Our society is more bitter and entrenched than ever.
There have always been right wing extremists, talking their contrived nonsense and seemingly unaware of the knots they weave in their one-sided logic. Whenever I heard such views I always took solace in the counter arguments, spoken by people who had listened and were willing to take the time to unpick the knots.
Lately the “enlightened” crowd have become less intelligent. Less prepared to listen and more intent on preaching a set menu of ethics. Ethical rules they believe in but without the understanding of where the rules came from and therefore without the ability to teach others why their ethics are better.
Modern media now centres around people giving their opinions. Twitter and Facebook are places where people do a lot of talking but rarely is anyone listening. When content gets a reply it’s usually to agree or disagree in a holistic way: to either echo the thought or shoot it down.
Problems with society won’t be solved by people arguing over their opinions. Modern society needs to look to ancient Greece. Modern Society needs someone like Socrates.
Socrates didn’t have an opinion. Socrates had questions. Lots of questions. He took an interest in what other people were saying and asked questions to understand more. The questions were often loaded and awkward to answer (many people took offence to being questioned, which eventually resulted in Socrates being sentenced to death) but they were never malicious.
Questioning another person’s beliefs is never as offensive as dismissing them. People usually steer clear of this because they feel awkward asking difficult questions. You should never fear a difficult question. A “difficult question” is one that requires some thought to answer, and hence why the best type of question. It’s not just the interrogator who is enlightened, often the person answering learns something too.
This is how Socrates influenced people. He didn’t preach his opinion. He got people thinking about their beliefs. He encouraged people to question themselves.
I discovered Socrates’ approach quite by accident at the age of 8.
We were living in a block of maisonettes in west Birmingham. It was a hot summer and I spend every evening playing in the yard at the from of the block. The yard was a patch of grass, no more than 15 metres square that was flanked on 3 sides by the 4-storey maisonettes.
Back then Dormston Drive had maisonettes all along it. There must have been 32 blocks of 8 families on our estate. I made so many friends - some from my school, some from our rival school, Paganel - it was hard to keep track of who you played out with the previous day.
One evening there was a rumour going round of some lad being sick or, depending who you asked, on his deathbed. We took the gossip with a pinch of salt and treated it as entertainment but the news took a more serious tone the next day when mum told us a boy had contracted legionnaires disease. Mum had heard he caught the disease while playing in the brook that ran past the old tip. She told us not to play there under any circumstances. So, naturally, that’s the first place I headed after school.
A group of children were already there. They were challenging each other to jump the brook. It wasn’t a difficult task but the price of failure was not just getting a wet foot - there was the, seemingly, very real risk of catching a deadly disease.
One by one we leapt over the stream. Each successful jump was accompanied by a whoop of relief, followed by a chorus of goading from those who had made it to the other side.
As the smallest in the group I was not confident of making it across. I retired to the back of the pack hoping someone would fall before it was my turn. Eventually, though, there was just two of us left to jump. We were the youngest and smallest abd neither of us had the intention of jumping.
From the other side of the brook, the eldest in the group took charge. If neither of us would jump, he would pick who was next. He started the chant of “eeny meeny miny moe”.
Today that song has very racist connotations but in the 80s it was regularly used by children who had a decision to make. I must have heard it a hundred times but always the child-friendly version ... we would “catch a fishy by its toe”.
As I stood by the stream awaiting my fate I heard the racist version for the first time; I heard the n-word for the first time.
I spluttered. How could this guy not know the song properly?
“Err, I think you’ll find the song goes ‘catch a fishy’.” I said.
“What? Durrr. Fish don't have toes. How can you catch a fish by its toe?” he shouted back.
“That’s what makes the song funny.”
“It’s not a funny song. Funny songs are for babies.”
I was feeling cornered now. I had tried to get out of jumping the stream by diverting attention to his failed song. That had backfired. I was under more pressure for being unaware of a song that everyone else knows.
So I asked a question. A question inspired by wanting to know their version of the song. A question about a word I’d never heard before.
“What’s a nigger?”
It was a purely naive question. I genuinely didn’t know and I genuinely expected an answer. But there was no reply.
Looks were enough to tell me it was a bad word. His face was grave. He didn’t have the words to explain and, even if he could, more difficult questions would follow:
- Why would you be catching a man by his toe?
- Why is he black?
- Why does he need catching?
- Why is he enslaved?
I have no doubt that some in that group laughed at me for being naive. I was the idiot in their eyes. But I had also earned some respect. I played out with the eldest lad many times after this and he held no grudge for me challenging him. He continued to aim racist language towards the black kids on the estate but he now had some questions that needed answering.
I don’t claim that asking questions would immediately change someone’s mind. One simple question isn’t going to make a racist have an epiphany. But every question sits in that person’s mind, causing them to think “do I have an answer to that?”
This is what is missing in today’s society. We need more questions and fewer opinions.