Nichol as Socrates

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Nichol as Socrates				February 27, 2008

The only good thing about February is that, after 999 days of crummy weather, it finally yields to March and the advent of spring.

Another damning feature of the month is that on the ancient Greek equivalent of our Feb. 15, Socrates was condemned to death in 399 B.C. by an Athenian jury. The politically motivated charges against him were twofold: He did not believe in the state gods and he corrupted the youth. Socrates’ speech to the jury (no lawyers were allowed) in defense of his actions is recorded in a work by his student, Plato, called the “Apology of Socrates.”

In his speech, Socrates defends his gadfly-like approach to teaching inductive reasoning and easily dismisses the charge of religious heresy. He then goes on to deal with the ideological bases on which the charges were brought by questioning the veracity of his prime antagonist, a political hack named Meletus.

Socrates closes by noting the benefit of his activities to the state and opining that the jury probably would, in lieu of death, offer him as a severance benefit banishment from the city on the condition that he keep his mouth shut and teach no more. This, he says, he cannot do.

Like most intellectual iconoclasts, Socrates was possessed of an inner driving force (he called it his “daimon”) that, like a tragic flaw, propelled him to his downfall. He simply could not accept the fact that ultimate reason and right thinking should not be the goal of his fellow citizens. Closed minds and lackadaisical thought patterns were anathematized to the point of being intolerable. Belief, as opposed to true knowledge, was no excuse for remaining in a state of abject stupidity.

Unfortunately, human nature is not receptive to such attacks on entrenched systemic beliefs. No one who is sure he knows what “good” means or what constitutes beauty wants to be questioned at length by some intellectual wizard and then told that he’s so illogical as to be nuts.

All of which brings me to the case of former William & Mary president Gene Nichol, another victim of fatal February.

The nature of Nichol’s disposition and the situation in which he eventually found himself bear a striking resemblance to Socrates and his dilemma.

In his masterfully written resignation letter of Feb. 12, Nichol not only reveals an intense dedication to Greek rhetorical devices, but also, in epistolary form, follows exquisitely the oratorical arguments of Socrates in the “Apology.”

He begins by acknowledging the four decisions, including the removal of the Wren Chapel cross (not believing in state gods) and his approval of the recent sex show (corrupting the youth), that constitute the charges against him. He then takes on his media and legislative antagonists, emphasizing throughout the irrationally detrimental effects of their attacks on him, his family and the college.

In closing, he outlines the benefits of his presidency to the college and on principle declines the severance offer made by the Board of Visitors. Like Socrates, Nichol rejects the notion that ideology had nothing to do with his firing and refuses to wander off silently into the night of irrelevance.

On the surface, the charges against Nichol, like those against Socrates, seem ludicrous. Can we really fault him because he never received the memo indicating that Christianity was our local state religion? And what is so evil about taking a principled stand on the First Amendment? Why is his appeal to Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state or refusal to suppress speech so beyond our ken?

Finally, why, despite increased campus-wide diversity, despite record applications for admission, despite more emphasis than ever on research among both faculty and students and what Nichol refers to as “wider horizons” do we want to rid ourselves of this Socratic gadfly?

Well, we want Nichol gone for the same reasons the Athenians wanted Socrates out of their hair. In his search for a rational accommodation with the future, he persistently bucks the system. And therein lies his iconoclastic flaw.

Like Socrates, his inductive mode of reaching decisions and determining rectitude does not include idle committee chatter or obeisance to ideological belief systems that preclude anything that might be considered progressive or transformative. His inner avoidance daimon will never move him in the direction of compromise with what he believes to be destructively close-minded or exclusive.

In a Feb. 15 editorial favoring the decision of the Board of Visitors to remove Nichol, the Flat Hat noted that “We must remember that Nichol’s presidency represents just three out of 315 years of this institution’s history. A university that has survived the Civil War and the Great Depression can likely endure this period of turmoil.”

And so it will. What it won’t endure is a retrogressive, piety-driven race for the distant past or an increase in legislative meddling, for which the Nichol affair has provided an extremely unwelcome opening.

Short though his tenure was, there is no doubt that Nichol has made an indelible mark on William & Mary. We can hope only that the Board of Visitors has not made the same egregious mistake the Athenians did when they silenced Socrates.