Aspies For Freedom

Well.... I'm wondering, the more I read the greek philosophers the more convinced I am a lot of greeks must have been aspies.  There insane desire for knowledge and truth.

Socrates seems especially so in my estimation, since he went to death for his principles, he refused to "escape" from his punishment.

Interesting idea.

There would seem to be a strong case for a lot of outstanding historical figures to have been on the spectrum. Many were loners. Most stood up for what they believed against the majority. They 'thought outside the box'.

A lot to consider. I shall re-read some biographies with that in mind, thank you!

I'm not so sure - drinking the poison seemed to me to be more about street cred than anything else.

He could have been an Aspie - but it's hard to piece together his personality from what we know of him...

From what I've read and understand, he was a very influential character with plenty of personality and had many students that were in love with him, probably physically and platonically, such as PLATO. Through history there have been many people that have sought the truth and have made great mental and philosophical achievements, but we only tend to remember those that made an impact on the social world. I don't think Socrates would be able to do what he did if he had social problems and other aspects of AS. He used his keen wit and social understanding to create dialogs that supported his philosophies. He was very active in Greek society. He had many supporters but he just managed to piss the wrong people off. He was very determined and strong in spirit, thats clear- and I read that he might not have taken the hemlock willingly, but if the myth is true, it's often people in the public who are obsessed about their social rank and ambitions that kill themselves rather than let the law get to them, so I think it was a very un-Aspie thing to do.

But the ancient world was not hyper-capitalist, high-speed, high-tech world like our world, they didn't have schools like ours and lived in more close-knit communities.

I wonder if aspies would have so much social difficulty if they didn't have alienating effects of mass media, we tend to forget the ancients didn't have TV's, radios, and modern transportation, thereby causing more socializing by necessity.

I think many aspies inability to socialize comes from people in modern society being able to forcibly exclude them from social activities because of technology.  I think there are social aspies, we just don't hear about them because they don't get diagnosed.

We also forget that in those days there were very few people and most never went anywhere beyond their birthplace. Cities had smaller populations than modern villages. Ancient societies were based on family units. Most of the people to whom Socrates spoke would have known him all their lives, and he them.

But surely, there were still loners in the ancient world...?

There were loners in the ancient world and they had it much easier then. Being a 'hermit' or 'wise lady' was a respectable career choice!

From my readings, I don't think there is really all that much real data about Socrates. Socrates never wrote anything down. It was all written down by Plato and some people actually say that Socrates could have been made up by Plato to illustrate some of his philosophic principles in practice.

I never actually quite understood why Socrates didn't run and hide when he could instead of staying and drinking the poison. I always think life is the highest goal and if you are a someone who has a goal to make others think, as Socrates did, ultimately it would have been nobler to have run into hiding and been still able to educate people.  By dying the only thing he achieved was becoming a martyr, much like Jesus did for his cause as well.

When you look at the stories of Socrates and Plato (from what I remember) they were social people.  I think I'm remembering correctly, but I believe Socrates didn't have a home and relied on staying at other people's homes and being provided a meal every night by someone he came across and enlightened or by one of his followers.  This makes me think of him as a decent social person.  However, we don't know much of the social rules that he encountered, maybe you're right and he did get by socially because he had this one thing that he was passionate about. Ultimately, I don't think we have enough reliable information to ever make a call on whether he was aspie or not.

Yes but many aspies can socialize, it's just that their attempts are rejected, in the ancient world they did not have school like we do.  In the modern world most of our time is consumed with busy-work, so there is little time to socialize.  I'm certain many aspies wouldn't be such horrible socializers if it wasn't for the modern school system and the fact that there are umpteen hundred ways to be distracted (and therefore not socializing anywhere near as much)

I keep hearing statistics about how friendships for eveybody (not just aspies) is at an all time low, due to internet, overwork, and consumerist distractions.

Socrates, assuming that the stories we have of him are reasonably accurate (and I haven't looked all that much into it, so I don't know) died for his principles. He was also an old man. For better or worse, he considered his act noble. You might not like his choice, but it was all about principles.

He had a gift for rhetoric, however it was not the kind of rhetoric that is used to gloss over the lack of arguments, but rather the kind that illuminates and illustrates it. He was, as far as we know (or at least as far as I know) the originator of what is now called the Socratic method, i.e., engaging in dialog and asking questions to guide people to some conclusion, based on the belief that they may not know the conclusion, but they have the necessary tools to reach it with a little help.

So he was great talking to people. Whether this makes him good socially or not is hard to tell.

Paraphrasing from memory, the younger generation in Athens (Socrates was an old man when he was tried and found guilty) didn't know him in the same way as the generation before. As I recall, a very popular comedy satirizing Socrates as an idiot with his head in the clouds was written and performed, and many of the jury only knew him from that, and from hearsay, whereas the generation before might have actually known him through talking with him. So he was misunderstood, and also chose to stay by his principles in the trial instead of going a way that would lead to him being found not guilty, or at least not convicted to death.

Now, I'm tired, so I can't be bothered to find sources now. Maybe later.

And, I should add, the charges were something like "corrupting the youth and denying the city's gods". If/when/until I get some decent sources here, google "plato socrates apology" to find some commented version of the Apologia (Socrates's defense, Plato's description of the trial) to find out more.

Anyway, I think you'll find they didn't hate strange behavior or intelligence per se, but rather a misguided understanding of one particular set of intelligence and behavior, instantiated in Socrates.

That is, assuming Plato's account is true to history.

I know Socrates died for his principles, but I still think it was a foolish decision. From what I remember his supporters did not support him in this action, but tried to coax him into running and hiding. I believe he had a choice to either be barred from Athens for the rest of this life or be tried and put to death.  As much as I respect his method of questioning people and his wisdom, I don't respect this decision and would not do it myself.

I believe (from memory) the Sophists had something to do with the publics opinion of Socrates and also the trial. They hated Socrates method of questioning, however they were quite popular at the time. Here is a quote I found about the Sophists from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism
"Plato is largely responsible for the modern view of the "sophist" as someone who uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand and ambiguities of language in order to deceive, or to support fallacious reasoning. In this view, the sophist is not concerned with truth and justice, but instead seeks power. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all challenged the philosophical foundations of sophism."

The playwright, Aristophanes, wrote a play ridiculing Socrates, and this undoubtably formed the public's opinion.

You're right that Socrates wasn't very fond of sophistry. In his defense, he says:

Er...Ignore the "sons—", it's irrelevant to the excerpt and is only there by accident.