Gun Control: What Would Aristotle Do?

The Wall Street Journal today reviews a new book by Earl Shorris, The Art of Freedom (Opinion, April 17, 2013).  It has, I think, some lessons for defenders of gun rights.

When Shorris, was planning a book on poverty, he visited New York’s Bedford Hills maximum security prison and asked a female inmate why she thought poor people were poor.  She said.

“Because they don’t have the moral life of downtown,” she replied. “What do you mean by the moral life?” Shorris asked. “You got to begin with the children . . . ,” she said. “You’ve got to teach the moral life of downtown to the children. And the way you do that, Earl, is by taking them downtown to plays, museums, concerts, lectures.” He asked whether she meant the humanities. Looking at him as if he were, as he puts it, “the stupidest man on earth,” she replied: “Yes, Earl, the humanities.”

As a graduate of the University of Chicago’s Great Books Program, Shorris was no stranger to the humanities and, as result of this conversation, he created a course in which self-selected poor people could be exposed to the great writers of history, presumably compare the problems they faced with what we face, and emerge with an enlightened and essentially positive frame of reference.  Shorris assigns no reading in the trendy stuff like feminist studies or African American history, or gay and lesbian studies.

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2013-04-18 00:47:03

Source: http://silveristhenew.com/2013/04/17/gun-control-what-would-aristotle-do/