Exactly. Even in Paul Graham's own essay, some things are always forgotten. He's smart enough to question why the Church/Italian state attacked Galileo for repeating Copernicus' ideas, who was a celebrated hero of the church.
And nobody ever realizes that Galileo was not at all interested in the scientific facts (well he was, up to the point he went insane and became a political agitator and generally a lunatic, read his letters, you'll see that I'm actually quite polite here). Rather he was organizing demonstrations and violence because the church owed him a different kind of state (needless to say, with him on top) because the earth rotated around the sun (amongst many other "reasons", most of them quite insane). This case was then dug up later to justify ripping the catholic church out of Germany. That failed, but the story about Galileo stuck.
Some of our historical heroes ... aren't heroes. Socrates is a similar situation. Celebrated philosopher. Speaker at nearly every forum (meaning the weekly meeting where their direct democracy happened). He was an advocate, a statesman, a philosopher.
And then they execute him. Wait. What ? Nobody ever seems to think that they've probably skipped over small part of the story here.
An inaccurate summary was that Socrates' students were involved TWICE with actions that led to the military sacking of Athens, with very strong suspicions of him having ordered them to do so. This "just happened" to occur right after one of the first times he didn't get his way in the forum. The first time he got off with a stern warning, execution of every one of his students involved that sided with the occupying force, and a promise not to have any students for 2 years, which he promptly ignored. Then it very nearly happened again, and again his students were helping the enemy army. Then he was executed together with his students.
There is at least a decent case to be made that Galileo was executed for organizing violent protests against the state (using, amongst many other things, the idea that the earth rotated around the sun as a rallying idea).
Likewise, Socrates was likely killed for organizing the military conquest of Athens when he couldn't democratically get his way in parliament twice (and for having a habit of sleeping with the wives of other Atheneans). Not because Atheneans were afraid of science.
Neither of them were very nice people. Not that horrible people can't be important forces of good in history, but you should at least note that this is so. E.g. Kemal Ataturk, an early 20th century figure that a lot more genocidal than Hitler. He also ended the 1.5 millenia long war of muslims against the west and the east, and frankly without him we would not have a modern time. He ended it because he thought it was a waste of money, effort and most of all, lives, not because he was against war. He just didn't believe the objective was worth the cost. Still, his importance in making our current mostly democratic world possible is at least on par with Churchill. But he is a monster, personally responsible for several ethnic extermination campaigns, no doubt about that.
> There is at least a decent case to be made that Galileo was executed
Where do you get that he was executed?
Also, regarding differences between Copernicus's treatment and Galileo's. Copernicus didn't publish a lot of his material, nor was it widely known, until late in life. Galileo basically stepped into the controversy that had developed after Copernicus died. Essentially, there was little controversy in Copernicus's time because it wasn't widely known, and those that did know his theory didn't have a reason (yet) to view it as controversial or "wrong".
This is my point. Galileo didn't advance knowledge by his acts, that was already done (within the scientific community if not within the wider world) (And granted, he did advance knowledge at other times on other subjects). He attempted to use it to change the state by agitating large portions of the population using that fact.
I would even say he was not so much looking to change the state, rather to destroy it, becoming a sort of dictator himself, without any thought to what that would do. This he did after a few years of sending out letter that made it very clear he would immediately execute half the nobility and clergy if he did come to power. It didn't help that he had pissed off all of his teachers and environment with those letters. This is what his trial was really about, and of course it mentioned his rallying cries.Those were not the essence of the trial though.
Think about it. Suppose you're an autocratic ruler in the middle ages, in Italy. Everybody's writing letters, a lot of them calling for your throat getting slit. One more of these lunatics starts writing letters. Disturbing letters, lots of them. You ignore him, at this point, there's 100 others like him. Then a few demonstrations happen, led by him, with hundreds of people calling for your throat getting slit on the street. This is unnerving, but happens regularly, most demonstration leaders are never seen again, so, again, you probably ignore this. But if he manages to make the demonstrations grow, you've got to react. That's what happened.
Regardless if you agree with the second paragraph, he was not attacked because he claimed the earth rotated around the sun.
Can you cite some sources on Galileo as instigator against the state? I've never heard of this before. Also, did you really mean, in your OP, to say that he was executed? That was the first I'd heard of that, and everything I checked (in an admittedly short search) indicated that he died of old age.
I figured as much. For a while I thought waps was going for an ironic, given the pg post that prompted this, posting. Now I think s/he is serious, but without citations there's no way to know for certain. Either way, I learned more about Copernicus and Galileo trying to figure out what waps was talking about.
That Socrates thing is curious. His crime: "Socrates is guilty of crime in refusing to recognize the gods acknowledged by the state, and importing strange divinities of his own; he is further guilty of corrupting the young."
