I’ll share these from time to time, I guess. They’re short pieces that the Professor calls “One Pagers.” We try to hit 250 words concerning a theme in the readings we do. Lately we’ve been poring over Plato’s Republic, and the themes are energizing, even if the reading is a little exhausting. I really don’t know why I haven’t thought to do this before.
Our Professor’s name is Sven! Arvidson. The exclamation point is intentional. I can’t help but feeling as though that name should be shouted. At least when written. It sounds so swift and warning like:
“Sven! Avalanche! Look out!”
“Sven! Valkyries! Look up!”
“Sven! It’s spiritual poverty! Look sharp!”
Suitably Nordic. Scandinavian (I don’t hope to know the difference without looking it up). BUT! He confides that his name isn’t Sven at all. It is…Patrick. Bit of a letdown, isn’t it? I’ll ask him some day where the Sven comes from, but for now it’s of no consequence. The man is remarkably available, encourages phone calls, and answers emails in a trice, even on the weekends. This is a good way for a person to be. Seems natural, or at least reasonably expectable, from a person whose life is dedicated to the study of being good.
Book IX of The Republic is an explanation of why we should care about striving for any kind of permanent, eternal good, if we can just be really bad (which is much, much easier) and gain riches and fame and honor that way. I absolutely love hearing someone take seriously the ideas of relativism and spiritual (not necessarily religious, mind you) poverty. This is what I wrote this morning, before my coffee and before my kids, but well after my dutiful wife was off on her search for the unchanging good:
These themes in Republic always seem to be a version of seeming vs. being. Riches are riches, but in the end, the riches of an unjust man only seem to make him rich, and instead must always serve to feed further injustice, making him wretchedly poor. I would wonder whether having a poor, unfulfilled, conflicted soul is any interest to the man corrupt enough to live that way, but Plato reminds us that it doesn’t matter what that tyrant thinks of it. His ills are not a matter for earthly debate. His vices are his vices, and he is a bad, low person, no matter what any human might choose to say about it. I couldn’t agree more, especially as this saves us from dangerous relativism, where each person gets to decide what is right based on what comforts her the most. Goodness isn’t interested in comfort, isn’t influenced by comfort, and yet when sought through right and virtuous ways, goodness is the ultimate comfort – no matter what travails may come your way because of it. This is faith and spirituality – the idea of it – no matter how it is branded. It is even the goal no matter how it is practiced. The beauty of the eternal, unchanging good is exactly that: It is eternal and unchanging. It will never fool us or lead us to something false. The honest search for it will always be accompanied by good, and every successful search for the good is a search for the same thing.
It’s nice to limber up the brain like that, early in the morning.
I did write a special little dialogue yesterday. Four pages concerning human freedom, couched in a conversation between two paratroopers on their way to a jump. Once it is revised and submitted (Wednesday), I’ll post it for your enjoyment. Or indifference.
Andy Havens 