Jacob Held on “Reading: Risk & Reward”

Headshot of Jacob M. Held Philosophy is a risky business. Ask Socrates. Well, nowadays we don’t have to be worried about being sentenced to death. But even if charges of denying the gods and corrupting the youth don’t lead to execution these days, a good Socratic gadfly still has a few things to worry about. Philosophers, by which I mean thinkers, those who question, doubt, ask…still face problems, not literal death to be sure, but social death. Philosophers ask questions about all those things everybody already “knows”; the existence of god, faith, morality. In so doing, philosophers question the foundations of not only their own lives, but others as well. And questioning someone’s foundational beliefs won’t win you many friends. We don’t do this to be troublesome for its own sake. At least the better of us don’t. We do so because we can’t do otherwise. We can’t live life without questioning; we refuse to live by routine or formula. And our beliefs are too important to go unchallenged, unjustified. Our beliefs form the core of who we are as people, they are our values, those very ideas upon which we build personalities, lives, communities, the world. So we question, because we recognize the world is at stake, and it can’t be handed over to the thoughtless. And in so doing we are troublesome, bothersome. We think too much. We think about those things people would prefer they not have to think about. But a little bit of sugar does help the medicine go down.

So I combine my philosophy with popular culture, specifically children’s literature from Dr. Seuss to Roald Dahl. How perfect a marriage it is. Who speaks better to the need to question authority and go one’s own way than the author of James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and Danny, Champion of the World? And who paints a more brilliant picture of infinite possibilities and the need and benefit of living an adventurous life, to taking risks than Dr. Seuss? Who speaks more to the risks of being an outsider, of facing a recalcitrant, hostile world as an authentic human being, an uncompromising idealist, than Roald Dahl? Matilda, Charlie, Willy Wonka, George, Sophie, they all take risks, the same risk of being themselves; setting themselves against the status quo, against the world and being true to themselves. But they also receive the same reward, their lives, performed their way. They achieve freedom, freedom from dogma and servitude by risking everything.

This is the conclusion that philosophy leads us to, the unexamined life is not worth living, and the only life worth living is your own. But philosophy also provides the method to achieve this, by educating us how to doubt, how to question, and how to identify worthwhile answers, worthwhile approaches. Philosophers take risks, risks we all must take if we are to live our lives as our own. We need to risk our lives by questioning everything, and we need the courage to go where the evidence and reason leads, and the integrity to live according to what is right even when it isn’t comfortable, easy, or popular. We bet our lives on the beliefs we hold dear. Everything is at stake, and so instead of hiding from this responsibility and taking the safe road of accepting the status quo, we need to plunge ahead, to live dangerously, adventurously. We have nothing to lose, and the world to gain.