In times when the world seems full of malice, inequality, hatred and fear, we tend to forget that this planet of ours is full of amazing people who have urged and demonstrated fairness, love, consideration and thoughtfulness in their various eclectic ways. Some of these people are still alive whilst others have passed away but looking at the values that they share and advocate is something that we ought to spend a little concentrated time in doing.
Learning from the mastery and vision of others is not something that we afford enough time to and I, for one, am terribly concerned that there are not enough hours in the day to continue with the learning that I feel I so desperately need.
I have unread books on my bookshelves and they stare at me with a bewildering directness, pleading with me to stop and take a glance.
I shall endeavour to do just that.
So, what of these fabulous people? And why do I feel a need to write about them today?
I suppose at the moment my own world, my own life is full of many changes.
My career is changing direction, my children no longer need the perpetual care and attention that they required when they were young, yet they clearly still need some guidance and love; it is just different. My own learning needs seem to have escalated into a vast unachievable mountain and at this time of mid-life, I do sometimes feel that time is running away from me.
However, instead of panicking about mortality, this has become a driving force into developing insight into this complicated world of ours, and where better to start than consider the lives, values and thoughts of the great and the good that have lived on this fine planet of ours.
Currently, I am reading “Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaardner. I am actually envious of this fictional fourteen year old who has somehow managed to become the pupil of a great and wise man, who wants to impart his knowledge, understanding and thoughts to a girl who is beginning to grow and question her world. I wish I had had someone like that around when I was her age, and yet, in many ways I did, otherwise I would not be doing this searching today. Parents, older and younger siblings, trusted teachers and learned friends have all led me to a path of philosophical exploration. So in many ways I am no different to Sophie.
Here is a quote to reiterate this point.
“Wisest is she who does not know”.
Socrates himself said,
“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing”.
The writer explains through the philosopher’s voice that Socrates knew that he knew nothing and it troubled him that he knew so little.
So I appear to be in good company.
However, like Socrates and I suppose like Sophie, I have ears open and a mind ready to listen and hear and see and learn. In not knowing, one can be far more open than the mind that thinks it knows everything. Maybe this is something that some of our men and women of faith could consider. Do they really know in believing or is it time for them to stop thinking that they know everything and open their hearts, minds and souls to an unknown world with inexplicable reasoning and rationality?
Here is another quote.
“Sophie tried to think things through clearly. But as soon as she thought one thought, another one crowded in before she had thought the first one to its end”........... and another...... “Once again she was struck by the incredible wonders of the world”.
Maybe I am more like the Sophie in this book than I realised. I find it almost pretentious to call myself a philosopher but in not knowing and realising that, and in trying to continue my learning and trying to amalgamate thoughts into a clear way, and in allowing all manner of new ideas to spring forth in my mind, then maybe I am a philosopher after all.
So, all roads lead to Rome, or Greece and certainly, there was a great man in Socrates. In the 21st century we should do well to consider much of what he said about the unknown and about not knowing. The ultimate irony is that his worlds, so many thousands of years on, still take on such resonance yet we still haven’t learned from his teachings. Our school curriculum is crammed full of knowledge about a range of themes from Osmosis to the history of the Versailles Treaty adn yet we still know nothing, and more frighteningly, we don’t even appear to want to know anything more – at least that is what the governance of education appears to want, i.e. more knowledge and yet knowing nothing.
But not only is there greatness in Socrates. There is greatness in the clever bod who thought of a way of revealing the greatness of our predecessor philosophers to a new generation of children and young people who are not able to get this sort of learning opportunity in our schools.
Michael Gove recently bemoaned the fact that some eighteen year olds have only read three classic books in their lives, nay, three books. How he has the audacity to make such a statement is beyond me! It is precisely due to the cramming and the stifling conformity of his proposed curriculum that our young people to not get the opportunity to read beyond the stipulated study books of our time. When I was at school we read “Jane Eyre” (which I loathed) and “Wuthering Heights” (which I adored). My ‘O’ level book was “1984” which terrified the life out of me, particularly as I was studying Stalin simultaneously.
I did learn from these books but it was largely due to another fabulous person, my English teacher, that I did not stop at the prescribed texts. He encouraged me to read beyond the allocated text, introducing me to “Animal Farm” and “Homage to Catalonia” so that I could begin to understand the greatness of the mind that was George Orwell. There is no time to do that these days.
My son is currently reading one of the prescribed texts for GCSE that is a favourite with examination boards across the country – “Of Mice and Men”.
Now this is a good book, and I shall return to Steinbeck later but I deliberately bought him some other short Steinbeck novel so that he could learn more about the reasons for writing about “Of Mice and Men” rather than the content of the book itself. I want him to go on to want to read “The Grapes of Wrath” of his own volition. I want him to think that in reading one great American author, he might turn to others like Hemingway to further his life-long development and interest in reading.
