The story goes that one day a pupil ran up to him excitedly. "Socrates," he panted, "do you know what I've just heard about Diomedes?Interestingly, this is not actually sourced to Socrates but to a Protestant Missionary in India in the 1950s, Amy Carmichael. Well, everything but the affair addendum. It apparently has gained circulation since the 2000s.
Before he could utter another word, Socrates stopped him, and told him that before he'd listen any further, he wanted to know if the information he was about to hear would pass his triple filter test. The student looked perplexed.
"Firstly, asked Socrates sagely, "have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is absolutely true?"
"Well, no," replied his pupil, "I just heard about it."
"So, you don't know if what you are about to tell me is true or not? After the filter of truth, there is the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diomedes something good?"
"Well, no, on the contrary," came the reply. "So, you want to tell me something bad about Diomedes, even though you are not certain if it's true or not?"
The pupil looked down at his sandals, feeling more than a little embarrassed.
"The third filter is the filter of usefulness. Is what you are going to tell me about Diomedes going to be useful?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you have to tell me is neither true nor good, or even useful, why tell it to me or, indeed, to anyone else?"
His pupil was deeply ashamed, and took heed of his wise teacher's words. Socrates' quest for pure knowledge, and his refusal to be tainted with anything other than pure knowledge, was the reason why he was such a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.
It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diomedes was shagging his wife.
Just imagine if our mainstream media were subject to these guidelines. Nothing could be published which was not true, good and useful. It would represent a commercial extinction level event.
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