Author's Note: This story is going to help me study anyway. Nothing to dooooo…
Legalities: Property of respective owners!
Rating: PG-13
Continuum: Smallville
Summary: A… rather… short dialogue.
Dedicated to: Babs! Here's a contribution, hon!
A City's Guardians
By: Carmen Wayne
Socrates once debated justice with noble youths. Plato wrote this debate in a grueling multi-book story, or play if you will. At one point, they debate over what it takes to create just guardians for a city that they have created. A fair and just guardian should be well read, good to friends and bad to enemies. They should be as dogs. Good to their owners and those they know, but fierce and vicious to strangers. Socrates referred to dogs as philosophers, and in turn guardians, or soldiers, should be as dogs. They must be equipped with knowledge of the mind, the body and the law.
Clark is none of these. Well, maybe a dog. A very… dumb… and happy dog.
Don't get me wrong, he's a good boy. His heart is in the right place, but I don't recall guardians being required to whine so damn much. He just left here, actually several hours ago, complaining about something Pete did. I think he got angry when I made a comment… I don't recall what—oh, yes I do.
"What's wrong, Clark? Did Pete let his eyes take in a possible option for his identity in the boys' locker room at Smallville High?"
He muttered a word I think his parents would highly disapprove of (and no doubt in the end I'd get bit in the ass with blame from Jonathon Kent), and stormed out of the room.
Lets go through this, since Clark seems to be Smallville's resident Ubermensch as I'm sure Nietzsche would be happy to declare him. So…
Socrates believed "One man, one art." In other words, once you find something you do well, stick with it and don't try to spread yourself over other fields and deter time from that art that you do so greatly and uniquely. He says a city's guardian should be strong physically within the art of gymnastics (not the "Whee, lookit me spin on a pole with my nuts showing free for the world to see" type, but the physical training for combat and sprinting, and fencing and such), and music. Music not being the la~di~da type either, though that does entail it. Music is derived from the word "Muse", as in the seven (sometimes it's said nine or five) muses that ruled over many arts. Theatre, sculpture, poetry, prose, dancing, music… Drama, comedy, epics, plays, stories… I think you get the idea. A city's guardians should read only those stories which are deemed appropriate for the morals in which are desired in the guardians. Stories telling of Zeus chaining Hera up for her impetuous ways and punishing Hephaestus for wishing to free her was unacceptable, for it showed abuse of a wife was alright, and the want to defend one's mother from such abuse wrong, because the gods demonstrated so. Famous poets wrote of insidious traits in heroes and gods alike. All of these stories carried morals unacceptable for the guardians. Censorship comes into play here. They must be shielded from such things, Socrates and his young followers believed, and taught to kill allies is wrong, to abuse one's mother or wife is wrong, and to love your family and your city is right.
Please tell me where Clark fits into this. Please? I've been sitting here trying to figure it out, and it's driven me back to the bottle. He's intelligent, for a boy his age, I'll give him that. A little too attached to Metallica, but for a middle class white boy, what can I expect?
Alright, I'll admit something… when we thought there was a chance he and I were brothers, when that psycho bitch was running around trying to kill me, like it was MY fault my father fucked her over… I kind of did want the guy as a little brother. No diabolical reasoning to it… He's already in the role. He keeps borrowing my crap, keeps coming to me thinking I give a damn about his problems, when I have much more severe problems of my own, and worse yet I ACT like I DO give a damn. I could have made him that guardian that was seen as perfect to Socrates. He has the athletic thing down (if I hear one more time about basketball…), and he has the family morals. But the damn boy has the culture that would be expected for someone like him… the hick.
Perhaps one day he'll become a well rounded guardian. In fact, I expect him to become the best he can be. Clark's future has endless possibilities… But why do I have this feeling that we're doomed to fuck each other over at every turn for the rest of our goddamn lives?
Okay, now I KNOW I'm schnockered. I never cuss this much in written dialogue, no matter how personal, unless the martinis or the gin are starting to get to my bald little brain. Great thing is, I'm in superb mode in this condition. Being the man I am, I'm going to finish this…… bottle…… and then I'm going to haul my ass down to the servants wing and find out who the hell have been saran wrapping their heads and mocking *me* on their spare time. Someone's going to get kicked out flat on their starving little servant ass… unless it's that cute girl I hired… Bonnie… or Bob. Bonnie and Bob can escape my wrath. Because they're cute like fuzzy little bunn—
Whoo, okay, I better stop now. Besides. Father-dearest is beckoning me with his shrill man-cry down the hall. I think he just whacked Bob in the crotch. Insensitive, blind bastard. Get the hell out of my house. Now. Before I hurt you. Or better yet. Before I bite you. Chomp.
That brings me to another philosophical question. Are Luthors born inherently evil or is there some slim chance the little devil in all our hearts will skip me? My opinion? We're all inherently evil. I've learned many ways to do corporate combat from dear old dad. The only thing my father hasn't taught me is how to get people to TRUST me. That I learned on my own. No one TRUSTS my FATHER… It's just that he has so much money and so much power people are too damn scared to not have faith in him. His empire is built on fear. He is a dictator…
As I will be too, one day. But instead of a dictator based on fear, I will be one of trust and faith. You laugh, but it is true. Trust me and have faith in me and you will succeed. Betray me and give me reason not to trust YOU, and I will take. you. out.
Father dearest doesn't understand the depth in which I think and operate. He's programmed me from BIRTH to be the ultimate entrepreneur. Relentless and cruel. I've tried so hard to fight it, but it's inevitable. All I can do is take what I've been taught by outside sources and try to become better than my father. Which I will.
The Kents are the only ones at this point I can see escaping my wrath. Beyond the undertones of slut-hood pouring over Martha's employment by my father, and the constant bitching of those "Goddamn evil Luthors" by Jonathon, and the snifflings of Clarkie ol' boy, they will be the only ones allowed to escape, because they're harmless…
Well, maybe not Clark. Not if he's as "guardian" as I'm thinking. He sticks his nose into everything. Not exactly a trait in a city's guardian that Socrates would revere. Then again, why in the hell does it seem everything wants to nail him in the ass? Seriously! He's involved with everything because everything always has something to do with him!
I blame it on this damn small town. ~Where everybody knows your name…~
Except Lana. The damn ditz. I bet you everyone in the goddamn town was talking about her whore of a mother, but she's too damn stupid—she didn't even know that freak existed!!
Oh well, I digress. Father is still calling. Saying something about the egg before the chicken. I think I'm pissed. I think—ooh-hiccup. We all know it was the chicken who was created from the primordial soup that was the beginning of this planet. Primordial soup can't have eggs. Duh. Of course, he believes the primordial soup IS the egg. How ridiculous.
Agh, he broke my Elizabethan vase!!! My mother gave me that from a trip she took to a small shore town in London before she—oh, it's ON… Cheers.