So why, if Mr. Gove is so concerned about young people’s reading, is he not encouraging a wider range of reading materials? Does he actually want children to think or does he just want them crammed full of facts from a book that can be regurgitated in an examination setting? If he really wanted children and young people to read more then he should free them up to do so, and if he really is concerned about generating a love of reading and an ability to think, then why are books such as “Sophie’s World” not on the curriculum? Why are pupils not reading the likes of Paul Coellho or Dostoevsky or Milan Kundera? Why indeed are we only encouraging the reading of novels? Shouldn’t we be considering ways in which young people’s sponge-like minds can be opened and saturated with ideologies and thoughts from the many fabulous people who have written throughout history? Yes, I don’t suppose Gove will go with that suggestion, the hypocrite!
So, I thank another fabulous person, Jostein Gaardner for opening my mind and making me realise that my world is thankfully packed full of people who want to impart philosophical thoughts if only I have the time to stop and listen and learn and think and meditate on the greatness of others whilst trying to develop a greatness of my own.
If you take a typical week in life, there are masses of fabulous people, eager to teach, happy to listen, encouraging one to think. I am indeed a fortunate person that I am receptive and aware of the presence of greatness in my life; both people known to me personally and through the search for enlightenment in discovering about people past and present.
So how on earth do I jump from Socrates to Woody Guthrie?
With infinite ease; both have appeared in my learning life this week, not for the first time but beautifully synergised.
I was fortunate enough to go to the theatre this week to see a fabulous performance of “Woody Ses”. In many ways, he was a modern day Socrates in that he sat and stood in places around the country telling the world that he knew very little but still had a mass to impart on an unsuspecting audience of listeners. He had a vision. He had a driving force of grounded values and yet he said he knew nothing.
Here is a quote or two from the great man who knew nothing.
“Was a great high wall there that tried to stop me, a sign was painted said: “Private Property”, But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me....”
It makes you think. He says nothing and yet says everything about rights and equality without ever having to mention such emotive words.
In his own words Guthrie wanted to be known as “just the man that told you something you already knew”. Pete Seeger says of the man,
“As a song maker he earned the stature that he deserves. But his reputation as a writer, poet and philosopher is still underground and must be brought to light. When his songs, poems and essays are studied in our American literature classes, this omission may be righted.”
Pete Seeger meet Michael Gove, Michael Gove meet Pete Seeger and bloody well listen!
Fabulous people will stand the test of time. Without Woody, there still may have been Dylan and Springsteen but his words, his thoughts hit a nerve with the next generation of brilliance and so the great philosophers perpetuate through life and generations beyond and ahead, if only we stop and listen to what they have to say.
So Socrates leads to authors including John Steinbeck who is listened to and read by Guthrie who is understood and appreciated by others who continue to do the work of the great philosopher’s of time beyond. No wonder I can happily state that the world is full of fabulous people.
Injustice and Socrates.
“In questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? ought we not to fear and reverence him more than all the rest of the world: and if we desert him shall we not destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice;--there is such a principle?”
Steinbeck and Guthrie as well as Springsteen wrote about Tom Joad.
Steinbeck
"Whenever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there . . . . I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'-I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build-why, I'll be there."
Guthrie
Ever'body might be just one big soul
Well it looks that a way to me.
Everywhere that you look in the day or night
That's where I'm gonna be, Ma,
That's where I'm gonna be.
Wherever little children are hungry and cry
Wherever people ain't free.
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights
That's where I'm gonna be, Ma.That's where I'm a gonna be.
And Bruce continued the theme.
Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."
And so the masses of fabulous people stretch forth.
Martin Sheen, the “acting” president of the USA was on Desert Island Discs yesterday. He has been arrested 67 times for fighting injustice. He says that he wants to be remembered “for five minutes” such is the modesty of the man. He says he is driven by faith but I reckon that if he really thought hard about this, it would be values that determine his actions rather than faith. It is values that links people together. Whether he has listened to the words of Guthrie or Springsteen is irrelevant but he surely has lived his life according to the words of Tom Joad – “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there” – Steinbeck lives in the actions of others such as Martin Sheen.
Sheen is a man who values family and companionship so Kirsty Young asked him whether he would cope with the solitude of a deserted island. His response was that he was never lonely when alone and that as he lives the latter part of his life he embraces solitude more readily. Maybe more value should be put on this too so that we can start to open our minds to the greatness of others as well as the brilliance of ourselves.
Sheen chose some music that clearly reflected his faith and his love for his partner but he also chose two songs from his neighbour and, I assume, friend; Bob Dylan. How could anyone of his age with a view on the negative side of the USA do anything but?
Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles.
Subterranean Homesick Blues
And in his choice of books, Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamzov” he returns me to the theme once more of philosophy with a gentle reminder once more that I know nothing and want to learn so much.
There are some fabulous people in the world and we should not ever forget it and what we can learn from their shared values.
To finish, I shall return to Socrates.
“Wisdom begins with wonder”........................
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