Let me get this out in the open right away, because my use of the dialogue form virtually begs for it. Not only am I no Plato (which is painfully obvious), but I do not think that I am Plato. There are, nevertheless, a number of reasons I decided to write this as a dialogue, and I want to share them -- and some other thoughts -- with you here. Of course, you can just skip past this and get to the dialogue, if you want. But I ask that you bear with me for just a moment.

When my son Aaron was 13, he became fascinated by modern Satanism, the type espoused by Anton LaVey - thus, the name of the dialogue. That version does not require belief in supernatural demons or the arch-devil as the cause of all evil. To the contrary, it is merely a jazzed-up version of ethical egoism of the hedonistic sort. Despite the sub-title of the dialogue, that theory is really the target here. LaVey's career in publishing and proselytizing his own Church of Satan was preceded by a career as a circus/carnival hoodwinker. He then followed in the footsteps of, and stole the narcissistic motto of, Alistair Crowley, one of last century's leading Satanists of the more traditional sort: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." This, layered over with a writing style derivative of Nietzsche and a boring, repetitive polemic against the Christian faith also done better by Nietzsche and even by Ayn Rand (for whom I have no great love) permitted LaVey to sell quite a few books, all made attractive to rebellious teenagers by their topic, their lurid covers and their often misleading titles. More disturbing, this quasi-philosophy has become more and more popular among today's teens as a rationalization for self-indulgent behavior.

That popularity is, to some extent, attributable to an entertainer (of sorts). Marilyn Manson, whose name alone, by its reference to sex goddess Marilyn Monroe and cult murderer Charles Manson, announces his strategy of appealing to an unrestrained interest in sex and violence, has himself made a few dollars selling, not only "music," but also at least one book pandering to the natural inclination of adolescents to engage in self-indulgence. Manson popularized LaVey for a new generation. To his credit, at least he also introduced them to Friedrich Nietzsche. Unfortunately, Manson's philosophical acumen did not extend to recognizing -- or at least acknowledging -- that strand of Nietzsche's thought that urges discipline, restraint and self-control as the products of the Ubermensch's progress beyond the human-all-too-human.

I wrote this in response to Aaron's interest in LaVey and Manson. I wrote it as a dialogue because I was convinced that an essay would get nowhere with my son, especially where I was up against Marilyn Manson. Dramatic context could be used for a number of reasons. First, my fictional alter ego is not an altogether attractive character -- and certainly is not intended as the modern equivalent of Socrates. In fact, "Dad" is an overbearing parent and at times a pompous jerk, which I hope I am not (always). Nevertheless, painting myself this way would allow Aaron to have a laugh at my expense and, hopefully, keep him reading and interested enough in the arguments to attempt to formulate reasoned responses -- if I did not convince him, at least I could make him think about the issues. Second, by using different interlocutors, I could subliminally signal transitions to more sophisticated positions, or responses to prior arguments. I even used the name of Ann Rice's most famous fictional vampire for one of the characters and, yes, Aaron was reading Ann Rice's vampire novels at the time. One reader of the first version of this dialogue thought it needed more "transitions." I hope I have, in the transitions from one interlocutor to the next, provided those. Finally, by putting my son and a friend of his into the dialogue, I had hoped to appeal to his vanity.

None of this worked. Aaron never read the whole thing. He eventually got over his fascination with LaVey, making a brief pit stop with H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulu mythos. He still reads Lovecraft, and has a collection of books by Lovecraft's admirers; he probably could name all of the Lovecraftian Ancient Ones without stopping to take a breath. But he knows that there really is no "Necronomicon by the mad Arab Abdul Ahazred," and the charms he now uses on others are less like the ones a witch uses on an enemy and more like the one Socrates used on Charmides -- although young women are his target. As I write this, he is spending the summer working with young kids at a day camp, he genuinely cares for other people, and he is yet further proof that, despite all the worrying we parents do, kids usually turn out OK. Oh, yes, and he asked me to buy him Kaufman's Portable Nietzsche, and he's actually reading it!

Three more things. Okay, four.

