I have this friend who I met 8 years ago, though a discussion group in Osaka called ‘Critical Thinkers’. He used to be one of the organizers of the discussion meetings, and I used to participate in these meetings, sometimes help them facilitating the discussions. These meetings used to be a kind of oasis for me, which I looked forward to the most. At that time I was a master student, attending a number of academic meetings – seminars, conferences, lectures … but rather than them, this Critical Thinker’s meetup, organized and participated on a completely voluntary basis – was the most intellectually satisfying experience of all my activities at that time. The Critical Thinker’s meetup was a place where I met most curious minds.
Both this friend of mine and I have been living in different parts of the world, moving around, but this month we are in Osaka at the same time again. We decided to organize a series of discussion meetings together while we are here. He named it ‘Socrates Café’ – the idea is to meet up to discuss interesting questions with the help of facts and logic, following the tradition of the Socratic method. Topic of the day was: What is a good life?
We only live once. Thinking of this fact, no doubt that many of us have once asked ourselves the question: is this what I am supposed to do with my life? Is this the best I can do? For centuries, philosophers too, have been asking themselves these questions, from Socrates who stated that “the unexamined life is not worth living” to Camus who urged us to “imagine Sisyphus happy.” So what makes a life “good”? Is it the moments of happiness? Can a life of sufferings be good? What if you believe your life was good but people around you think your life was awful? Those are few of the questions we asked ourselves in this event.
We also talked about what ‘meanings’ are when we talk about ‘meaningful life’. Can we create meanings ourselves, or attach meanings to whatever we decide, and can it be anything? Anything, something as simple as brushing teeth everyday, or something that looks trivial such as observing the shape of clouds in the sky? Can ‘good’ or ‘meaningful’ life be something completely subjective, or does it need to have a sort of external validation (deemed useful or good by the society, community, friends or families)? Maybe seeking a meaning itself can be the meaning of life?
For me personally, understanding others and reflecting on our own ideas/life/selves is one of the few essential things that bring us closer to ‘good life’. And this discussion is an example of such ‘meaningful’ activity in life. We gathered in one place, shared the moments together, listening to and trying to understand the other people’s viewpoints, expressing your own and formulating, perhaps changing yours in the process. Collectively advancing ideas and thoughts.
And how can we collectively advance ideas? Today’s discussion was facilitated by my friend, and he did an amazing job. He welcomed people warmly, set the rules of the discussion clearly at the beginning, and started by asking what people think of the main question. Then, he guided us with a few sub-questions that he prepared – participated in the discussion himself sometimes, keeping a firm grip of the overview and directions of the conversation while also being flexible to go with the flow. He has organized a number of this kind of philosophy meetups in different locations, including Japan, Taiwan, the US – and I can see that experiences paid off. He is always modest but I admire his curiosity, tenacity, intellect, and passion about philosophy.
Some challenges in collective discussion, in my view. (1) The choice between accommodating what every participant has to say (including more silent ones) by giving them the floor deliberately, and advancing the discussion by those who have relevant things to say. As some of the participants were not very good at English, it was clear they had difficulties following the conversation/expressing their ideas clearly or concisely. I always try to address those who are silent to ask them to express their thoughts, but it can also interrupt the flow of the discussion at times. (2) Difference in each person’s response time. Some people are quick to respond while others need more time to digest the information they receive and formulate their ideas. This does not mean that the quick persons have more valuable/relevant things to say – in fact, their response are often rather superficial and not very well-thought or deep, and slow persons can very well make valuable contribution to the discussion. The difficulty here is that conversations are easily dominated by quick persons – so we as facilitators need to make sure we find a way accommodate people with different response time. One way is to set a ‘raise-hand’ rule – to make sure we will not leave slow persons’ response behind in the conversation.
Hoko Horii 