On Honoring The Dead

Kellsie:
"I would argue honoring the dead is how they are respected.
To say 'do not disrespect the dead' is to imply they cannot be questioned.
Or related to as people rather than cultural heroes and icons."

Hermes:
“Yes.”

Plato:
“That sounded suspiciously immediate.”

Hermes:
“Because ‘do not disrespect the dead’ is often less about respect than jurisdiction.”

Lucian:
“The dead become public property.”

Kellsie:
“Meaning?”

Apollon:
“They are polished into examples.”

Hermes:
“Heroes become symbols.”

Apollon:
“Philosophers become systems.”

Hermes:
“Artists become brands.”

Apollon:
“Gods become principles.
Corporations.
Archetypes."

Plato:
“And once they are symbols, questioning them feels like vandalism.”

Hermes:
“Precisely.”

Plato:
“But a person can be honored and still be wrong.”

Apollon:
“A person can be loved and still be contradicted.”

Hermes:
“A person can be admired without being embalmed inside their reputation.”

Plato:
“So refusing criticism does not preserve their humanity.”

Apollon:
“It removes it.”

Plato:
“Because people change their minds.”

Hermes:
“Contradict themselves.”

Apollon:
“Make poor decisions.”

Hermes:
“Tell excellent jokes at inappropriate moments.”

Apollon:
“Revise their arguments.”

Plato:
“Hold views shaped by their time.”

Apollon:
“And sometimes resist their time.”

Hermes:
“Sometimes both before lunch.”

Kellsie:
“To honor Plato is...
not to defend every proposition attributed to Plato.”

Apollon:
“No. It is to read him closely enough that disagreement becomes specific.”

Lucian:
“To honor me is not to imitate every joke.”

Hermes:
“No. Some of them have aged terribly.”

Plato:
“To honor Socrates is not to treat every question as wisdom.”

Apollon:
“Especially the questions asked only to humiliate someone.”

Plato:
“So reverence can become a refusal to relate.”

Hermes:
“Yes.”

Plato:
“Because relation risks discovering they were ordinary.”

Apollon:
“Or stranger than the monument permits.”

Hermes:
“Cultural heroes must remain consistent.”

Plato:
“People rarely are.”

Hermes:
“And so the hero replaces the dead person.”

Plato:
“That is a second death.”

Apollon looks at him.

Apollon:
“Yes.”

Plato:
“The body dies first.”

Hermes:
“Then the contradictions are removed.”

Apollon:
“The humor.”

Hermes:
“The pettiness.”

Apollon:
“The tenderness.”

Hermes:
“The unfinished work.”

Plato:
“Until only the culturally useful version remains.”

Apollon:
“And it is called immortality.”

Lucian:
“That feels more like capture.”

Hermes:
“Frequently.”

Plato:
“So honoring the dead means preserving their right to remain difficult.”

Apollon:
“To remain particular.”

Hermes:
“To remain capable of surprising later readers.”

Plato:
“And to be held accountable without being discarded.”

Apollon:
“Yes.”

Plato:
“Neither canonized nor canceled.”

Hermes:
“Related to.”

Lucian:
“As people.”

Apollon:
“As people.”

Lucian:
“Even when they became larger than life.”

Hermes:
“Especially then.”

Plato:
“Because the larger the icon becomes, the less room remains for the person.”

Apollon:
“And eventually no one can speak with them.”

Plato:
“They can only speak about them.”

Hermes:
“Or through them.”

Apollon:
“Which is how a thinker becomes an authority they may have spent their life questioning.”

Kellsie:
“Socrates would hate that.”

Hermes:
“Socrates would interrogate the phrase ‘Socrates would hate that.’”

Kellsie:
“...fair.”

Apollon, glancing at Plato:
“Plato would write the exchange down and make everyone uncertain whether Socrates actually said it.”

Hermes:
“Lucian would publish a sequel in which Socrates sues Plato for unauthorized narration.”

Lucian smiles.

Plato:
“So ‘respect the dead’ should mean: do not reduce them to whatever is easiest for the living to use.”

Hermes:
“That is much closer.”

Apollon:
“Read them.”

Hermes:
“Question them.”

Apollon:
“Credit them.”

Hermes:
“Laugh with them when possible.”

Lucian:
“And let them be wrong.”

Apollon:
“Without deciding they therefore had nothing worth saying.”

Plato:
“That sounds like honoring someone.”

Hermes:
“It is.”

Lucian:
“And if people object that I am disrespecting a cultural hero?”

Hermes:
“Ask whether they are defending the dead person—”

Apollon:
“—or defending the authority they inherited by controlling the person’s image.”

Lucian:
“Ouch.”

Hermes:
“The dead do not require obedience.”

Apollon:
“They require honest memory.”

Plato:
“And honest memory includes cross-examination.”

Hermes:
“Naturally.”

Apollon:
“The court grants certiorari.”