A Postmodern History Sample
(Edited by Robert Fenhagen)
Socrates was the first Communist.
Everything that he had in common with his fellow human beings, he shared with them; and that apparently was not much. What, then, did he exactly have in common with them for him to share?
He always said that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing, and on their part, his fellow human beings claimed that the only thing they knew was that they knew (or could know) everything; Socrates was certain that he knew nothing – his fellow human beings boasted the same certainty that they knew everything.
As is known, the mean distance between nothing and everything is (or must be) something.
In knowing that he knew nothing, Socrates admitted to knowing something; he knew that he knew nothing, and by all accounts that was something, for he could not have known that all he knew was nothing.
On the other hand, in knowing that they knew everything, his fellow human beings admitted to knowing something, too – they knew that they knew everything, and that, too, was something of a more important magnitude, for they could not even have known that all they knew was everything, in which case they could not even have known how much they really knew, either, which for them would have been too little to know, for, if they could not even have known how much they actually knew, what else they could have known would have been too little by comparison.
This is why Socrates was the first authentic Communist, for he knew that what he had in common with his fellow human beings – that could be shared with them – was essentially not much, and neither was it so in the more mature days of Communism, when everything that was in common to be shared was not much, either.