Eva Brann
Reading presents thoughts as gifts, and the best books, by preventing us from passively succumbing to other people’s pictures and their self-serving agendas, cooperate in saving our souls.
You’ve all probably heard the expression “preaching to the choir,” which means trying to persuade the faithful of what they already believe. The opposite of preaching to the faithful choir is propagandizing the disengaged crowd. This latter preaching needs to be a little lurid, just to raise attention, and somewhat gross, so as to trump the competition.
I know that I’m addressing an audience of the already convinced who are not in need of a pep talk but could perhaps do with a visitor’s more subdued reflection on their commitment. I understand that commitment to have two aspects: You are willing to read books from a large yet selective list, and you submit to a way of teaching which Professor Wright described to me as “the Socratic method.”
Now it seems true to me that there is some method in Socrates’ divine madness, but though he has his very own way, it is not a method, strictly speaking, that is to say, a codified procedure applicable universally, willy-nilly.
You will recall that in his Apology, that is, the “Defense” of his way of life, Socrates famously says: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I get a wicked pleasure from pointing out on every suitable occasion that he says something much more rousing. He actually says: “The unexamined life is not livable.” In other words, you haven’t lived if you haven’t reflected on your living. You’ve been carried along on the stream of your life until one day you went under—and that was that. To make your merely lived life come alive, you have to recall and review it. To rephrase Socrates: The once-lived life has hardly happened. » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2024/10/why-should-we-read-eva-brann.html