bastards sequence thus far in terms of scale. We're going to see actual battles. There's a lot of stuff that we've not previously seen and it's going to be the biggest challenge and the most complicated infiltration scheme that Locke has ever run.
I'm looking very forward to reading it! Republic of Thieves ended in a very unexpected way, both for the readers and for the characters. The series feels like it took a complete turn into a different direction from there. Can you talk a bit about those endings, and did they shock you or did you already know the books were building up to that?
For the most part I knew. I work from a very elaborate and anal-retentive plan. I graph everything out, draw little lines to a lot of preliminary work - I'm an outliner. Everything was proceeding firmly according to plan, although there was one gigantic twist at the end of the third book, and those who have read it will know what happens in the last scene and who returns from a previous novel. Originally that was not going to happen. Originally we were never going to see that person again. Once that scene sort of popped into my head, once I saw what they were doing, I couldn't un-see it. I just had to. So the story has taken one significant shift and that would be it. Everything else is still basically exactly where it was.
You've already mentioned that you plot your stories out a lot beforehand. Do you let much of anything just happen as you go?
I'm fascinated by that notion - it seems so romantic to me - but I have a lot of difficulty with actually doing so. Although, typically… what I've often said before is that I write a strict plan, I get about 30-40% of the way into the work, but by the time I've spent that much time with the characters, I've gotten to know them a little better. It's not that they take over; I don't believe in that sort of anthropomorphisation - I think that's a little bit precious - but you've spent more time with them and angles and opportunities that may not have been previously obvious suddenly become obvious, because you have a better mental model of what the characters might do. They might take paths that you did not previously conceive of as possible. You can still get to the ending point you wanted, but the path becomes a little more meandering. So that's about as far as I go toward just getting lost in my own story.
I consider you one of the top worldbuilders, or at least I love your world-
Oh yeah! [laughter]
…what do you like best and worst about creating new worlds, and what do you think is the base requirement for a world to feel organic and real?
I obviously love doing it. The difficulty is… there are two major points of difficulty. First off, giving yourself permission not to tell every damn thing. It's a very difficult skill to acquire. It takes years to basically decide, how much can I get away with? The real question in worldbuilding is not how much can I dump on the page, but how much can I get away with not actually telling people? Because the alternative is to get this inelegant info-dumpy writing style, in which everyone who is meeting everyone else is taking extra time in their dialogue to explain what they're doing.
"As an author, I find that doing these interviews, which my publisher helps arrange with newspapers, which you guys work for..."
"As you know, Bob, yes, we are in a room on a planet, which is orbiting the sun." [laughter]
Like I was saying on a panel earlier, people repeat things. They tell each other the same stories over and over. They use the same tidbits in interviews over and over, wink wink, nudge nudge. We don't constantly explain, "The chair you're sitting in was made from wood and plastic, and these things blah, blah, blah," unless you're a fucking crazy person. Okay, maybe there are some crazy people out there that do that sort of thing, but it's not symptomatic of mental health. But that's what you end up with in a lot of stories, when characters inelegantly - with the best of intentions - explain the world to people who already live in it. There's a really fine art to providing just enough clues for the reader to get the point without overwhelming the story and the people inside it. That's what I really enjoy.
The other thing is the realization that everything is worldbuilding. Worldbuilding has this negative connotation as sort of this homework that you have to do beforehand. Like, "If you want to enjoy this book, first here's the glossary and then here's the map and then let's tell you this, and here's the backstory about who killed such-and-such and who fucked such-and-such and who wanted to kill such-and-such and who wanted to fuck such-and-such, all the way back to the first such-and-such 3 billion years ago." [laughter]
Everything in a story is worldbuilding in the same way that everything about us is worldbuilding. Every piece of technology we are carrying, every piece of clothing we're wearing, the passports in our pockets, the contents of our wallets, that weird thing that you've got on that strap around your neck and what it does [ed: he is referring to the photographer's camera] and why you're carrying it and why we're in this building, the languages on the signs… all of these things are clues as to where we come from, where we are, etc. And so it is with the fictional characters on the page. What they wear, what they eat, what they drink, what they value, what they want, this is all worldbuilding and it goes on until the last page of the story. It's not all just, "Here's the map and here's your 50 pages of fucking background research. Memorize this so you can have fun with the story." There are ways to make it more elegant and more intrinsic to the story, and I do this because it is more satisfying as a writer. You've got to be enjoying yourself while you're doing this, otherwise you're just doing hack work.
Have you ever read Gardens of the Moon by Steven Eriksen?
Yes, I've read the first of the Malazan books, but I have not [yet] continued the series.
