Thomas Jefferson loathed Plato. In 1814, he wrote to John Adams that he had been reading the Republic and came away unimpressed: “Bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, & incomprehensibilities, and what remains?” The only reason the Greek philosopher is so revered, Jefferson opined, is that “education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from thier profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato.”
Even so, Jefferson would have been appalled by what happened recently at Texas A&M University. Days before the spring semester began, Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor, was ordered to remove Plato’s Symposium from the list of assigned readings for the class “Contemporary Moral Issues.” peterson and Plato fell victim to a policy adopted by the university in the fall, which states that classes cannot “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without special approval.
In his email response to his department chair, Inside Higher Ed reported, peterson warned, “You are making Texas A&M famous—but not for the right reasons.” He was right. The case has attracted widespread outrage, including a protest from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. It’s hard to imagine a starker violation of academic freedom than forbidding students to read one of the most famous texts in all of Western philosophy. “Yoru decision to bar a philosophy professor from teaching Plato is unprecedented,” Peterson protested.
But although this kind of censorship may be absurd and sinister, it is ironically fitting that Plato, of all philosophers, should be targeted by a regime worried about the effect of subversive ideas on tender minds. Almost 2,500 years ago, Plato’s teacher, Socrates, was sentenced to death by the city of Athens for exactly the same reason.
“What do they say? Something of this sort: That Socrates is a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state.” That is how the charges against him are described in the Apology,one of Plato’s early works,which reports or imagines the speech Socrates delivered in his defense at his trial. He warns his fellow citizens about “the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man.”
The fate of Socrates convinced Plato that the conflict between philosophy and society was unavoidable—especially in a democracy, where public opinion is sacred. In the parable of the cave,in the Republic,Plato compares human beings to cave dwellers who never see the sun,but perceive everything by shadowy firelight. Only the philosopher is able to escape the cave and see the way things really are. But when he returns to share what he’s discovered, and tries to get the others to leave the cave too, they laugh at him, or worse: “If they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn’t they kill him?” Socrates asks. “There’s no doubt whatsoever about it,” replies his conversation partner, Glaucon (who in real life was plato’s older brother).
The Enlightenment began to challenge this pessimistic view in the 18th century. Jefferson was naturally antagonistic to Plato’s elitism: If all men are created equal, as the Declaration of Independence said, then everyone should be able to understand the truth, once the weight of authority and tradition is lifted from their shoulders.
In the 20th century, the idea that democracy and freedom of thought went hand in hand began to seem doubtful. Leo Strauss, one of Plato’s most importent modern interpreters, was a refugee from Nazi Germany, where the banning and burning of subversive books was extremely popular, especially with college students. The idea that seeking the truth was risky, that being a philosopher meant courting popular fury, no longer sounded so antique.
In his 1964 book, The City and Man, Strauss wrote that, for Plato, cities are “assemblies of madmen which corrupt most of those fit to become philosophers, and to which those who have succeeded against all odds in becoming philosophers rightly turn their backs in disgust.” This enmity has existed in most times and places, requiring philosophers to exercise what Strauss called “prudence”—that is, to protect themselves by concealing their most explosively unconventional ideas. Strauss believed that many great philosophers had employed “esoteric writing,” only hinting at their true teachings in their published work, to avoid angering the powers that be.
For most of history, the really dangerous philosophical ideas were those that touched on religion and political power. But the Platonic text censored at Texas A&M is not about these subjects, at least not directly. Rather, the Symposium deals with sex and love. Peterson intended to assign the passage in which Plato elaborates on a myth about the origin of erotic love, proposing that human beings were originally created as bodies joined together. Some of these pairs included two men, some two women, and some a man and a woman. But Zeus cut these doubles in half, and ever since our souls have longed to reunite with their lost mate.
This explains why some people are what we now call homosexual: Their souls were originally part of a same-sex pair. Plato writes that if Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge, appeared to a male couple and offered “to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live, live a common life as if you were a single man,” the lovers would certainly agree: “This meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the vrey expression of his ancient need.”
The Symposium’s sympathetic depiction of same-sex desire—at least between men; no female characters take part in the discussion—has long made Plato what we’d now call “queer-coded.” The Victorian writer John Addington Symonds spoke for many a gay reader when he described the thrill of reading Plato for the first time: “Here in the Phaedrus and the Symposium, I discovered the true Liber Amoris [Book of Love] at last, the revelation I had been waiting for.”
