The Trials of Socrates

     It is hard to put into words why Temple University requires its students to read The Trials of Socrates. I read the texts by Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophon. A possible and the most in-your-face reason would be the emphasis on education. Although, it is not traditional education, and there is no agreement reached on what is the best way to learn. Socrates was an innovator because he went against the grain, and fought back with leaders of the times; arguing about their intellectual abilities and whether they were deserving of their high positions. However, his outlandish ways ultimately lead to his demise. I do not think Temple wants us to take from the book that if you stand up for what you believe is right, you will be persecuted and eventually killed.  Instead, this could be interpreted that Temple does want us to be individuals, since Socrates died with respect instead of begging for his life and giving up his vision.

     The most interesting text to me was Clouds, by Aristophanes. I found it very hard to follow because one man, Strepsiades, was very flakey. First he was all about Socrates and his school because he thought the education would be good for his son, Pheidippides, to escape his debt.  Clouds is very obviously a parody. This comedy caught me off guard as I was reading because of the seriousness of Plato’s writing.

     As a student in college, or anyone really, it is important to be able to recognize a parody when you read one and understand what it is truly trying to say. Nobody wants to be the one who doesn’t get the joke. Trust me, I know. I was in the gullible student who thought Jonathan Swift actually believed eating babies was an acceptable way to feed people. Moral of the story – exposure is the best way to pick up on a satire, and that is an additional reason why Temple has us read The Trials of Socrates.

Lastly, I want to talk about Socrates himself. Unlike the common man of the time, he does not believe in the Gods, and is the first of his time to take a close-to-scientific approach.  He believes it is the clouds that determine the weather and not the gods. With our knowledge today, we know that this is a much more logical approach than a god is mad so that’s why it is raining and there is a thunderstorm. Temple wanted to introduce us to the earliest examples of rational thinking. 

George Lippard

For my research project on the history of Philadelphia and the people who shaped it, I have been reading The Quaker City by George Lippard. Lippard was once an extremely important and influential man in this city, but unfortunately many of his works and ideas have been forgotten. We still battle with many of the social issues he fought to end, so it is a shame that he is overlooked in literature. The Quaker City is a very unconventional novel. The plot is based around a corrupt, secret club, The Monks of Monk Hall, as well as the rape of a young girl. The rape reflected an actual situation that occurred in Philadelphia about a year prior to Lippard’s reinterpretation. A man whose name I do not remember raped a young girl from a well-to-do family. The girl’s brother found out who the man was and hunted him down. The showdown ended on the ferry, leaving port in Philadelphia, bound for Camden. The brother found the rapist while he was trying to escape on the ferry, and fired four shots at him, killing him. This is the historic site I chose to visit.

To get there, I took the Broad Street subway line down to City Hall with a friend, where we got off to do some work for another class. Looking back on it, we probably should have used our free transfer over to the Market Frankford line and taken that down to Penn’s Landing. Instead, we walked down to Penn’s Landing from Center City, taking Walnut to where it hits the Delaware River. The port itself was less than exciting. The Ferry does not run in the winter I am assuming, because there was no ferry in sight, nor was the ticket office open. The ticket office itself was a small rectangular building, no bigger than a single car garage, I would estimate. Going to the Penn’s Landing with the knowledge of what had occurred at this same place, I wondered what it had looked like at that time, in 1843. To get to Penn’s landing, you have to walk over and overpass, with I-95 running below. This creates a grand entrance of multiple stairwells, complimented with places to sit and even a few fountains. The whole strip of Penn’s Landing is done in stone, to relate with the rest of Old City. During Lippard’s lifetime, I-95 was not was not there. This saddens me cause I know that the entire coast along the river must have looked entirely different. Despite this one glaring fact, it was still very interesting to visit the location of an actual murder – as dark as that is.

There is still a lot more I want to know about George Lippard. Unfortunately, because he has been so forgotten much about his life was either never recorded or has been lost. I would like to find out at least the area where he lived. Also, he ran a newspaper, so it would be very interesting to find out where that was printed as well. Other than that, I will continue research and reading The Quaker City.

Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera

Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa has been my favorite reading thus far. This novel is written by a woman who identifies with so many cultures that can often conflict with eachother. She also reflects on the individual challenges that face each different culture. Anzaldúa was born into a family of Mexican and Indian descent. She is a woman, and must always struggle with the dominance of men. She is Tejana, because she lives in Texas and is Spanish. She is Chicana because she is a Mexican living in the Unites States. She is American, because this is the country in which she was born. And finally, arguably her hardest identity to deal with is that she is a lesbian. I want to focus the blog post on her struggles with her sexual orientation.

One of the most memorable moments in the book is when Anzaldúa discusses homophobia. A student of hers, who is also a lesbian, thought homophobia was the fear of going home. We know that this is not true, and that homophobia is actually the fear or hatred of homosexuals. Despite the error, Anzaldúa agreed with this new definition and found it very relatable. Her traditional family did not accept her as a lesbian and she often does not visit them in her adult life. This reveals the grim truth about what many lesbians and gay men must deal with. Many are uprooted from the lives they have experienced in their childhood once they come out, and are forced start a new life with their new identities. As someone who is not part of the gay community, I like to believe that how gays are treated by the community has improved, even since this book was published, but this is probably not true. It pains me to think that someone can be discriminated against for a characteristic they are born with.

Discrimination spreads farther than judging people for their sexual orientation, there is also discrimination is our society against someone for their race. Anzaldúa has witnessed, first hand, this type of discrimination. She is angered that her family has been living on the land that is now Texas before the land was part of the United States – before the United States were even a conceivable idea. In the time of her ancestors, the nomadic Indians were able to move to wherever they desired, usually traveling with the animals that supplied their food, and where there were the most natural resources. Anzaldúa calls the border at the edge of Texas, diving the United States and Mexico, is a scar in the land. It is harsh and defies the idea of nature, and it should not be there. Borders go against America’s representation of ‘the land of the free’- but who is free to come in? It is not fair that the first Americans to come over from Europe set in place an example of discrimination against the natives the still plagues our country until this day. Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera is the prime example of the other side of discrimination, the victims.