Socrates: What is this I hear? You claim to “know more than the majority of people"? * Is that your belief? Is it your knowledge?
Biden: Yes. I have more experience than “anybody has gone through the office.”
Socrates: You mean “anybody who (or that) has gone through the office.” Or “that (or who) has held the office”? Surely, there have been many wise people who have gone “through the office.”
Biden: Whatever. Here’s the thing, man. I’ve been in office since I was in college, when I was elected school President in high school. I have met leaders in many countries, and I was just in…in…in…
Socrates: Ireland?
Biden: Yeah, Ireland. When was…
Socrates: Last week. But you claim a certain wisdom others do not have. Is that in itself a mark of both ignorance and hubris? For example, do you know more than your son Hunter? Didn’t you once say that he was the smartest man you knew?
Biden: Yes. He is.
Socrates: But then, if Hunter is the smartest man you know, is that to say that you aren’t as wise as Hunter? That he falls outside “the majority of people” that you claim to be wiser than? Are you in the majority of people whose wisdom does not exceed that of Hunter’s?
Biden: Uh! Huh? Look, man, I’ve met with…I had the highest grades of anyone who ever graduated seventy-fifth out of 85 law school graduates. I went to school on a full scholarship. I was the only one in my class on a full academic scholarship. I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you’d like, Frank…. **
Socrates: Socrates, son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete, not Frank…Wasn’t that a financial needs grant?
Biden: Look, man, I’m from Scranton. I…
Socrates: Does the wisdom you claim entitle you to exaggerate?
Biden: I exaggerate when I'm angry, but I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true about me. I drove a big rig.
Socrates: Are you conflating driving a school bus and driving a tractor trailer?
Biden: I was a lifeguard. The children used to play with my leg hair.
Socrates: But we were talking about wisdom, not about driving a tractor trailer or about children and leg hair.
Biden: Yes. Wisdom…I think I’d compare my IQ to yours any day, man.
Socrates: And you certainly might have a higher IQ. No one ever tested me more than two millennia ago though the Oracle at Delphi supposedly said I was the wisest man in Athens. But I assume the Oracle said that because I know that I know nothing. Acknowledging one’s ignorance might be the basis of wisdom.
Biden: [walks away with the aid someone in an Easter Bunny suit]
Socrates: I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either. ***
*https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/05/05/biden-on-his-age-i-know-more-than-the-vast-majority-of-people/.
**https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vintage-biden-clip-resurfaces-law-school
***ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι; translated by Henry Cary in 1897.
Biden: Yes. I have more experience than “anybody has gone through the office.”
Socrates: You mean “anybody who (or that) has gone through the office.” Or “that (or who) has held the office”? Surely, there have been many wise people who have gone “through the office.”
Biden: Whatever. Here’s the thing, man. I’ve been in office since I was in college, when I was elected school President in high school. I have met leaders in many countries, and I was just in…in…in…
Socrates: Ireland?
Biden: Yeah, Ireland. When was…
Socrates: Last week. But you claim a certain wisdom others do not have. Is that in itself a mark of both ignorance and hubris? For example, do you know more than your son Hunter? Didn’t you once say that he was the smartest man you knew?
Biden: Yes. He is.
Socrates: But then, if Hunter is the smartest man you know, is that to say that you aren’t as wise as Hunter? That he falls outside “the majority of people” that you claim to be wiser than? Are you in the majority of people whose wisdom does not exceed that of Hunter’s?
Biden: Uh! Huh? Look, man, I’ve met with…I had the highest grades of anyone who ever graduated seventy-fifth out of 85 law school graduates. I went to school on a full scholarship. I was the only one in my class on a full academic scholarship. I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you’d like, Frank…. **
Socrates: Socrates, son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete, not Frank…Wasn’t that a financial needs grant?
Biden: Look, man, I’m from Scranton. I…
Socrates: Does the wisdom you claim entitle you to exaggerate?
Biden: I exaggerate when I'm angry, but I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true about me. I drove a big rig.
Socrates: Are you conflating driving a school bus and driving a tractor trailer?
Biden: I was a lifeguard. The children used to play with my leg hair.
Socrates: But we were talking about wisdom, not about driving a tractor trailer or about children and leg hair.
Biden: Yes. Wisdom…I think I’d compare my IQ to yours any day, man.
Socrates: And you certainly might have a higher IQ. No one ever tested me more than two millennia ago though the Oracle at Delphi supposedly said I was the wisest man in Athens. But I assume the Oracle said that because I know that I know nothing. Acknowledging one’s ignorance might be the basis of wisdom.
Biden: [walks away with the aid someone in an Easter Bunny suit]
Socrates: I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either. ***
*https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/05/05/biden-on-his-age-i-know-more-than-the-vast-majority-of-people/.
**https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vintage-biden-clip-resurfaces-law-school
***ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι; translated by Henry Cary in 1897.
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