Socrates, Hemlock and the New Wave We are Surfing

Per Lachaise, Paris, on a fall afternoon

When I was at Boston University, I was part of a program called DGE. It was known as the “Division of General Education” but was considered a prelaw program, that was taught by some of the brightest at the University. Classroom size was small compared to rest of the 26K students, and each student signed up for a two year program.

Julian Baird was the professor who taught Humanities. As I’ve mentioned here before, I was a huge fan of Julian’s; he had a profound effect on my world view. He passed away not too long ago, but I was able to spend some time with him and my camera. I got a chance to speak to the maestro before he checked off the planet.

For those who are fans of “Backstage Pass to the Flipside” — he gets his own chapter. And here’s a link to Part One of his two part story.

But what DGE’s program alluded to — is that throughout human history, movements can be charted in terms of their influence on society. So when the Greeks were discovering democracy, the politics of the day was exploring what that meant, the science of the day was exploring how the planet worked, and the arts — plays, sculpture, mosaics — were mirroring each other’s…