While having breakfast we just happened to overhear a song by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa called "Young, Wild and Free". Listen to it
here. Let me paste in the chorus below.
So what we get drunk
So what we smoke weed
We’re just having fun
We don’t care who sees
So what we go out
That’s how its supposed to be
Living young and wild and free.
As it happened, our job after breakfast involved reading a bit of Plato, and, quite by chance, we came across this bit of commentary:
Plato (Laws vol 2 654) considers children are incapable of any further education if they have not already had a good musical training. The point was not simply to learn about music or simply to learn how to play an instrument or sing so as to be able to take part in the local festivals. Rather, the more important point was for music to refine the soul of the young person - a crucial stage in opening the mind and the sensitivities of the individual so that it would be receptive to beauty, goodness and truth. Again in the book "Protogoras" (326a) Plato expresses the widely held view that music helps cultivate σωφροσύνη (wisdom, restraint, modesty) and σύνεση (discretion).
Αn entire book could be written about what has happened in the intervening years, but we will just leave the juxtaposition as it is with Plato standing there next to Snoop Dogg.
