Academic

Symposia, the Ancient Greek Way

By Laura Appleman

Saturday's New York Times had a great blog post about the original Greek symposium, which differs rather markedly from the typical academic symposia of today. As the author explains, a symposium was:

a ?classic moderate drinking-party? common to the wealthier households of Athens, during which men of stature would engage in lively debate, with bowls of wine dispensed under the careful watch of a symposiarch (a sort of strict toastmaster).

In fact, the Greeks as a society knew how to integrate wine-drinking into their daily lives, as something both quotidian and sacred:

the breathtaking wine kraters in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the dialogues of Plato, the plays of Euripides, all attest to a longstanding relationship with alcohol.The Greeks taught us plenty about philosophy, government and art. And we can learn from their drinking, too. They loved wine, yet knew that its consumption must be carefully controlled.

Wouldn't the average symposium be much improved by the addition of a symposiarch, who offered both the speakers and guests bowls of wine to help the conversation flow? Who knows, we might end up with a symposium like the celebrated one of Socrates, which resulted in "an overarching vision of love that has endured in the Western imagination for more than two millennia." Love, Law, the mixture of the two, great thoughts about either can be encouraged with a judicious use of wine and imagination...

Because, as W.H. Auden said, in his great poem Law like Love:

[Law,] like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).