1G0xxeB

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy7 5despite its habitual nature, this behavior on the part of Socrates hardly seemsto have lost its capacity to shock or indispose others, as the repeated demandsof Agathon for Socrates to come in serve to indicate (175c).The “strangeness” of Socrates must have fueled the anxiety Athenians feltabout him. After all, as Silvia Montiglio has argued, ancient Athens had onlyfear and contempt for silence, associating it with servility, conspiracies, boguscitizenship, feminine scheming, or the interruption of the natural course ofthings. 34 No sane individual aspired to be noticed for his or her silence: “likethe Homeric hero, the ideal citizen of Athens boasted to excel at deeds and atwords, but not at silence. Not even as a listener.” 35 It is likely that Socrates wasexecuted because he spoke excessively (and because he spoke with too manyoligarchic sympathizers), but it may also be because, sometimes, Socratesspoke too little. His strange meditative manners and his purposeful silence(manifested also in his twofold refusal to take part in politics and to assertany knowledge dogmatically), mixed with his remarkable capacity to lay barethe ignorance of others, were doubtless instrumental in his death.In short, Plato’s thought aims not only at showing us the significance ofthe spoken word, but also (albeit less centrally) at underscoring the importanceof silence, of listening, 36 and of introspection in philosophy and livingtogether. The “ethic of parrhesia” coming out of the work of Foucault encouragesus to brush this aside a little quickly in my view. 37 And yet, one couldsuggest that nothing is more timely (and radical) in Plato than this invitationto silence and active, attentive listening. Indeed, just as in ancient Greece,silence seems to be a source of anxiety among us (witness the way we quicklyfill any silence when we work, travel, eat, study, read), and active listeningseems to be badly (or rarely) cultivated. To listen, to learn (and to be just), onemust pay attention, which requires much self-discipline and quiet devotion,as Simone Weil (a Platonist of the first order) rightly noted. 38 Weil understood34Silvia Montiglio, Silence in the Land of Logos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), introductionand 289–91.35Ibid., 291; my italics.36Tarnopolsky explores some of this in her insightful “Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato and theContemporary Politics of Shame,” Political Theory 32, no. 4 (August 2004): 468–94.37But for two important exceptions to this overlooking of silence in Foucault, see Le gouvernement desoi, 26–27 and 217. See also the beginning of History of Sexuality, vol. 1.38In various writings, Simone Weil underscores the intimate links between attention, philosophy,and justice: “Le premier devoir de l’école est de développer chez les enfants la faculté d’attention…enleur rappelant sans cesse qu’il leur faut savoir être attentifs pour pouvoir, plus tard, être justes” (Weil,Écrits de Londres et dernières lettres [Paris: Gallimard, 1957], 177). See also Attente de Dieu.