A Plantonic Dialogue between BK and Socrates on the Absolute Nature and Moral Merits of Quality vs. Quanity

Socrates: I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait.

I turned round, and asked him where his master was.
There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.

BK: And did you wait? Even though in waiting it is within the realms of human thought that one might be waiting for a end that does not justify the means of waiting, and therefore reducing one’s self to a willfully imperfect moral condition?

Socrates: I did wait. It was only polite.

BK: Ah! Indeed, you were leagues from the wrong. Politeness is the truly that most noble of human faces. You were quite right to delay your prayers to the goddess.

Socrates: Whatever. Young Polemarchus conveyed that he desired us to venture to the local wi-fi hotspot than we may share a scone and surf to well-doneplease.blogspot.com, for, having been in the long season of dusty, bare drought had not yielded the fruit of it’s author’s fertile mind in some age and yet there was the shadowy evidence of a new branch dated the quin of March.


BK: Cut me some slack, Jack, I’d been busy.

Socrates: Quite.
May there not be the alternative, I said to the aid of Polemarchus, that we may persuade you to let us go?

But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.
Certainly not, replied Glaucon.
Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.
Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?

With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?

Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will he celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.

Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must.
Very good, I replied, but only after we’ve visited well-doneplease.blogger.com.

BK: So YOU’RE that mysterious third reader. I’ve been wondering who that was.

Socrates: Indeed. Accordingly we went with Polemarchus the local Panera Bread, ordered some herbal tea and broke out his new MacBook Air. Man, is that thing sexy; and there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said:

Socrates! Have you heard the divine news? After averaging only one entry for every quarter of the moon’s wax and wane, the rascal BK has posted five in as much time! Six if you count this one but I remain philosophically unconvinced that I, nor this dialog exist.

To which I replied, indeed, dear Cephalus, you are deceived for as surely as the sun rises, the moon falls, the tides rise and the Jews are good sports, the shadowy nature of one man’s entry, no matter how nebulous is permanently stored online and in Google’s cache. The nature of its being and matter is wholly without doubt.

BK: Wait, who is Cephalus again?

Socrates: Polemarchus’ father, pay attention.

BK: Sorry.

Socrates: Don’t worry about. “Sorry” is an illusion as if on the wall of a cave. You can neither touch it nor know it’s true nature, therefore one should not concern oneself with such diversions. Back to my story.

I will tell you, Socrates, Cephalus said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is --I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault, namely that BK is lazy and largely uncreative. For if this were the cause, I and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles, --are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on --Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter. But, let us back track a few steps. You mention a great burden on your weary shoulders. What good vex a man of such virtue?

BK: I am so on pins and needles!

Socrates: Mmhmm. So, with eyes that proffered an infinite sum of queries, Cephalus plucked the one question that had been the progenitor of such grief and confusion. In posting five (six including this hypothetical post) new items in less than a week (still another if you count his review of Semi-Pro which was stolen by Rolling Stone), was BK going for quantity over quality?

To which I replied, not knowing your true intentions, what I surmised to be your motivation.
Cephalus, great father, you know that BK is a man of quality and therefore follows logically the fruit of his typing would also have that same nature (being of quality). A prince among men, he knows that quality and not quantity is the true measure of success and success being the universal and most desirable end, his goal must have been to produce entries of the highest intrinsic value, thus enriching your life and mine.

BK: Huh?

Socrates: Bascially, I lied.

BK: Oh. Good. Because between you, me and old Alcibiades over there, I was totally going for quantity.

Socrates:
It was pretty obvious.