Socrates - Socrates in the city: conversations on life, God, and other small topics

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Table of Contents

SOCRATES IN THE CITY

AN INTRODUCTION

Can you imagine how happy I am that this book has come out? If not, let me tell you how happyvery, very. Its a tremendous joy for me to look at the evidence of something weve been doing for ten years now and to realize that these talks are just as fresh on the page as they were the actual evenings of the events. That is saying a lot, because most of these events were magical. Just ask the people who have attended over the years.

In reading the talks in this book, Ive come to the conclusion that they are treasures, nothing less, and to think that they are available to the readers of this bookthat they are not lost to the ether but are right here for you to enjoy, just as we enjoyed them on the evenings of our eventsabsolutely thrills me.

But before I say more, perhaps you dont really know what Socrates in the City is. Let me explain: We are a UFO cult. There, Ive said it. Of course, thats not for public consumption. To the public we present ourselves as an elegant and upscale Manhattan speakers series. So, Ill have to stick with that description going forward in this essay, but you and I will know that I am really talking about a UFO cult and that underneath our terribly sophisticated street clothes, we wear cult-issue silver unitards with a nifty lightning-bolt-and-leaping-leprechaun logo. Its quite a logo. But we wont mention this again.

But seriously, its hard to believe its been more than ten years since I started Socrates in the City with the simple idea that the philosopher Socrates was quite right when he famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. It struck me that in New York City, where I live, people werent being much encouraged to think deeply about the big questionsor should I say, the Big Questions. It seemed that there was something about our culture which worked against examining the Big Questions. I wanted to remedy that a bit.

Also, I realized that I have had the privilege of being acquainted with a number of brilliant writers and speakers who had thought rather a lot about the Big Questions and who had some pretty terrific answers to those questions. Why not bring them to New York? And why not invite my friends to hear them? And why not serve wine and hors doeuvres? And so, Socrates in the City was born.

As it happened, eight of our first ten speakers were named Os Guinness. Thats not a weird coincidence, but it is evidence of the generosity of a dear friend, to whom we here gratefully doff our caps.

I remember that our second eventOs was not the speakertook place the day after the hotly contested 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Everyone had stayed up till three or four A.M. the night before, hoping to find out who had won. Little did they know the issue would drag on for many weeks.

So, the next night a handful of our audience members had some difficulty keeping their eyes open during David Aikmans terrific talk on Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela, and Elie Wiesel. Quel dommage! In all these years that has never happened again, but should it ever happen to you at a Socrates event, you should probably consider getting a good nights sleep the night before and cutting back on the pre-talk libations. The act of open-mouthed snoring while Bishop N. T. Wright or Sir John Polkinghorneor any other ecclesiastical worthyis holding forth is still considered dclass in most respectable New York social circles.

Almost all of our events have been held in the ornately gorgeous rooms of the most exclusive private clubs of Manhattan. The Union League Club, the University Club, the Union Club, and the Metropolitan Club have been a few of our favorites. The art in some of them is reason enough to attend Socrates in the City events. Besides, listening to a talk on how a good God can allow suffering is always somehow improved if your gaze can wander to a 1903 bas-relief of Hercules slaying the Erymanthian boar. We dont know how this works, but it does.

We always begin our events with a reception where wine and hors doeuvres are served. Because of a lawsuit, weve had to cut back on the unlimited sangria and shrimp, but please keep praying; perhaps the judge will see things our way. After the reception, we begin our program with my introduction of the speaker.

My introductions have always been calculatedly dopeyor dippybecause we firmly believe thats the surest way of letting the audience and the speaker know up front that we expect to have fun and that this will not be a ponderous intellectual exercise. We will not abide pretentiousness, but we will sometimes countenance a freewheeling Marx Brothers approach to the search for truth. To this point, my opening comments and introductions have often taken their cues from the speeches of Foster Brooks and Charlie Callas at Dean Martins celebrity roasts. This is intentional.

After all, who said that the exploration of the Big Questions and fun cant go together? It was probably La Rochefoucauld, but who cares what he thinks? Seriously, I think that the fun we have is vital to what we do. We know that no matter how serious the subject (suffering and evil and death, for example), we will enjoy ourselves. We hope weve captured something of that juxtaposition between the covers of this book.

My philosophy is that answering the Big Questions about life, God, and other small topics can be fun if you know in advance that there are actually good and hopeful answers to those questions. Somehow, we actually do know that. Dont ask me how. But it does follow logically that if you know there are good and hopeful answers to these Big Questions, then asking them becomes far less frightening. It is our firm belief that one shouldnt fear asking such questions, and so, we do not. On the contrary, let us beard the lion in his own den! Or something like that.

So, yes, over the last ten years we have asked some of the biggest, baddest questions imaginable, and I think its safe thus to say that we have had some of the most wonderful evenings imaginable. It has always bothered me that more people couldnt be there to experience themwhich is one reason weve put this book together.

Our goal in this book was to somehow capture the ineffabledare we say tingly?feeling of what it is like to be at an actual Socrates event. Of course, there are limits. For example, our publisher balked at providing assorted nuts, cheeses, and two glasses of wine with every copy of the book. They suggested that this might be more cost-effective when the book comes out in paperback; so, keep your fingers crossed. But we really have tried hard to approximate the feeling of being there, of hearing my introductions and the speakers fabulous talks and the terrific question-and-answer section at the end of each talk.

In order to retain the freshness of these evenings, we have only lightly edited the raw transcriptions. To make the reading process a little bit smoother, we have, of course, removed any ums, ahems, and achoos from the originals. If you find an achoo in your copy, please keep in mind that it may have gotten there after the book was printed; so, you might want to ask your friends and family if they are responsible. And if you find that there is an errant um or an ahem, by all means feel free to contact the publisher or your local bookseller about it. But to save time, we always recommend first dipping a clean rag in some club soda and dabbing at the unnecessary word with short, vigorous strokes. If that fails, you might try some benzene and cotton or wool. Sometimes a fresh India rubber will also do the trick.

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