See For Yourself

A few weeks ago, I wrote about trying to get myself back on track in my reading for the year, which has been really successful—sometimes all you need is a bit of a kickstart. Now, I’m back in my goldilocks zone, where my appetite for the written word is extremely high. There are so many books I’ve got on my list, the promise of the next book often as compelling as the current book. Because of this thirst, I’ve been bouncing around between wildly different works; from literary fiction to religious works, philosophy books, interviews, and more.

Throughout this whole process, I’ve continued to read Plato’s The Republic with The Catherine Project, which has been a rich experience. It’s always a bit of a dice-roll to read with others (each group I’ve been part of has had at least one person who I would describe lovingly as “a kook”), but it truly is a rewarding process.

Unlike some of the other works I’ve read with The Catherine Project, I don’t believe I’ve read any of The Republic before, but so much of what’s contained is just subsumed into Western thought and culture at this point, it sometimes feels like I have. I think most people are familiar with the concept of the “philosopher king,” or have heard about the “allegory of the cave.” While these ideas are not new to me, in reading them directly I’m finding them to be far removed from how I had thought of them.

Take the allegory of the cave—you might even be able to picture the setup: people watching shadows reflected on the walls of a cave, thinking the shadows are the world, when we all know the real world is outside. This is part of it, but the cave Socrates describes is a bit different. He describes the people in the cave as prisoners, the cave itself as a type of prison. The people in the cave are bound, forced to look at the wall, unable to turn their head around (or leave, of course). The one who does leave would not want to go, would be blinded by the light of the Sun, forced to adapt to their new reality.

I had thought the allegory of the cave was about rejecting ignorance and embracing education, bringing us closer to the life we “should” be living. It sort of is, but it’s specifically about the education of the philosopher king, who after seeing the real world (the forms, or close to it) mustn’t be permitted to ponder this higher level of existence, but forced back into the cave to govern those inside with his superior wisdom. This philosopher king would want to free those in the cave, show them the wisdom he found, but the idea isn’t seriously discussed. In fact, those in the cave will see the philosopher as a fool at best, and a threat at worst, whom they’ll try to kill after hearing him speak. Not quite what I had thought!

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Another book I’ve read recently is Machiavelli’s The Prince. The Prince is obviously a notorious book, known for its shrewd and cruel advice. I knew nothing about Machiavelli himself before reading, so I was glad my edition had a lengthy introduction about his life and works (did you know he also wrote plays, some of which are apparently pretty raunchy?). I’ve always been a bit curious about The Prince , but my understanding of it comes mostly from attempted applications of his teachings via state-building focused anime, like Genjitsu Shugi Yūsha no Ōkoku Saikenki(eng: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom), aka, Incredibly Trustworthy Sources.

Like The Republic , there’s sort of a cultural consciousness around The Prince , though it’s more of a vibe rather than specifics. Still, I was expecting to read this and find advice like, Make sure you kill anyone who betrays you , or Undercut everyone around you so only you succeed , and while there are plenty of examples of cunning or calculating advice given (“in general you must either pamper people or destroy them”), I found it in general a lot tamer (and more interesting) than I had been led to believe. Machiavelli’s biggest advice is to make sure your people never hate you, because there is strength in numbers. But rather than fear and avoid them, you should arm your citizens, because “When you’re the one giving people arms, those arms become yours.”

Probably the first time I can remember having this experience was during college, when I took a class that read Moby Dick (I don’t remember what sort of a class this would’ve been; I guess an English course). Moby Dick is a huge book, and has an impressive reputation as one of the most important books in English, a reputation I’ll happily echo. But again, the book I found was much lighter and more approachable than I’d been told. I wasn’t expecting so many dick jokes, for example, or for the bizarre metafictional sections. But these are all parts of Moby Dick , and collectively make the work so special and so powerful, even almost 200 years after it came out.

Similar to my experience with Handke, engaging with these works directly has been a lot more fruitful than just thinking about them. Part of what made The Catherine Project interesting to me in the first place was the idea that by participating in a reading group, I could get support to tackle tougher texts; and what I learned almost immediately was that while it was valuable to read with others, I could read these texts by myself. This confidence has continued out of the Zoom classrooms and into my regular life; and often, the work I ended up experiencing differs greatly from the image I had in my head.

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