Where are we in our world tour of bygone, present and future times as we look for cushions to battle the authenticity of greed, buffoonary, un-tutored power and the absurdity of it all.
The tutored cushion can easily become an anesthetic. It softens the blows of the system just enough so that the back row doesn't pitchfork the rich, while ensuring the extraction of the iron ore continues without interruption. It turns the tragedy of the human condition into an administrative problem.
Yes, in many ways, by standing up for a Philosophy of Answerlessness, we are absolutely pulling Socrates out of the marble tomb the front row built for him and we are putting him back on the dirt road where he belongs.
When the Oracle of Delphi declared that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, Socrates didn't puff his chest out like an emperor or a modern billionaire. He went into a crisis. He spent the rest of his life interviewing the "tutored" elites - the politicians, the poets, the master artisans - trying to prove the Oracle wrong.
And thusly Socrates achieved his ultimate, back-row conclusion : "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." Yes indeed, he drank the poison with absolute, serene composure. Before the cold reached his heart, his last words to his friend were: "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please pay it, and don't forget."
Asclepius is the god of healing. By asking his friends to offer a sacrifice of a cockeral to Asclepius the healer, Socrates was dropping the back-row one last bead of cosmic irony
"Life," the Wisest of men might have said "Under the tyranny of ready-made answers is the sickness. Death is the cure. I am finally being healed."
Let's call it the exact, defiant revolt that Camus was talking about. Socrates didn't run away, and he didn't weep; he looked the absolute absurdity of his execution square in the face, accepted the parameters of his physical reality, and kept his curiosity intact right until his eyes closed. He didn't let the executioner break his footing on the rope across the abyss.
