English 5599 - Creative Writing For Teachers
Glaukos Lost
They regurgitate what they've been taught. The writers of history, I mean. And if they're not sure about something, they make it up.
We have to fill in the gaps, they say. It's what we do. Nice, neat package.
The real reason they do this is so our kids grow up confident that they know something. Feed them this sh*t and they feel good about themselves.
Memorize the nine planets in the solar system.
Easy enough.
Learn your multiplication tables.
Piece of cake.
Learn the philosophers from Thales to Foucault.
Okay.
They don't ask questions. It's locked in. They feel warm and fuzzy. They are the gods of academia, the little bastards.
It's about self-esteem. It's about teaching the children that they are great. That they can move mountains. That they can f**king fly. They get this for twelve years, and the kids who swallow it graduate to prison.
So Thales is the first Western philosopher. Scholars throughout antiquity agree. It's a fact. Write it down and sign in blood if you want.
But what if I told you that some other guy predicted that solar eclipse? What if I said Thales was a wag?
Thales had a neighbor named Glaukos. Glaukos was a genius. You don't know this because scholars don't know this. See, most of the facts were long gone by the time Aristotle came on the scene. What did Aristotle know? Misinformation. Add that to speculation and you get a twisted history.
Where is that blasted papyrus about Thales' prediction? he asked.
Disintegrated, they said. Got old.
You'd fall apart too if you were a smashed and dried water plant.
Here's what happened. The account of Glaukos, a pensive hermit, and Thales, a dull-witted rogue, was inscribed on papyrus in 584 B.C. (This is the year after the eclipse.) Thales was steeped into the tradition of his ancestors. Greek mythology to him was factual, like his accomplishments are to you. Glaukos, god rest his soul, was interested in knowledge. He scribbled little notes about everything.
Everything is water, he said.
Through his work, reductionism was born. He wrote a book. We lost the book.
They were neighbors. That's the only connection.
So through the years, scribes would copy this account by hand to fresh papyrus. Scribes get sleepy and sloppy and slappy. They make mistakes.
In time, these erroneous copies became fragmentary. Key passages wore out. Glaukos' name disappeared. Oral tradition further clouded the fruit juice.
What we have now is a history fraught with error. It's not funny.