On August 16 I received an email from John Doherty informing me about the Helpful Content Update (HCU), i.e. the efforts of the internet providers to weed out irrelevant pages ‘ranking in Google’, and to correct what needs correcting. I was particularly interested in the closing passage:
‘As always,
if you're investing in content and want help making it better (or just making
it at all), we'd love to chat with you at EditorNinja.’
I wrote to
John Doherty:
‘I googled
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which I wanted to view. I received a
number of offers, in the first place ITVX Free of charge. I am 85, live on
Pension Credit, and so I welcomed the ITVX offer. I clicked on Watch now Free of charge, but instead of the movie I
expected, I was introduced to a tedious process of opening an account with ITVX.
Resigned to this ITVX understanding of 'Free of charge', I followed the
necessary steps, hoping
that in the end I should be able to watch the movie. Instead, I was presented
with an offer of movies which I was not interested in, but I could not find a
way to opening 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'.
The ITVX
‘offer’ can be seen as a sad joke. But when all those, who turn to the internet
to get information on Plato, are misled and misinformed, this is no laughing
matter.
When you
google on Plato, you are offered ‘Platonic Chronology and Writings’. When you
open it, you are offered a table, which tells you, that Plato began to write
his dialogues after Socrates died.
And yet,
the Meno was written – provably – several years prior to
Socrates’ trial and death.’
In response,
John Doherty offered me an internet meeting. The meeting was to take place on
August 19, 2’30 pm to 3 pm. But at 2 pm, just as I opened the computer in
preparation for the meeting, I found in my Inbox an email in which John Doherty
wrote ‘I’m not quite sure what this has to do with my business? Can you
please help me understand?’
I replied:
“A
substantial Russian article on Plato on the internet quotes in its opening
section the remark of Whitehead, British mathematician, logician, and
philosopher: 'The European philosophy is best characterized as a series of
remarks on Plato.'
All Plato's
dialogues have been preserved; for centuries, prior to the press, they were
copied and recopied by lovers of his works. This cannot be said of his
predecessors and contemporaries.
People turn
to Internet for information on Plato - and, as I have pointed out, they are
misinformed: they learn that Plato wrote his dialogues after Socrates died,
while it can be proved that Plato wrote the Meno prior to
Socrates' trial and death:
1. Diogenes
Laertius writes in his 'Life of Socrates': Socrates 'would take to task those
who thought highly of themselves, proving them to be fools, as to be sure he
treated Anytus, according to Plato's Meno. For Anytus could
not endure to be ridiculed by Socrates, and so in the first place stirred up
against him Aristophanes and his friends; then afterwards he helped to persuade
Meletus to indict him on a charge of impiety and corrupting the youth.'
Anytus must
have done this after the Meno had been circulated, and prior
to Socrates' trial.
2.
Xenophon writes in the Anabasis: 'the facts which everybody
knows are the following: Meno was not, like Clearchus and the rest of the
generals, beheaded - a manner of death which is counted speediest - but was
tortured to death alive for a year and so met the death of a scoundrel.'
In his 'Life
of Xenophon' Diogenes says: 'Xenophon took part in the expedition of Cyrus in
the year before the death of Socrates.'
Socrates
closes the Meno with the words: 'It is now time for me to go
my way, but do you persuade Anytus of that of which you are now yourself
persuaded, so as to put him in a gentler mood; for if you can persuade him, you
will do a good turn to the people of Athens also.’
The question
is, how could Plato write the Meno after all that Xenophon
says about him in the Anabasis became generally known?”
Let me note
that the facts about Meno, to which Xenophon points, must have been known in
Greek territories long before Xenophon wrote the Anabasis.
John Doherty
replied: ‘Thanks for the message. Unfortunately, I'm still confused as to why
you're sending all of this to me. Are you writing a book or something, or was
there something I or someone I know published that was incorrect?’
I replied: ‘In
answer to your query, let me quote your own words:
“As always,
if you're investing in content and want help making it better (or just making
it at all), we'd love to chat with you at EditorNinja.”
