I wonder if there is any quantitative method for estimating how often or how much we falsify the past out of reverence for it.

One of my favorite media realities is the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice. I’ve always wondered how it compares to the book. I eventually read the book and it is remarkably accurate, and yet totally misleading. Watching early 18th-century upper class Brits is an inherently refined and austere experience. It is horrifically serious. Yes you acknowledge in comedic relief in some characters, but the overall feeling is one of grand pomp.

But the real Pride & Prejudce is almost nothing but comedy. Jane Austin (in this work, at least) belongs with Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, and H. L. Mencken. It is all farce and satire. The cultural portrayal in the movie is inherently at odds with what Austin was trying to communicate. (It is still good. In fact, I lke my A&E fantasy better than the book.)

When people think of “philosophy” they think of something academic, intellectual, and high. But reading the Meno I can’t help but draw comparisons to Seinfeld and George Carlon. Socrates is a mocker. He is a comedian.

It makes me wonder. Did Socrates get domesticated post-mortem by being revered? Was that his triumph or the ultimate triumph of his killers?

Recently, there have been a spate of books about philosophy and something in pop entertainment or sports, the most interesting being Buffy and Philosophy. We perceive such things as a sort of reaching out on the part of philosophy to some other region of human life. But maybe philosophy is simply returning to itself, to entertainment.

Philosophy is the material that results from making fun.