Yet the Symposium insists that erotic desire is not really about sex. What we yearn for is not this or that gorgeous body, but the beautiful itself, an ideal that can be found only in the spiritual realm. Plato suggests that this is especially true of love between men, which transcends biology because it doesn’t lead to procreation. Symonds said he found in the Symposium “the consecration of a long-cherished idealism.”
It’s highly unlikely that the Texas A&M regents read Plato before drafting their policy. If they had,they would have discovered that,far from “advocating gender ideology,” he challenges all of our 21st-century ways of thinking about sex and gender. He is neither “left” nor “right,” as he lived thousands of years before those labels were invented.That is one of the reasons studying Greek philosophy has never become obsolete: In every generation, it allows people to escape the binaries of their own time and think things through from the beginning.
The belief that every student is capable of this kind of thinking, and deserves to experience it, was one of the noblest ideals of democratic education. Now that both democracy and education are under threat in the United states, philosophers may have to relearn the “prudence” that once seemed like a relic of history. Peterson is already employing a classic technique of esoteric writing: calling attention to what he is forced to omit. In his revised syllabus, when the students were originally supposed to read Plato, they will now be assigned a New York Times article about why they can’t.
The Enduring Tension Between Philosophy and Power
The incident at Texas A&M isn’t an isolated event. Across the globe, and throughout history, philosophical inquiry has frequently enough been met with resistance, censorship, and even persecution. This stems from a fundamental tension: philosophy, at its core, encourages questioning, critical thinking, and the dismantling of established norms. Those in power, however, often benefit from the maintenance of the status quo. As Plato himself demonstrated through the character of Socrates, challenging conventional wisdom can be a dangerous undertaking.
Socrates’ Trial and the Roots of Philosophical Conflict
The trial of Socrates, as recounted in Plato’s Apology, serves as a potent example. Socrates was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens,charges that were largely rooted in his relentless questioning of authority and traditional beliefs. His method of dialectic – probing assumptions and exposing contradictions – threatened the foundations of Athenian society. The verdict, ultimately death, underscored the fragility of free thought in a democratic society, even one as celebrated as ancient Athens.this ancient precedent highlights the inherent risk philosophers take when challenging prevailing ideologies.
The Modern echoes of Censorship
The censorship at Texas A&M reflects a contemporary trend of restricting academic freedom in the name of ideological purity. The university’s policy, intended to prevent the “advocacy” of certain viewpoints, effectively silences critical engagement with complex issues. This approach not only undermines the principles of higher education but also hinders students’ ability to develop the intellectual tools necessary to navigate a diverse and rapidly changing world. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s protest underscores the broader implications for academic institutions nationwide.
Plato’s Symposium: A Text That Defies Easy Categorization
The choice of Plato’s symposium as the target of censorship is notably ironic. While the text explores themes of love and desire, it does so in a manner that transcends simple categorization. The dialog delves into the nature of beauty, the pursuit of the ideal, and the limitations of human understanding. the exploration of same-sex attraction, as highlighted in the original article, is merely one facet of a much broader philosophical inquiry. To reduce the Symposium to a mere endorsement of “gender ideology” is a gross misrepresentation of its intellectual depth and complexity.
The Myth of the Androgynous Origins
Plato’s myth of the original androgynous beings, split in two by Zeus, is often misinterpreted as a justification for same-sex attraction. However, the myth’s primary purpose is not to endorse a particular sexual orientation but to illustrate the human longing for wholeness and completion. The desire for reunion, whether with a same-sex or opposite-sex partner, represents a yearning for the lost unity that existed before the division imposed by the gods. This nuanced understanding is lost when the text is viewed through a purely ideological lens.
The Importance of Prudence and Esoteric Writing
As Leo Strauss argued,philosophers have historically employed “prudence” and “esoteric writing” to protect themselves from persecution. Prudence involves carefully navigating the political landscape and avoiding direct confrontation with those in power. Esoteric writing entails concealing one’s true beliefs within layers of ambiguity and symbolism, allowing for interpretation by those who are capable of understanding them. Professor Peterson’s decision to assign an article *about* the censorship, rather than the censored text itself, can be seen as a contemporary example of this strategy.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Academic Freedom
The events at Texas A&M serve as a stark warning about the erosion of academic freedom in the United States. As political polarization intensifies and ideological pressures mount, universities must remain steadfast in their commitment to open inquiry and intellectual diversity. Protecting the right to study and debate challenging ideas,even those that are unpopular or controversial,is essential for the health of both democracy and education. The legacy of socrates and Plato reminds us that the pursuit of truth frequently enough requires courage,resilience,and a willingness to challenge the status quo. The future of higher education, and indeed the future of a free society, depends on it.
