[lbo-talk] Christopher Hitchens dead

[// ravi]

On Dec 16, 2011, at 3:31 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
> 
> Maybe. I always got the feeling that Hitchens's goal in debate was to
> vanquish his foes, like Deleuze and Guattari's Socrates, which is not
> very compelling, and is politically problematic, to me.
> 
> "Philosophy has a horror of discussions. It always has something else
> to do. Debate is unbearable to it, but not because it is too sure of
> itself. On the contrary, it is its uncertainties that take it down
> other more solitary paths. But in Socrates was philosophy not a free
> discussion among friends? Is it not, as the conversation among free
> men, the summit of Greek sociability? In fact, Socrates made all
> debate impossible, both in the short form of questions and answers and
> in the long form of a rivalry among discourses. He turned the friend
> into the friend of the single concept, and the concept into the
> pitiless monologue that eliminates the rivals one by one.”

Interesting passage, thank you for posting. What does “turned the friend into the friend of the single concept” mean here?

	—ravi