On January 9th, 2020, I attended my first Philodemic Society debate.
The resolution on offer was this: We Define Truth.
Yeah… That’s a no from me.
But I figured, Hey! I’ll just go and hear what they have to say, so I resolved to attend my first Philodemic Society debate.
Hilariously, I was actually intending to write a blog post about what college students think about truth, so I went ready to take notes.
Little did I know that instead I would be writing a post about being compelled by the Man Upstairs to speak in my sweats in front of a room full of well-dressed, intelligent, debate savvy strangers, and that it would go well!
Like, really well.
Friends, I am still riding high on this, and we are almost a week out.
So without further ado, here’s what went down:
The Framing of The Debate
We: Humanity as a collective
Define: To Determine
Truth: The state of things as they actually are
The debate started with two brief keynote addresses, and then we were off to the races as members of the Philodemic Society started jumping in.
Most of what was said was going way, WAY above my head.
There was math-talk, science-talk, very technical lawyer-y sounding talk, and I was sat there thinking, “I know they’re speaking English, but I have no idea what they’re saying.”
My brain was hurting.
Still, I was determined to have something to say about this debate for you lovely folks, so I went on taking notes.
About 45 minutes in, I looked down at the page of notes I’d taken, and if you want photographic evidence of just how incoherent my thoughts can get, well, here it is:
If you’re in the mood to play “I Spy,” try and see if you can find these guys: Nietzsche. Frankl. Turner. Blake. Dawkins. Murray. Chesterton.
I’d written their names down as reminders of quotes that I know about the importance of truth and the dangers of run-away relativism, and I was prepared to use them.
Internally, of course.
And later. Probably much later. Because as much as I wish that I were the perspicacious sort, I am an intellectual slow-cooker.
I mean, the end result is usually pretty good, but it takes me a minute to get there.
HOWEVER!
As I sat there with my page of notes and the names of people I could quote, something strange happened.
Now, I should preface this by saying I am no stranger to the feeling of pins and needles running down my body. I have a litany of health problems and among them are rather severe paresthesia episodes, so I can say with confidence that this feeling wasn’t that!
Instead, it was more of a vomit-y, jitter-y feeling that was accompanied by a very real and concrete need to say SOMETHING NOW-NOW-NOW!
And the part of me that is 1) borderline phobic about public speaking around strangers and 2) had never spoken extemporaneously in front of a crowd before was like, “NO-NO-NO, THANK YOU. I’M GOOD WITH REMAINING SITTING DOWN!”
Side note: If you’ve read my other “Story Time” post, you’ll know God apparently has something against me sitting down.
That being said, the Man Upstairs was giving me a pretty big bodily signal that said, “HELLO! I’m telling you to say something here and now, and you can either do it or vomit your guts out. Your choice.”
The room was honestly too nice to vomit in, so I looked down at my jumbled, not particularly legible notes, and frowned.
I didn’t even know what to say.
Still, I sat there and prayed, “God, if you want me to speak, give me the words I need.”
And I kid you not, three names POPPED off the page.
It was honestly like a speech had been airdropped into my head, and I thought, “Okay, God. Let’s do this.”
Showtime
When the time came for audience participation on the side of the negation, I raised my hand and…
Was promptly not called on.
I thought, “Well, this puts a wrench in the plan.”
I mean, I suppose I could’ve simply stormed the center of the room (God guards the path of the righteous, after all!), but that seemed like a bad idea.
Again, I appealed to the Big Man.
“God,” I prayed. “If you want me to speak, let her call on me.”
And DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
That’s right.
The President said, “The guest in red.”
I stood up, and was reminded of the fact that I was severely under-dressed. But there was just nothing else for that, so into the center of the room I went.
“Hello, my name is Sarah George. I am a junior in the SFS from Indianapolis, Indiana, and I am about to wet my pants.”
I didn’t say that last bit, but I was thinking it.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Philodemic Society, we’ve heard a lot about the technical and theoretical elements of truth, but if you will allow me, I’d like to make this personal.”
I saw a few nods around the room.
“I’d like to do it by appealing to philosophy,” I continued. “Specifically, I’d like to bring in a collective of five philosophers who’ve published–in our lifetime–numerous philosophical treatises…”
I allowed a moment of suspense building silence.
