When I informed my father that I had changed my major from psychology to philosophy, he reacted immediately with his frequent "What the *%&# are you going to do with that?"
"Learn to think," I said. "Then I'll get and job and learn to do it."
He kept shaking his head in disapproval as my hand swept across the family library now displaying a full set of "The Great Books of the Western World," just purchased to enhance the bookshelves in the cozy study of his mother-in-law's house.
"It's all in them," I continued as he got up and walked out of the room. I didn't tell him that I had gotten into the wrong stacks one Saturday morning, was exhilarated by the titles of all the philosophy books, and was at the office of the academic dean first thing Monday to change my major. Nor did I tell him I had read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, started smoking and found a new world to enter.
Dad's schooling ended with high school, but his command of a B-17 (which he named "Punchin' Judy") during World War II yielded medals, confidence and forcefulness to his many innate strengths. Later he became one of the most powerful senators in the state of Georgia, along with his contiguous neighbor, Jimmy Carter, a "*%&#" liberal, in Dad's opinion.
Nor, a year later when I asked him if he knew of Charles L. Weltner, the congressman from Atlanta, and he said, "That *%&# liberal," did I tell him I had already accepted a job on the congressman's staff in Washington, D.C. Weltner and Carter were good friends, which I never discussed with Dad.
Some arguments are just words. I had learned this by 1963.
Like finding the holding to a law case, disciplined thinking leads to seeking the heart of a matter among flurries of words, most irrelevant. It forces one to question what the argument really is about and where it's heading. So, now in 2020, we hear answers and solutions to political problems, but what are the questions? Questions are critical to our own minds or made public: What is the heart of the issue? Are all things being considered? What kind of a track is being laid and where does it lead? Ask questions, then listen.
Socrates said that the question implies the scope of the answer. Listen to the question carefully. If you can't find the answer, rephrase the question. Certainly we can do that for ourselves, and we have every right to ask it of others, lest the art of thinking be lost. The individual, his thoughts, questions and votes, are an integral part of Western democracy and its spirit.
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Judith H. Baum lives in North Little Rock.
Editorial on 01/24/2020