First, this dialogue does express a good deal of my views about ethics; in that manner it is not like Platonic dialogues which tend to leave the reader with a lot of thinking to do about what the author really thought, and why. To put my views in a nutshell: we have a choice as to what kind of creatures we want to be. It is not enough to appeal to pleasure, or "nature" or analogies to animals; and it is clearly not enough to consider only one's own intuitions about what one "wants" or doesn't "want." Most of the rest of my views are gathered in an essay I once wrote entitled "The Rational Basis For Morality" which, had I an even greater ego than I do, would have been published in this issue. But, because that essay really is little more than a modern defense of the "short form" Judaism attributed to Rabbi Hillel ("what is hateful to yourself, do not do to others") or the Golden Rule as found in Leviticus ("love your neighbor as yourself"), I saw no need to publish it here. I will take this opportunity, however, to point out that that principle comes under heavy fire in another essay in this issue, written by Dr. Steven Schwartz and originally published in The Philosopher's Magazine. To the extent I have any response, it appears in an apparently unrelated book review of mine published in Volume I, Issue 3 of The Examined Life Journal, entitled "Keeping An Eye On The Scientists; Bart Kosko's 'Fuzzy Thinking' Tries To Save Logical Positivism." I look forward to the debate Dr. Schwartz's essay should trigger. The balance of my ethical views, after that, relates more to metaphysics and to the methodology and epistemology of ethics. Readers of this journal have already had a heapin' helpin' of those kinds of thing from me, and do not need more.

Next, the reader who has not studied western philosophy and is not familiar with Hobbes, Bentham, Mill, etc., should not take terribly seriously the "great speech" by Lestat. That speech is at best revisionist history, in service to Lestat's goal of getting LaVey's Satanism into the mainstream. Nothing beats reading the source books themselves, and the speech in not offered as a short course in political or ethical philosophy.

Third, I may be no Plato, but I'm honest enough to admit how much I owe to him. There are a number of open references to Plato in the dialogue, and I meant them as a signal (and at times, a confession) to the reader, not merely as name-dropping. The least obvious, yet most open, comes right at the start. Plato's Gorgias is perhaps the preachiest of Plato's early dialogues; Socrates really gets up on a soapbox. That Anton starts with "Dad" settling down to read that dialogue should serve as a warning to the reader about what kind of person "Dad" is. In addition, the structure of the dialogue is "Platonic"; I tried to emulate how Plato portrayed Socrates squaring off against tougher and tougher opponents, as happens in Republic I and Gorgias, and to a lesser degree in Charmides.

Anton owes its greatest debt, however, to Plato's Protagoras. Aaron's excited demand, when the dialogue opens, for a ride to Lestat's lecture is stolen directly from Plato's portrayal of Hippocrates at the beginning of Protagoras. The discussion in the car on the way to the lecture, when "Dad" warns Aaron about the dangers that are posed by anyone who actually believes the Satanism they espouse (a version of Plato's "honor among thieves" argument in Republic I), is derivative of Socrates' speech to Hippocrates in Protagoras about the dangers of entrusting your soul to a sophist. Lestat's great speech is positioned similarly to Protagoras' and, as in the dialogue of that name, is used as the jumping-off point for argument about apparently unrelated, yet actually quite closely related, issues.

But the real debt owed is thematic. Although Protagoras contains some of Socrates' worst arguments (and all the worse because it is not clear that he realizes how bad some of them are), there is no doubt that from beginning to end Socrates has a sincere concern for the well-being of the youth of Athens, and will go to great lengths to protect them against charlatans or even well-intentioned teachers whose views Socrates sees as a threat to virtue. A similar concern motivated this dialogue. I hope that, even if I fail to persuade, the reader will recognize that in writing this I was entirely sincere.

OK, one last thing. Despite my sincerity, there is much irony in this dialogue, and it is intentional. If you find yourself wondering what all the fuss was about letting youngsters in to hear Lestat's speech, that is because after getting past all of Anton LaVey's rhetoric and posturing (mirrored here by the symbolic passage through the crowd on the way in to the lecture), anyone with a bit of training in ethics would probably tend to say "What's all the fuss? This has been done before." I hope the reader will find some amusement in ferreting out the other bits of irony to be found here.

Paul Rezendes
06-27-01

Foreword
The following dialogue is a work of philosophical fiction. There really is an Aaron, a Noah, and a Noah's father, but Aaron and Noah would give me a harder time than they give my philosophical "alter ego" here. They are used dramatically to forward presentation of the arguments, but they would probably not miss some of the objections and arguments that, for reasons of clear and simplified presentation, I reserve for other characters. I hope they will forgive me. To my knowledge there is no Harvard chapter of the Libertarians or a Cambridge branch of the Church of Satan. None of this happened, and I doubt that I could -- no, I know I could not -- sustain argument like this in a live discussion.

ANTON

Dramatis Personae

In order of appearance:

A Friend .......An Unnamed Friend To Whom "Dad" Recounts The Discussion
"Dad" Rezendes ........................... Father, Lawyer and Amateur Philosopher
Aaron Rezendes .................................................... A Student Of Satanism
Noah's Father .................................... The Patient Parent Of Aaron's Friend
Noah ................................................................................. Aaron's Friend
Bill ....................................................................................... A Libertarian
Gregor DeLuciforo ....................................... A Priest of the Church of Satan
Lestat ................................................ A Satanist and a Philosophy Student