“…and they are the Black Eyed Peas.”
Room-wide laughter and wood-knocking ensued, and I internally fist pumped.
“Hallelujah!” I thought.
Laughter meant they were listening, and I wasn’t completely flopping.
Emboldened, I went on, embodying one of my personal heroes, Michael Ramsden.
I began with this:
“People killing people dying/ Children hurt you hear them crying/ Would you practice what you preach/ Would you turn the other cheek/ Father, Father, Father, help us/ We need some guidance from above/ Because people got me, got me questioning where is the love?”
I turned, looking around the room of smiling faces, and said, “But this is the part that holds you:
‘The truth is kept secret/ It’s swept under the rug/ If you’ve never known truth then you’ve never known love.'”
There was this kind of murmuring hush which I took to be the Philodemic equivalent of “Oh snap.”
Oh snap, indeed.
I had their attention.
Thank you, Michael Ramsden.
“They’re absolutely right,” I said. “They are absolutely right because real love does not, indeed cannot, exist in the absence of truth. Real love exists in the presence of it.”
I looked around the room.
“We know this to be true. Is there anyone in your life who really knows you? Is there anyone in your life you can turn to and say, ‘You know the depths of my heart, and you love me the same?'”
I looked around. I really had their attention now.
“We’re all Georgetown students,” I said. “We know what it’s like to put on a show in the classroom. For an internship. During an interview. To try and get them to love you, but if they knew you–the real you–would they still love you? Do they know you? The true you?”
I looked around the room and asked, “What do you have in the absence of truth?”
“In his 1818 poem ‘The Everlasting Gospel,’ William Blake says this:
‘This life’s dim windows of the soul/ Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole/ And leads you to believe a lie/ When you see with not through the eye.'”
“Has anyone ever told a lie about you?” I asked. “Has anyone ever believed a lie about you?”
I saw a few nods around the room.
“It sucks,” I said. “It hurts. And don’t you just want to turn to them and say, ‘That’s not true!'”
More nods.
“If you’ve been fortunate enough to get this far in life without someone telling lies about you, I am so, so jealous of you.”
Incredulous titters broke out, and I took that to mean that no one in the room had been spared that experience, which was sad, if not expected.
“But even if you haven’t,” I hedged. “We all know what lies can do because in the twentieth century lies were told about Jews.”
There was total silence in the room.
“In his 1946 book The Doctor and The Soul, Dr. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, says this:
‘If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity, and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone.'”
I felt/heard the President get up behind me, signaling that my time was coming to a close.
“Uh-oh,” I thought.
The gavel was coming.
I kicked my mouth into high gear.
“‘I-became-acquainted-with-the-last-stage-of-that-corruption-in-my-second-concentration-camp,-Auschwitz.-The-gas-chambers-of-Auschwitz-were-the-ultimate-consequence-of-the-theory-that-man-is-nothing-but-the-product-of-heredity-and-environment;-or-as-the-Nazi-liked-to-say,-‘of-Blood-and-Soil.’-I-am-absolutely-convinced-that-the-gas-chambers-of-Auschwitz,-Treblinka,-and-Maidanek-were-ultimately-prepared-not-in-some-Ministry-or-other-in Berlin,-but-rather-at-the-desks-and-in-the-lecture halls–‘”
I swung my pen above my head, indicating the beautiful room we were in.
“‘–of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.'”
I finished just as the gavel came down.
My ears were ringing, my heart was pounding, and I’m pretty sure I had pit stains that would put pubescent boys to shame, but I walked back to my seat, and sat down, feeling like I’d just done something that had made God proud.
If there’s a better feeling in the world, I don’t know it.
The debate continued on for another twenty minutes or so, but once it ended, people–total strangers–came up to me, all saying variations of…
“That was amazing!”
“Your memory is incredible!”
“That was your first time speaking? Wow!”
I won’t lie–it felt good. Praise always does 🙂
HOWEVER!
I knew in my heart that while those people might’ve thought they were praising me, they were actually praising God.
I was just a poorly dressed representative.
So… my main takeaway from that experience was this:
In moments where you feel like you don’t know what to say, God will provide the words AND make the way. All you’ve got to do is pray.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the final vote on the resolution “We Define Truth” was 15-33 for the negation 🙂
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. ‘” John 14:6.