Was that just a convenient law to hang his prosecution on? Why not "inciting others to treason" or some such direct accusion?
Not saying this is the case, but giving bogus reasons makes it impossible to mount a defense. If I say you have invisible murderers at your home, it would be hard to discredit me in front of a jury that believes in invisible people.
It's a less subtle attack than "have you stopped hitting your wife yet?"
The standing of Socrates among his fellow citizens suffered mightily during two periods
in which Athenian democracy was temporarily overthrown, one four-month period in 411-410
and another slightly longer period in 404-403. *The prime movers in both of the anti-democratic
movements were former pupils of Socrates, Alcibiades and Critias*. Athenians undoubtedly
considered the teachings of Socrates--especially his expressions of disdain for the
established constitution--partially responsible for the resulting death and suffering.
Alcibiades, perhaps Socrates' favorite Athenian politician, masterminded the first
overthrow. (Alcibiades had other strikes against him: four years earlier, Alcibiades had
fled to Sparta to avoid facing trial for mutilating religious pillars--statues of
Hermes--and while in Sparta had proposed to that state's leaders that he help them defeat
Athens.) Critias, first among an oligarchy known as the "Thirty Tyrants," led the second
bloody revolt against the restored Athenian democracy in 404. The revolt sent many of
Athen's leading democratic citizens (including Anytus, later the driving force behind
the prosecution of Socrates) into exile, where they organized a resistance movement.
Are you referring to the Thirty Tyrants? Because that's the only time I can think of that Socrates was involved with tyranny. But the only thing I know of that was that he explicitly refused to be complicit in their tyranny (by helping in capturing an innocent man).
Furthermore, Socrates' death was a single event. There were no other people executed beside him, as far as I know.
"Kemal Ataturk, an early 20th century figure that a lot more genocidal than Hitler. He also ended the 1.5 millenia long war of muslims against the west and the east, and frankly without him we would not have a modern time."
True enough. But then why does the modern Turkish state continue to deny what happened to the Ottoman Armenians? You think they'd have a field day showing how much the Empire sucked.
I might be wrong, but apart from Germany no one has owned up a genocide. I suspect Germans wouldn't have done it if it wasn't forced upon them during allied occupation of Germany.
There's little reason for Turkish to break ground in this regard.
I was going to respond with Germany. Specifically, the East German state did not own up to it like the West despite it being great propaganda for the founding of a communist state.
A government does not gain from showing its society a proper mirror. It runs the risk of losing ground by having "insulted" the guilty older generation and national identity, and simultaneously plants the distrust for itself (it mostly is that older generation) to form a youth revolt (the RAF supposedly formed from this distrust in West Germany.)
And nobody ever realizes that Galileo was not at all interested in the scientific facts (well he was, up to the point he went insane and became a political agitator and generally a lunatic, read his letters, you'll see that I'm actually quite polite here). Rather he was organizing demonstrations and violence because the church owed him a different kind of state (needless to say, with him on top) because the earth rotated around the sun (amongst many other "reasons", most of them quite insane). This case was then dug up later to justify ripping the catholic church out of Germany. That failed, but the story about Galileo stuck.
Some of our historical heroes ... aren't heroes. Socrates is a similar situation. Celebrated philosopher. Speaker at nearly every forum (meaning the weekly meeting where their direct democracy happened). He was an advocate, a statesman, a philosopher.
And then they execute him. Wait. What ? Nobody ever seems to think that they've probably skipped over small part of the story here.
An inaccurate summary was that Socrates' students were involved TWICE with actions that led to the military sacking of Athens, with very strong suspicions of him having ordered them to do so. This "just happened" to occur right after one of the first times he didn't get his way in the forum. The first time he got off with a stern warning, execution of every one of his students involved that sided with the occupying force, and a promise not to have any students for 2 years, which he promptly ignored. Then it very nearly happened again, and again his students were helping the enemy army. Then he was executed together with his students.
There is at least a decent case to be made that Galileo was executed for organizing violent protests against the state (using, amongst many other things, the idea that the earth rotated around the sun as a rallying idea).
Likewise, Socrates was likely killed for organizing the military conquest of Athens when he couldn't democratically get his way in parliament twice (and for having a habit of sleeping with the wives of other Atheneans). Not because Atheneans were afraid of science.
Neither of them were very nice people. Not that horrible people can't be important forces of good in history, but you should at least note that this is so. E.g. Kemal Ataturk, an early 20th century figure that a lot more genocidal than Hitler. He also ended the 1.5 millenia long war of muslims against the west and the east, and frankly without him we would not have a modern time. He ended it because he thought it was a waste of money, effort and most of all, lives, not because he was against war. He just didn't believe the objective was worth the cost. Still, his importance in making our current mostly democratic world possible is at least on par with Churchill. But he is a monster, personally responsible for several ethnic extermination campaigns, no doubt about that.