Symposium in Transition

Though Plato and Xenophon's dialogues have made the Symposium synonymous with eloquent debate and flowing speeches (Apparently the Greeks did not suffer from the usual impairment of mental abilities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99CoPXYdFGo) The symposium was originally a drinking party, often to induct members into the aristocracy. It was also a forum for various types of debate.



Though the alcohol and courtesans have mostly departed, the symposium is still widely popular in the world today. But first, let's look through the colorful history of that marvelous merry-making that is male bonding.





















A party-goer drinking his tasty beverage and enjoying the music of a flute-girl.

Less drinking, less debauchery, but the Little Rascals kept true to the Symposium's design as they discussed their manly ideals far from the girls of the neighborhood.

Malicious in their designs, but often unsuccessful, Calvin and Hobbes created the G.R.O.S.S club with the intent of Getting Rid Of Slimy girlS and ensuring the sanctity of their masculine truths (Searching for strange bugs and riding wagons especially)

And now we come full-circle. Colleges across the nation are home to numerous symposiums, albeit in the form of the frat party. There's drunks, there's surely debauchery, but how much debate is there? Well....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRostNteE5A

To Socrates and his fellows might not find such an activity befitting the symposium, but as any patron of the grape or grain will tell you, the most trivial thing can be profound under the right circumstances.

For more art depicting the symposium, try this link. http://www.androphile.org/preview/Museum/Greece/TOC1.htm