I'm in the same boat, and I've noticed that he almost does the exact opposite of what you've said: he under-explains everything. You read his book and you think, "Who are they and what are those and where are they and what's going on?" Yet, it still works.
Yeah, those books have a really high period of… the learning curve to get into them is not gentle.
Most people seem to quit at some point during that first book, but everyone I've heard, who has read beyond, says it's worth it, but you just have to chew through that first confusing book.
They are brilliantly intricate, but it is very daunting to get into. In some ways, the ideal is to sync the reader… the old aphorism about slowly boiling a frog about upping the temperature one degree at a time. Eventually you want to boil your reader, you just don't want to do it at the beginning of the book.
Exactly. Now, I've read that you were heavily influenced by the Final Fantasy game series, or at least Final Fantasy VI...
Oh my God, yes! Final Fantasy, which I played on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy VII, and Chrono Trigger… basically all the major Japanese RPGs that would've been available in translation in the United States from about 1988-1995 are more or less chewed, swallowed, and digested into my background, yes.
We're running out of time, so I'll just ask one last question now: who are some of your favorite authors, or what are some of your favorite books at this moment in time?
Well, I'm always a perpetual nut about Dune by Frank Herbert. I've read everything that Frank ever published and I'm late to the party because he died when I was 8, unfortunately, but I was a teenage Frank Herbert obsessive and I've never lost a reverence for his work; even the naive and silly stuff is great.
I am a big Margaret Atwood appreciator. She was really important to me when I was a teenager. Matthew Woodring Stover is the guy that… I described him as basically the closest thing I had to a mentor. He's a criminally underappreciated, brilliant science fiction and fantasy writer. Barbara Hambly - another severely underappreciated fantasy and science fiction writer - did a lot of stuff back in the 80s and has sadly sort of faded from the public eye, and that's not fair at all.
Jack Vance, C.J. Cherryh, and Poul Anderson… I came to Anderson's work relatively later in my life, about 10 years ago or so, but everything I've read by him has been wonderful and directly formative on a lot of my own work.
C.L. Moore, a female science fiction writer in the 40s and 50s; Leigh Brackett, another groundbreaking planetary romance/sword and sorcery writer from the 40s; Fritz Leiber, who is one of my literary heroes… an absolutely brilliant, funny, whimsical, long-lived man with a very long career [laughs]. I wish I could emulate that part too!
Robert E. Howard - the author of the Conan stories - had a really unmatched passion for the stuff that he really cared about, and that really burns through in the Conan stories.
My wife's work, Elizabeth Bear. I'll be nepotistic. We liked each other's work before we started dating, so thank God for that. We both agree that we would not be in a relationship if we couldn't stand each other's work [laughter]. It would be miserable and awkward.
I think that's a good start.
That's a very long list! Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us!


This my last "educate it forward" and ALS Awareness post for May. I'll never stop educating ALS forward until there is a cure. ALS is is only a part of my life and I will never let it define me. I have lived most of my adult years living with ALS. 19 years to be precise and with this gift of time I must be a voice for my fellow ALS warriors, keeping my own voice, mine.
I walk with a walker due to bad balance and I have tight leg muscles (spasticity) which creates a gait. My gait, after 19yrs, has worn down knees so I use a cute scooter for stores and walks. My hands are curled like claws, leaving one finger left to type. Pincher's don't work but I still have a grip. My torso cannot help my weakened arms to lift me out of bed. Arms shake when lifted up, making it hard to get food in my mouth. I can't get too hot or too cold and my tongue muscles make it hard to speak so I sound drunk. I do not suffer at all compared to most ALS warriors.
Next comes choking and aspirating on food/saliva. Then I will be sentenced to an electric wheelchair. My neck will need a brace and I will need to be bathed and wiped on the toilet. I will over salivate needing suction and must be fed through a stomach tube. Sounds easy but it can get infected or leak stomach acid burning your skin. I will gradually become paralyzed and unable to speak. I do have a computer that is banking my voice now and will speak for me using my eye's. My mind will remain sharp but 10% will get frontal lobe dementia. Lastly my diaphragm will weaken, needing a bi-bap mask to help it function. This is when I will choose to die or allow a ventilator to breath for me.
I will struggle with not feeling like a woman, feeling like a burden and being abandoned. These feelings are ways ALS weakens your defenses, so I raise my shield and fight these emotions because I can. I will not give in to ALS until my last breath.
Now you know what it is, how many suffer and how they suffer. Educate it forward! Thank you!
strength is ours; we will live, free of dependence.
we are made whole in our feast.
15 cases of ALS are diagnosed a day and most live 2-4 years. No time to fight and voices too weak to be heard. Do you know ALS? Educate it forward to be their voices.
