Do we live in a world that can change or one that is forever doomed to repeat the same misperceptions over and over? This was the question of Socrates. This was both the question he asked and the question we are still left with after his parting from this Earth more than 2,000 years ago. This is the message of the Neoclassicist painting depicting his final hours, condemned by the city-state whose noble principles he admired but misunderstanding actions he abhorred ("The Death of Socrates" 1). How its composition relates to this message will be explored below.
Critics can say that although Socrates asked provocative questions (mostly attempting to define what we know and what we do not know) he never answered them. He had hunches, very often conjecturing on the transmigration of the soul and the function of memory in relation to learning knowledge. Some could say without fear of factual reproach that he was like an open-heart surgeon who ripped out patients' hearts without giving them transplants.
Yet we can do better in representing Socrates, as the painting does through its clear stroke style and sharp images. His bold honesty cut through the garbage of his time toward a clear vision. His distaste for sophistry was as close to heroic as man can manage. His lack of fear in the face of formalized threat, his courage to speak up at the risk of sounding like a fool, his iconoclasm in questioning idolatry, his honesty left the Earth with him only to occasionally return in the likes of Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Caesar Chavez.
This pure power of speech lay in its disregard for reception by others. Verily, this is the only way to verify truth. In Socrates's view and my own, if one caters to an audience, rest assured he or she is not speaking from the soul. Socrates spoke his truth regardless of how others thought of it. This is the only assurance that truth is truth.
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