Breakfast with Socrates
Is the unexamined life worth living?
It is Socrates who first declared, 鈥淣o, it isn鈥檛.鈥� And after reading Robert Rowland Smith鈥檚 new book Breakfast With Socrates: An Extraordinary (Philosophical) Journey Through Your Ordinary Day, you might just agree.
Smith moves from commuting to running errands to working out in the gym 鈥� all the commonplace mile markers in a typical day 鈥� and then proceeds to unwrap the philosophical implications of our most ordinary activities.
For many readers, the mere mention of philosophy might seem cause enough to hit the snooze button. But that鈥檚 why Smith, an Oxford don turned management consultant, wrote this book 鈥� to counter the tendency of too many philosophers to keep 鈥渂ig ideas aloft rather than grounding them in everyday experience.鈥�
As we travel through a typical day with Smith, we hear from Thomas Hobbes (who would have applauded the stoplight) to Machiavelli (who explains why parties are about politics and not friendships) to John Stuart Mill (who, 鈥淚f playing hooky had a patron saint ... might justly be canonized鈥�). But it鈥檚 not just names from your basic Philosophy 101 course. Interspersed between Mill and Aristotle, we find George Costanza from 鈥�Seinfeld.鈥� And we鈥檙e just as likely to discover lines from 鈥淭he Godfather鈥� and 鈥淲ho鈥檚 Afraid of Virginia Woolf鈥� as to discuss the pages of 鈥淭he Joy of Sex.鈥� Smith knows no bounds in his pop culture references and succeeds in keeping us on our toes.
But what makes Smith鈥檚 book genius isn鈥檛 just the ability to lay out an interesting, eloquent, and relevant piece of work 鈥� which he admittedly does. No, the kicker for 鈥淏reakfast with Socrates鈥� is that it鈥檚 just plain funny.
Smith has humor in spades: he uses the song 鈥淚t鈥檚 My Party (And I鈥檒l Cry If I Want To)鈥� to describe the politics of friendships, explains how watching TV might just prove 鈥渉ow smart you are,鈥� compares fictional characters to Schrodinger鈥檚 famous cat, and likens commuters traveling to work to brutal savages stopped by the one thing calling them to order 鈥� a red light. (The authority of which is more powerful than that of a traffic cop who, Smith explains, is 鈥渙nly one of us, after all.鈥�)
The humor does not dumb down the philosophy Smith interjects. While it鈥檚 obvious we will not leave the reading of Smith鈥檚 book with a thorough understanding of Karl Marx鈥檚 most fundamental beliefs, we still leave knowing a bit more, becoming more aware of our surroundings, and thinking twice about many of the things that have become second nature to us.
If humor is the best part of Smith鈥檚 book 鈥� and it might just be 鈥� then eloquence and neutrality tie for second place. It鈥檚 rare to see so many competing ideas on the same page, not just for the sake of summary, but in order to make a point. Smith completely wins us over to one way of thinking 鈥� and then turns us on our heads and makes us see things in a completely different light.
It鈥檚 a tribute to Smith鈥檚 own purpose for writing the book 鈥� to get us to think 鈥� that it鈥檚 impossible to pin down what he himself is thinking. His ability to convince us of the validity of two polar opposites without injecting his own beliefs is commendable. Many controversial topics play out in his book 鈥� socialism, idealism, religion, the ethics of food 鈥� but we never feel as if we are being chastised. In this way, Smith gains our trust.
As Smith sifts through the 18 chapters of our day, we gain a bit of distance from ourselves and are better able to understand how we operate. As the day, and the book draw to a close, it鈥檚 hard not to regret that Smith鈥檚 moments of introspection are over. We are now left to our own devices.
But not to worry, says Smith. He assures us, his readers, that, we will file his book away, 鈥渂oth literally,鈥� on our bookshelves, and also 鈥渕etaphorically, in the possibly more chaotic library鈥� of our minds, where it will mix and mingle with everything else we know and become just one more lens through which we perceive the days of our lives.
Kate Vander Wiede is a staff writer with the South End News in Boston.
