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Of what use are poets?
13 September 2019

So, this is one of Plato’s earlier dialogues and records a conversation that Socrates has with a rhapsody. Now, when we are talking about rhapsodies, we aren’t talking about one from Bohemia, but rather a class of poets in Ancient Greece who pretty much only ever focused on the works of Homer. You could say that they are a specialist poet, but I’m not entirely sure if I can call them a poet either because in my mind poets are at least creative, the impression I get is that these guys simply see that Homer is the pinnacle of everything poetical, and since it is impossible to surpass him, they simply spend their lives reciting him to crowds of adoring fans � yeah, if anything, they are performers, but more so they are performers who perform somebody else’s work. A more modern example would be, well, a Beatles cover band who only ever performs Beatles songs because, as far as they are concerned, there is nothing better than the Beatles, and nobody can ever surpass them.

So, that probably sets the scene, and since the other participant in the discussion is Socrates, you can probably expect that Socrates is going to absolutely destroy him. Mind you, Ion does rock up and basically talk about how he won the grand prize for reciting Homer at a festival, so you can probably see that this guy was probably somewhat full of himself anyway. However, it sort of goes somewhat deeper than that because Homer isn’t just a pretty good author of some pretty good stories, his works were was also seen by the Greeks as a textbook on life. This goes way beyond simply enjoying the work, it is sort of like keeping a copy of Lord of the Rings with you, and consulting it for, well, for anything.

Okay, you could easily say that people use the Bible in that way as well. Want to know about cosmology � yeah, the Bible can tell you. What to know about differential calculus � well, the Bible doesn’t say anything about it, so I guess it isn’t important. Want to know how to cure somebody of cancer � yeah, the Bible can tell you that as well (and I should point out that I am ridiculing extreme interpretations of the Bible, and not the Bible itself, least I get burnt at the stake for heresy).
Anyway, the thing is that Socrates is effectively destroying guy. Basically, the crux of his argument is that Ion is not just useless, he is beyond useless. For instance, he completely ignores anything and everything that was not written by Homer. Then he claims to be an expert on pretty much everything because, well, he is an expert on Homer. Yeah, Socrates clearly thinks otherwise, as he points out � who is an expert on chariot racing: the chariot racer, or the guy that reads Homer because there is chariot racing in Homer? Who is an expert on sailing: the sailor, or the guy that reads Homer because there is sailing in Homer? Yeah, the answer is pretty clear, and it certainly isn’t the guy that reads Homer.

Mind you, Socrates may have pretty much destroyed this guy in our eyes, however, I don’t think he fully convinced Ion that a change in profession may be a good thing. You see, the topic of the discussion then comes to generalship, namely who is the better General. Well, Ion seems to think that it is he, because he reads Homer, and it doesn’t matter what Socrates says, he just cannot seem to destroy that argument. You see, the response simply comes does to ‘well, I could be a really good general but, well, I haven’t been given the opportunity to be a really good general because I’m not Athenian�.

Yeah, I could be a really good President but, well, I’m not American.