Sunday, December 30, 2012

Challenge

If there was any theme to this year's selections, I'd have to say that it was 'challenge'.  Most of the pieces involved an individual writer challenging his society.  Think about it.

  • Socrates was so willing to challenge those around him that he goaded them into killing him.
  • Aristophanes challenged the will to war with 'Lysistrata' and respected philosophers with 'Clouds'.
  • Plato (and to a lesser extent Aristotle) challenged how society was set up.
  • Jesus was a challenge to the Jewish hierarchy of his day.  Paul challenged the whole exclusion of gentiles.  
  • Augustine challenged the intellectuals of his day, as he made his way to Christianity.  
  • Rabelais challenged all kinds of mores and ideals with his writing.  
  • Both Locke and Rousseau challenged the monarchical set up that they lived under.
  • Gibbon challenged the dominant religion of his day.
  • The founders of the United States followed through on Locke's thoughts and challenged the relationship between the citizen and the state.
  • Smith challenged mercantilism, the major theory of economics in his day.
  • Marx challenged capitalism, and the structures of society. 
In fact, the author of year one that most embraced how things were done is probably Machiavelli.  And he was widely reviled for telling it like it was.
I haven't read all that widely outside of the western tradition.  A number of years ago I read through 'The Analects' of Confucius.  I was struck by how much he reinforced the state.  He didn't seek any kind of revolution, but mainly cautioned against corruption.  As wise as he was, he would not have fit into this years reading list.
Is that one of the unique qualities of western thought?  We admire those that stand up and critique society.  Even when we disagree with a rabble rouser, we admire their 'spirit' and principle.  Does this same quality exist in other schools of thought?  (I'll fully admit that I'm too ignorant to know the answer but I haven't come across it in my readings.)
Maybe that's the best lesson from Socrates.  Be true to yourself, to whatever end you must.  And if they can't take a joke, screw 'em!

3 comments:

  1. Questioning and challenging assumptions seems to be one of the cornerstones of Western thought.

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  2. Aristophanes in the "Clouds" is challenging Socrates and the philosophers, but he's being conservative in doing so, lining up on the side of tradition and the established order. He's defending the status quo against what he sees as the revolutionary philosophers.

    On the whole I think you're right in that the West has a capacity for self-reflection and self-critique largely absent from many other traditions.

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  3. New ideas could sometimes be bad ones, yet people have the illusion of progressing. The better idea could be something that needs to be rediscovered because it was lost. Sometimes it is a challenge to get people to think about old ways.

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