Sometimes defending the Western canon means defending it from people who want to use it as a weapon.
The Atlantic published a predictably outraged piece this week about Texas A&M University removing Plato’s Symposium from a philosophy course. As the New York Times reported, the professor was ordered to remove the text days before the semester began. The author, Adam Kirsch, calls this “censorship” and suggests Texas is somehow at war with Western civilization itself. FIRE issued a statement. Everyone is very concerned.
Allow me to offer a different perspective. I am someone who actually cares about the Great Books tradition. I studied the Western canon in college—and I mean really engaged with it, not just showed up for the grade. I read the Cliff Notes on the Republic twice. I listened to a twelve-part podcast on Greek philosophy during my morning workouts junior year. I’ve seen multiple videos breaking down the cave allegory. I understand what Plato was trying to do. And precisely because I respect Plato, I understand why Texas A&M made this call.
What They Don’t Tell You
Kirsch buries the actual issue. The Symposium wasn’t removed from the university library. It wasn’t banned from campus. Students can still Google it. It was removed from a specific course called “Contemporary Moral Issues” because it was being used to, and I quote the university policy, “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
That’s not banning Plato. That’s refusing to let activists use Plato as a delivery vehicle for contemporary ideology. There’s a difference. The book still exists. You can order it on Amazon. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to assign whatever you want in a state-funded classroom.
The Symposium, for those who haven’t read it—I haven’t read it specifically, but I’ve read enough about it to know what’s in it—contains a passage about the origins of love that includes same-sex pairings. Kirsch himself admits this has made Plato “queer-coded” for certain readers. A Victorian writer he cites called it “the true Book of Love” and found in it “the consecration of a long-cherished idealism.”
In other words: activists have been mining this text for political purposes for over a century. Texas A&M simply decided not to participate. Good for them.
The Real Plato
Here is what the outrage machine won’t tell you: the Symposium is not Plato’s most important work. It’s basically a side quest. If you want to understand Platonic philosophy—the cave, the allegory of the allegory, the whole thing about shadows and light—you read the Republic. Or you watch a good summary. That’s the foundational text. That’s what shaped Western civilization.
The Symposium is a dinner party dialogue about love. It’s basically ancient Greeks sitting around drinking and sharing feelings. Is that really essential to understanding Western thought? I would argue no. Plato wrote dozens of dialogues. You don’t need all of them. You need the important ones.
Why, of all the Platonic dialogues, was this professor assigning the Symposium in a course on “Contemporary Moral Issues”? Why not the Republic? Why not the one where Socrates drinks the hemlock? Why not literally any of the dialogues about justice or ethics or civic virtue? The answer is obvious: because this particular text can be framed as ancient validation of modern sexual politics.
That’s not teaching Plato. That’s using Plato. And frankly, it’s disrespectful to Plato. He deserves better than to be reduced to a talking point.
The Irony They Missed
Kirsch makes much of the historical irony. Socrates was executed by Athens for “corrupting the youth.” Plato wrote about philosophers being killed for challenging popular opinion. Now, Kirsch argues, Texas is doing the same thing to Plato himself.
He has it exactly backwards.
Socrates was executed for questioning the established beliefs of his society. Today, the established beliefs of academia are the ones being protected—the belief that all sexual orientations are equivalent, that gender is a spectrum, that ancient texts must be read through progressive frameworks. The professor isn’t Socrates. The professor is Athens, enforcing orthodoxy. Texas A&M is Socrates. Texas A&M is the one asking uncomfortable questions.
If Plato were alive today, he would understand exactly what’s happening. He would probably support the decision. The man wrote an entire book about how the ideal state should carefully control what young people are exposed to. It’s called the Republic. I’ve read the summary.
What We’re Really Defending
I spent four years in higher education. I know how these readings get taught. I know the discussion questions. I know the framing. A 19-year-old in College Station doesn’t encounter the Symposium as a 2,400-year-old meditation on the nature of love and beauty. He encounters it as “look, even the ancient Greeks were gay.”
That’s not education. That’s recruitment. And it’s a waste of Plato.
Kirsch ends his piece by noting that the professor, in protest, has now assigned the aforementioned New York Times article about why students can’t read Plato. He calls this “esoteric writing”—a way of calling attention to what’s been omitted.
I call it proving the university’s point. Given the choice between teaching philosophy and teaching grievance, the professor chose grievance. He’d rather students read the New York Times than Plato. That tells you everything.
The Western canon will survive not being taught in one course at one university. What it cannot survive is being weaponized by people who don’t actually care about it. Sometimes the best way to honor a tradition is to protect it from people who claim to love it but actually just want to use it.
I learned that in college. Well, I learned it after college, from podcasts. But the point stands.
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