Is There Money In Philosophy?

Is there money in Philosophy? Is there any money in the creation and exploration of ideas? Do they not charge you to hear their ideas? Do they not insist that their way of thinking is right? Do they not assert that it is their way only and other ways are wrong? Do they not pass the hat, pass the plate, pass the blank checks, pass the credit card forms, pass the money laws, and collect the taxes and the fees? Do not those with Power show their contempt for those without? Do they not hunt down and kill those who think and thus act differently? In the land of free speech do they not assault those who speak out and demand freedom in the land of the free?

Ideas move humanity at least as much as boredom, hunger, cold, rage, sex, and any want and desire. What of Christians who do not believe in Christmas, even if such Christians are not very interesting and wonder why they are shunned by regulars?

What of Atheists who do not believe in any holiday of religious origin be it Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or otherwise, and how they are shunned and hated and even hunted down for murder?

Honesty and Socrates

Honesty was what Socrates instructed. He came up with the refrain "I know nothing" but in the course of conversations demonstrated that it was the partner in the conversations that knew nothing that they said they did. [Others wrote down the dialogues or conversations. It was a skill highly prized in those days to be able to repeat verbatim entire conversations, whole speeches, or sets of instructions while someone else could write it down.] The famous were confronted in public and the public listened while Socrates would very politely but very thoroughly demonstrate that though he claimed to know nothing that it was the famous-for-something who had no good nor sufficient reason to be famous for anything. They were publicly shown to be mendacious in their claims of skills and abilities and knowledge. Thus publicly humiliated they walked away angry. They eventually managed to kill the become old man, Socrates, at 72. It was not just personal. The power depended on the hoi polloi being duped and kept that way. 2500 years later we learn ... something!