Can I pull off a Meme Including ALS?
If I were a day, I'd be Monday because it's the start my week after a hectic weekend. I love beginnings.
If I were a time of the day, I'd be 10am because that's when I awake and have my coffee, in the fresh mountain air.
If I were a season, I'd be fall because my muscles have been worked in the summer and I'm strongest in fall. Bonus is the tree colors.
If I were a planet, I'd be Saturn because it's unique and beautiful.
If I were a direction, I'd be north keeping me close to God and I love Northern California where I live.
If I were a drink, I'd be a glass of ice tea w/no sugar. Gives me energy when my ALS tries to steal it away.
If I were a tree, I'd be a redwood living long and strong.
If I were an animal, I'd be a dog. They need you and give back unconditional love.
If I were a musical instrument, I'd be a guitar. It's held and strummed with passion.
If I were a fruit, I'd be a passion fruit. Sweet and colorful.
If I were a food, I'd be a pasta. Very versatile and energy boosting.
If I were a celebrity, I'd say Hugh Lorie because he's sarcastic and his mom died of ALS. He could really impact awareness.
If I were a color, I'd be red because it looks good on me, my hair and ALS color.
If I were a book, I'd be a romance novel because I'm a true romantic.
If I were a song, I'd be Stairway to Heaven, a high school fav sung by a crush.
If I were a movie, I'd be Pretty Woman or Dirty Dancing.
If I were a flower, I'd be Jasmine for the sweet smell and climbing vines.
If I were a facial expression, I'd be wonder. I'm in awe of nature and love.
Sara felt the sadness in the room like a heavy blanket, holding her down and unable to move. They all knew Sara had battled so very hard to beat ALS/MND and yet she had lost. The tears that trickled down the side of her face were not of sadness but they were tears of doubt. Had she done enough in her life to make a difference? Did she use her time for a greater good? How will she be remembered? Sara thought she knew the answers and yet no cure had come in time.
Then there was John who's love motivated her fight. No computer could touch the grateful love she held in her eye's. Sara knew her love had been equaled in his heart by his patience and loving sacrifices. They were given to each other for a short time but a life changing time, gifts from God to each other. He was proud and thankful for the gift of Sara but he knew this was her call, her time, on her terms. He would be okay and continue their fight to educate ALS/MND to the unknowing.
Sara drifted, remembering her living funeral, surrounded by her friend's and family. Their words and memories were still clear despite the haze of her morphine drip. As she took her last breath in this life, her eye's fixed on John's, she was slowly lifted into the next. Someone had said she was gone but Sara felt she was finally free!
His name was Manny and he was my angel dog. Manny was boxy like a black lab, had the soft face of a boarder collie and the curly ears of a cocker spaniel. He was five and had been neglected by a neighbor's son. The neighbor was a retired cop and brought the dog to his house. He offered the dog to me and my girls because he felt we needed Manny.
I had been told I had ALS five years before we were offered Manny. I was a single mom of two young girls, living in a rented house. The doctors gave me no hope or much time. I could not imagine taking on a dog. But Manny stole our hearts and even the landlord gave his approval. Manny was a good dog and he immediately knew there was something wrong with me. He was always at my side from day one, as I fought to survive ALS/MND.
An example of his wings are many but it was the first time he helped me that started our journey. One day I went to get off the couch and Manny jumped up from his nap to follow. As he sat on his hind legs waiting I had just made my fourth attempt to rise. Manny began nudging me with his nose but in my frustration I ignored his concern. I tried it again and failed when Manny barked at me, while still nudging. I asked him in a pissy voice "WHAT boy?" I saw concern and scratched his neck. He kept raising his head as I scratched and then I got it. I held the arm of the couch with my left hand and I put my right hand behind Manny's head. He was still sitting but he stiffened his neck and legs while I pulled. He held firm as I stood up and in that moment we were a team.
It's with a heavy heart that I must say Manny is no longer with me. He lived for seventeen beautiful years. He watched my girl's marry and even six years ago he gave up his side of our bed to my new husband. I am a very rare case of ALS because most die in 2-4yrs and I am nearing 2oyrs. Through all of my long day's, hormonal teens and falls. Manny's unconditional love remained strong. His ashes will be spread with mine as a tribute to our love and friendship.
15 cases a day are diagnosed with ALS in the US. 2-4 year mortality rate and there is no cure. Brain stops messages to muscles, leaving you trapped in your body and mind is fully aware.
A cinquain has five lines.
Line 2 is two words that describe the title.
I've been trying to raise awareness for ALS in May by turning prompts into education. This one was a tad hard but I never back down from a challenge.