Are We There Yet? vol. 256
In the US at the end of January, the focus of the sports community is the football playoffs culminating with the Super Bowl on February 9th. Three weeks ago, following the game in which the Baltimore Ravens lost to the Buffalo Bills, something amazing happened. In the game, with the clock running down, the Ravens tight-end, Mark Andrews, dropped a pass that would have tied the score. The game was essentially over at that point, and the Bills ran out the clock. Bills fans were elated, and Ravens fans were devastated.
The amazing part was that two Bills fans, part of the ecstatic group seeing their team advance, found some sympathy for Andrews, who has Type 1 diabetes. The fans decided to start a charitable drive in Andrew’s name to raise funds for Type 1 diabetes research. Their goal was to raise $5,000, but as of last week, their efforts had raised over $120,000.
Ryan Patota, one of the Bills’ fans who started this drive, said, “You want your team to win. But we want to bring both bases together and say, ‘Hey, this is more than a game.’” In a time when some are cynical about people helping those who may be on the other side or that winning is everything, it’s refreshing to see that there may be more than one definition of winners.
Take care and stay safe.
BOOK:
Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard
Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” yet take no steps to live examined ones. We know that he was tried, convicted, and executed for “corrupting the youth,” but freely assign Socratic dialogues to today’s youths, to introduce them to philosophy. We’ve lost sight of what made him so dangerous. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard recovers the radical move at the center of Socrates’ thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life.
Callard draws our attention to Socrates’ startling discovery that we don’t know how to ask ourselves the most important questions―about how we should live, and how we might change. Before a person even has a chance to reflect, their bodily desires or the forces of social conformity have already answered on their behalf. To ask the most important questions, we need help. Callard argues that the true ambition of the famous “Socratic method” is to reveal what one human being can be to another. You can use another person in many ways―for survival, for pleasure, for comfort―but you are engaging them to the fullest when you call on them to help answer your questions and challenge your answers.
Callard shows that Socrates’ method allows us to make progress in thinking about how to manage romantic love, how to confront one’s own death, and how to approach politics. In the process, she gives us nothing less than a new ethics to live by.Learn more about Bob Len here.
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