118 Ancient Ideals
derision of the crowd. But sometimes the crowd’s derision can turn
murderous. It happened to Socrates as it has happened to other in-
tellectual and spiritual rebels through time, from Giordano Bruno
to Martin Luther King. People, especially people who live aggres-
sively in the State of Self, do not like being reminded that there are
other ways to conduct life. They don’t like having to feel that they
are behaving like beasts and that there are those, however few,
who see what they are doing and do not approve. When Socrates
compares himself to Achilles, he may even be suggesting that
the au then tic thinker exposes himself to death much in the way the
heroic warrior does. Schopenhauer, brooding on the life of the
phi los o pher, considers the young man who spends his time in
isolation, writing and thinking until he seems to himself to have
achieved a breakthrough. He steps out into the world and begins to
spread his ideas. Maybe he expects some mea sure of fame. He ex-
pects at least a dram of gratitude. He is badly mistaken, Schopen-
hauer muses, for in fact the young man is lucky if he escapes with
his skin.
Emerson declares that though the thinker may suff er on his way
to enlightenment, the culmination of his labors is often joyous.
When the true American scholar proclaims his fi ndings, Emerson
says, “the people delight in it; the better part of every man feels, This
is my music; this is myself ” (64–65). Emerson had his hopes for
Ame rica, which he felt might cultivate a fresh kind of appreciation
for thinkers. How well those hopes have been realized one may
discern for oneself.
Poverty, isolation, loneliness, pop u lar contempt, and even
(perhaps) danger: these can be the wages of the thinker. What could
possibly compensate for such sorrows? What does the existence
of the thinker deliver that makes the many obstacles worth facing?
This is the question that Plato, Socrates’ pupil, sets out to answer.
For Socrates has done only half the work of philosophy. He has