don’t know … I think it’s all theatre, all smoke and mirrors.
MULBERRY: It probably takes a genius to know a genius. Otherwise, it’s just blind faith.
ME: Then
I
have faith. We all do—why else do we come to class?
KIRWIN B: To watch a nervous breakdown, that’s why. A slo-mo nervous collapse. We’re voyeurs.
EDE: No—we come to class to try to discover why it is we continue to come to class.
KIRWIN A: Oh, very fucking clever, Ede.
Benwell’s mutiny.
Wittgenstein wants to become a kind of
mirror
for us, he says. A mirror in which we can see the shortcomings of our own thinking. Of our own temptations of thought. Of our own
philosophical temptations
.
Benwell, clicking and unclicking his pen. Benwell, tutting. Shuffling his papers.
BENWELL (interrupting): This is all nonsense! None of this means anything!
Wittgenstein looks at him calmly.
BENWELL: I’m tired of all this posh boy SHITE.
DOYLE: Do shut up, Benwell!
BENWELL (to Doyle): Don’t you fucking start!
DOYLE: Start what?
The Kirwins stir menacingly in their seats.
BENWELL (leaving): Fuck the lot of you.
The
Maypole
, after class.
Benwell’s going to kill us all, Doyle says, he’s sure of it. Ede says he’d quite like to be poor and northern, and full of bitterness. He’d start a band. He’d sing about being poor and northern, and full of bitterness …
Discussion of Benwell. Is it just that Benwell is very, very bad at doing good, or is his evil something real, like Voldemort, or something? Was Benwell always evil? Was he an evil child? An evil five-year-old? At what point did Benwell become evil? When did Benwell go over to the dark side?
Or is it just that Benwell’s poor (Ede’s view)? A victim of the class system (Ede again)? Is it that Benwell’s had none of the advantages of the rest of us, even Peters (Ede)? Is it that Benwell will only come into his own after the revolution (Ede, for a final time)?
In Doyle’s rooms, before the Pembroke College toga party. We’ve each brought a bottle of white spirits, as instructed: vodka, gin, tequila, Bacardi. Doyle mixes them up with pastis and coke. The Black Zombie: Doyle’s favourite tipple.
A performance of the death of Socrates, inspired by David’s painting. Guthrie as Socrates, sitting upright on the bed, one hand gesturing wildly, the other reaching out for the cup that Ede passes him. The rest of us as Socrates’s followers, our eyes full of tears.
Guthrie looks so
dignified
, we all agree. Guthrie is fully believable, reaching out for the cup of hemlock/Black Zombie the jurists of Athens had condemned him to drink—his sentence for corrupting the young. The real Socrates drained the cup willingly, claiming that there was nothing for the philosopher to fear in death.
GUTHRIE/SOCRATES:
Give me the hemlock, jailer! For I am unafraid of death, as all philosophers should be
. (Turning to us.)
And you lot, stop your weeping! Cease your lamentations! What a display you make of yourselves! Don’t you know dying is something to be done in silence!
Guthrie drains the cup without flinching. He falls to the ground. Ede (playing the part of Phaedo) closes Guthrie’s eyes.
EDE/PHAEDO:
Truly we have lost the best of the men of Athens, the wisest! The most just!
Applause from everyone. Guthrie rises, grinning like a fool. Another round of Black Zombies. Toasts to Socrates! To Plato! To the eternal soul! To Beauty as such and in general! To the sun! To the Greeks! To philosophy!
MULBERRY: To homosexuality!
Have we ever wondered why all the Greek philosophers were gay?, Mulberry asks. It was a hangover from the ancient warrior cult: the older man takes a younger one as both tutee and lover. You learned, you fucked, you fucked, you learned. And the ones who learned most (and fucked most) became philosophers.
Mulberry says he hasn’t learnt anything from fucking. And he hasn’t taught anything either. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The Greeks spoke of ascending the erotic
MULBERRY: It probably takes a genius to know a genius. Otherwise, it’s just blind faith.
ME: Then
I
have faith. We all do—why else do we come to class?
KIRWIN B: To watch a nervous breakdown, that’s why. A slo-mo nervous collapse. We’re voyeurs.
EDE: No—we come to class to try to discover why it is we continue to come to class.
KIRWIN A: Oh, very fucking clever, Ede.
Benwell’s mutiny.
Wittgenstein wants to become a kind of
mirror
for us, he says. A mirror in which we can see the shortcomings of our own thinking. Of our own temptations of thought. Of our own
philosophical temptations
.
Benwell, clicking and unclicking his pen. Benwell, tutting. Shuffling his papers.
BENWELL (interrupting): This is all nonsense! None of this means anything!
Wittgenstein looks at him calmly.
BENWELL: I’m tired of all this posh boy SHITE.
DOYLE: Do shut up, Benwell!
BENWELL (to Doyle): Don’t you fucking start!
DOYLE: Start what?
The Kirwins stir menacingly in their seats.
BENWELL (leaving): Fuck the lot of you.
The
Maypole
, after class.
Benwell’s going to kill us all, Doyle says, he’s sure of it. Ede says he’d quite like to be poor and northern, and full of bitterness. He’d start a band. He’d sing about being poor and northern, and full of bitterness …
Discussion of Benwell. Is it just that Benwell is very, very bad at doing good, or is his evil something real, like Voldemort, or something? Was Benwell always evil? Was he an evil child? An evil five-year-old? At what point did Benwell become evil? When did Benwell go over to the dark side?
Or is it just that Benwell’s poor (Ede’s view)? A victim of the class system (Ede again)? Is it that Benwell’s had none of the advantages of the rest of us, even Peters (Ede)? Is it that Benwell will only come into his own after the revolution (Ede, for a final time)?
In Doyle’s rooms, before the Pembroke College toga party. We’ve each brought a bottle of white spirits, as instructed: vodka, gin, tequila, Bacardi. Doyle mixes them up with pastis and coke. The Black Zombie: Doyle’s favourite tipple.
A performance of the death of Socrates, inspired by David’s painting. Guthrie as Socrates, sitting upright on the bed, one hand gesturing wildly, the other reaching out for the cup that Ede passes him. The rest of us as Socrates’s followers, our eyes full of tears.
Guthrie looks so
dignified
, we all agree. Guthrie is fully believable, reaching out for the cup of hemlock/Black Zombie the jurists of Athens had condemned him to drink—his sentence for corrupting the young. The real Socrates drained the cup willingly, claiming that there was nothing for the philosopher to fear in death.
GUTHRIE/SOCRATES:
Give me the hemlock, jailer! For I am unafraid of death, as all philosophers should be
. (Turning to us.)
And you lot, stop your weeping! Cease your lamentations! What a display you make of yourselves! Don’t you know dying is something to be done in silence!
Guthrie drains the cup without flinching. He falls to the ground. Ede (playing the part of Phaedo) closes Guthrie’s eyes.
EDE/PHAEDO:
Truly we have lost the best of the men of Athens, the wisest! The most just!
Applause from everyone. Guthrie rises, grinning like a fool. Another round of Black Zombies. Toasts to Socrates! To Plato! To the eternal soul! To Beauty as such and in general! To the sun! To the Greeks! To philosophy!
MULBERRY: To homosexuality!
Have we ever wondered why all the Greek philosophers were gay?, Mulberry asks. It was a hangover from the ancient warrior cult: the older man takes a younger one as both tutee and lover. You learned, you fucked, you fucked, you learned. And the ones who learned most (and fucked most) became philosophers.
Mulberry says he hasn’t learnt anything from fucking. And he hasn’t taught anything either. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The Greeks spoke of ascending the erotic
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