Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [30]
One threat to intellectual integrity in our own person and in others is sophistry, the use of seemingly plausible and persuasive rhetoric for ulterior motives (e.g., either to deceive others or to impress them for personal gain). The traditional story about the Sophists of ancient Greece has Socrates opposing them in principle and practice. They charged a fee, while he did not. They claimed to be experts, while Socrates humbly admitted his limits. They taught how to be clever in one’s words in order to make weak arguments appear stronger, while Socrates modeled clarity in thought to expose arguments for how strong they really were. They promoted persuading others to further your own agenda, while Socrates emphasized self-examination for the sake of the truth. In short, Socrates attended to his own intellectual integrity and promoted it in others, while the Sophists did not. So, Socrates is praised for striving for wisdom, not just its appearance, and becomes the model for genuine philosophical inquiry.
If we accept that my list above is fair, then we should expect Socrates to embody those aspects fairly consistently. It’s not clear to me that he always does. In Plato’s Apology, in particular, Socrates appears to engage in sophistry. For example, he gets his accuser Meletus to specify the charge of impiety toward the gods as an accusation of atheism.2 Then he argues that Meletus accuses him of teaching new spiritual ideas, and since Athenians traditionally believe spirits are gods or their children, Meletus must think that Socrates believes in gods.3 Of course, what Athenians conventionally believe and what Meletus accuses Socrates of are both beside the point. Does Socrates believe in the traditional gods, or not? Socrates cleverly diverts our attention from the question at hand, obscuring the truth in the process. Nevertheless, the character of Socrates does spur reflection on the nature of intellectual integrity and its value, as well as threats to it. Thus, the stereotype of the Sophist can regulate our own tendencies if we are mindful not to imitate it. Furthermore, our resources are not limited to Plato and Socrates. After all, we have Dr. Seuss.
Next, I will explore how Seuss helps us stay alert to the potential dangers of becoming distracted by interests other than the truth in our interactions with others and with respect to our own endeavors. Seuss helps us by giving illustrations both of the drives and desires that engender dishonesty and those that if left unchecked can also end up misaligning us. Like Plato’s Socrates, Seuss acts as the gadfly, biting us awake whenever we’re weary of attending to our intellectual integrity.
Green Eggs and Bull
If Sam-I-Am asked you if you liked green eggs and ham, what would you say? I once tried to make this Seussian treat for my young children, using green food coloring in scrambled eggs. My daughter took a look at my masterpiece and scrunched her nose. “I don’t like it,” she reported. Whether you blame her or not for her response, one thing is sure: like the protagonist in Seuss’s famous piece, she had not tried them. So, what are we to make of her definitive claim that she does not like them?
Obviously, her claim is meant to ensure that she doesn’t have to try the odd-looking food. But the claim is not one she can really verify, since her experience of the green eggs was limited to its looks. One extreme possibility is that her claim is a lie. She is stating as a fact something that she does not know as a fact and is therefore engaging in a deceptive activity, trying to avoid an unusual cuisine. Of course, interpreting a four-year-old’s simple response as a conscious effort to mislead is rather presumptuous. Perhaps it is better to just say that she, like Sam-I-Am’s friend, is spewing “bullshit.”
While it may seem surprising, “bullshit