Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [5]
According to Socrates, we have many of these false and happiness-
destroying beliefs, but the problem is that most of the time, like the Sneetches, we don’t even think to examine or question them. We just accept the prevalent worldview uncritically, often for no better reason than that it’s what “everybody” thinks. As we grow up, we absorb and internalize from our parents and culture a whole slew of beliefs and prejudices about how the world works, what life is about, and what is important. However, most of these unexamined opinions are confused, contradictory, hopelessly simplistic, or just plain wrong.5 So we blunder mindlessly through life, treating each other badly for no good reason, limiting our horizons, and wasting effort on things that don’t matter and may even make us positively miserable, all the while wondering why our lives feel so meaningless and unsatisfying.
Socrates confronted this problem head on. Like Dr. Seuss, he dared to ask the questions that most people ignored, to challenge conventional wisdom, and to force people to think about what they were doing with their lives and why. Dr. Seuss’s stories are fanciful, but they often pose for children and their parents problems and questions that many of us as adults have learned to ignore or forget, to our detriment. When we read “The Sneetches,” we wonder, am I acting like them? Do I judge and exclude others because of superficial and meaningless things like belly stars? The same with Socrates, as he is depicted in Plato’s dialogues: His questions force people to think about and defend their beliefs and assumptions, and if—as often happens—they can’t answer his questions or respond adequately to his criticisms, he exposes their ignorance and complacency and takes them to task for not paying more attention to how they are living their lives. In Plato’s Apology, while defending himself in a trial for his life, Socrates tells the jury, provocatively: “I say it is the greatest good for a human being to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”6 According to Socrates, to fail to examine and discuss your deepest beliefs and values is to fail as a human being! Because of his conviction about the importance of living a thoughtful, examined life, Socrates made it his mission to put people’s lives to the test. As one character in Plato’s dialogues explains:
Whoever comes into close contact with Socrates and associates with him in conversation must necessarily . . . keep on being led about by the man’s arguments until he submits to answering questions about himself concerning both his present manner of life and the life he has lived hitherto. And when he does submit to this questioning, you don’t realize that Socrates won’t let him go before he has well and truly tested every last detail.7
A Socratic cross-examination is often a painful experience. It is not easy having your beliefs and values called into question, your whole “manner of life” lain bare and scrutinized. But once you have submitted to Socrates’ test—whether talking to the man himself or, today, by reading Plato’s dialogues—it’s hard not to be changed by the experience.
Things That Scare You Right Out of Your Pants:
Socrates and Seuss on Courage
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do