I wish he had remained taciturn also at the last moment of his life; in that case he might belong to a still higher order of spirits [Geister]. Whether it was the poison or piety or malice – something loosened his tongue at that moment and he said: “O Crito, I owe Asclepius a rooster.” This ridiculous and terrible “last word” means for those who have ears: “O Crito, life is a disease.” Is it possible that a man like him, who had lived cheerfully and like a soldier in the sight of everyone, should have been a pessimist? He had merely kept a cheerful mien while concealing all his life long his ultimate judgment, his inmost feeling. Socrates, Socrates suffered life! And then he still revenged himself – with this veiled, gruesome, pious, and blasphemous saying. Did Socrates need such revenge? Did his overrich virtue lack an ounce of magnanimity? – Alas, my friends, we must overcome even the Greeks! (340) – the Gay Science 1887 , The Dying Socrates
Nietzsche manages to almost invisibly add no less a voice than that of the Nazarene himself to support this fundamental theme. So, In the Republic, Socrates [470-399 BC, Classical Athens] is talking about the world with his gang philosophers: “The world below is full of appalling names – Ghosts, Styx, Cocytus, sapless and Shades.”
Socrates insisted that there is a truth higher than experience and that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events in the past, future and present. To Socrates “True Love” is love of beauty, order, temperate and harmony. Socrates thought about building the ideal state, and who should be its guardians. The State in which rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, in contrast to most eager rulers ruling the worst state. Excessive in one direction causes the opposite direction.
Even Socrates said as he died: “To live – that means to be a long time sick: I owe a cock to the saviour Asclepius”. Even Socrates had had enough of it (1). – Twilight of the Idols (1888) – The Problem of Socrates
State Guardians
- Principles – Goodman will not consider death terrible to any other goodman who is his comrade
- Not allowed to lie – only the state is privileged to lie (for the public good) and responsible for punishing those who lie
- Should be true worshippers of God
- Wakeful dogs by voice and gesture
- Temperance – Ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires
- Man being his own master
- A better principle in humans
If you deal with the state as many and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others – then you will always have a great many friends and few enemies. The interchange and meddling of the one with another is the ruin of the state. In any case, Philosophers are useless to the state or other sailors – So those who want to be governed must go to him who is able to govern.
Socrates belonged, in his origins, to the lowest orders: Socrates was rabble. One knows, one sees for oneself, how ugly he was. But ugliness, an objection in itself, is among Greeks almost a refutation. Was Socrates a Greek at all? Ugliness is frequently enough the sign of a thwarted development, a development retarded by interbreeding. (Twilight, “Problem of Socrates”, 3).
So Socrates, what about money and business? When a man is ill (Rich or poor), to the doctor must go.
Justice
- The interest of the stronger
- Useful when useless and useless when useful
- Useful with money partnership when money is useless
- Repayment of debt
- Money deposit to be kept safely
Money makers have a second nature of love like authors of poems
“Socrates is no physician,” he said softly to himself: “death alone is a physician here… Socrates himself has only been a long time sick” (12).– Twilight of the Idols (1888) – The Problem of Socrates