Introduction: Conversations on the Examined Life by Eric Metaxas

October 25, 2024

Introduction

It is simply impossible to overstate the enthusiasm I have felt in rediscovering the conversations in this volume. Or to overstate my astonishment at how wonderful each one is, and how each is wonderful in a different way. If you don’t see what I mean within ten pages or so, please consult a physician.

I was of course physically present for each of these conversations, but as it happens that proved a handicap in fully appreciating them. There is something about being host and interlocutor that requires such focus that the bigger picture is somehow lost. To redress this I have watched the videos of these events more than once, which I heartily recommend, and which you may do any time by visiting SocratesintheCity.com. In watching them I was very often taken aback by something I had missed in the moment, or had simply forgotten. Still, there is something about encountering these conversations on the printed page that can take things to another realm, which is the reason for this volume. Over and over as I was editing these conversations I was simply bowled over and had to pause to take in the import of what I was reading.What inestimable treasures are here! Prepare to be touched and amazed and provoked. And prepare to laugh. Or don’t. After all, who can prepare for laughter?

The guests featured in this volume represent just a fraction of the many conversations we have had over the years, and choosing which to include here was an impossible task. But since this is only the first of a proposed series of such book compilations, I didn’t feel the need to be definitive in my choices. But what we have here is a reminder of the scintillating quality and staggering variety of guests and conversations. Not only don’t I have a favorite, I couldn’t even begin to choose my top five. I love each one intensely, but mostly for different reasons. There are such a variety of gems in these conversations that in reading them I often I felt like I’d stumbled onto Aladdin’s cave and became half-mad with the glittering treasure.

Where to begin? Herein we have TV legend Dick Cavett talking about “What is the price of fame?” during which this man I dare call friend quotes in its entirety an astonishingly apt Robert Frost poem, imitates Bob Hope and Jack Benny, and does the moonwalk. As they say, this single conversation is alone worth the price of admission. We also have Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, talking about walking on the moon—and his even more otherworldly journey shortly following. We have the genuinely incomparable novelist Mark Helprin, talking more fascinatingly in person even than he does in some of his fabulistic novels—and whom I literally ask about “the meaning of life.” We have the polymathic Oxford mathematician Dr. John Lennox, talking with striking clarity about whether faith and science are compatible. We have North Korean defector and human rights advocate Yeonmi Park, just twenty-nine at the time of our conversation, talking about the almost literally incredible story of her life. And we have Dame Alice von Hildebrand, almost ninety-one at the time of our event, talking about a host of things too beautiful to attempt to summarize. Lily—as she allowed me to call her—passed away recently at the age of ninety-nine, and two of the other dear souls in this volume have also left this world recently: Walter Hooper, who was C. S. Lewis’s secretary at the end of his life, and Tom Howard, who was a very dear friend, and who also met Lewis, as you will read. We may also mention that Lily and Tom and Walter were friends.

Although most of our events happen in NewYork City, some of these events happened in other cities, and some happened in Europe. The three conversations withWalter Hooper were filmed in Oxford, England, while the conversation with Dr. Lennox— who himself lives in Oxford—was filmed in the South of France. My conversation with Tom Howard was filmed at his home on the North Shore of Boston.

By way of background on Socrates in the City, we began in 2000. Ironically we originally intended it as a conversation series—just as it is now—in which I would interview people along the lines of my hero and friend Dick Cavett. But for various reasons we began it as a speakers series in its first decade, in which I would simply introduce a speaker—usually saying impossibly idiotic things in those introductions, the better to knock the audience slightly off balance, my dear—after which the speaker would speak, followed by a time of audience questions and answers. But when Dick Cavett was to be my actual guest at Socrates in the City, in 2011, I made the decision to do what I had always intended to do, and which we have done ever since, by having a conversation—just like Dick Cavett himself did on his programs. Or at least something like Dick Cavett. And in several instances with Dick Cavett himself. Are you confused? We’ve had a few Socrates events with Dick over the years, but in this volume only include the first one. But stay tuned for the others in subsequent volumes. In one of them Dick plays host and actually interviews me, giving me the honor of joining the ranks of Noel Coward, Joe Frazier, Janis Joplin, and Fred Astaire.

When we started in 2000, we chose the title “Socrates in the City” principally because Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I had come to the conclusion that Manhattan was hardly providing its august denizens with opportunities to attend events that would help them lead a more “examined life.” A group of us believed such an event series could be simultaneously entertaining and provocative—and might lead people to think more deeply about what we call “the Big Questions” and which I have semi-jokingly referred to as questions on “life, God, and other small topics.” So “Socrates in the City” was born.

Dear Reader!

Before I release you to commence wandering, leaping—and taking your occasional ease—in the wildflower meadows of these glorious conversations, one further comment. The provenance of my three conversations with Walter Hooper was my own realization that no one had ever on film captured this legendary figure giving something close to a full accounting of his relationship with Lewis, and his subsequent tireless efforts on behalf of Lewis and Lewis’s writings. This outraged me to the extent that I harangued my chief of staff, Elisa Leberis, into figuring out how we might finance a crew to travel to Oxford to amend this unforgivable error. Elisa amazingly did all that was necessary, and a few months later—in the summer of 2015—I had the inestimable privilege of having the three consecutive morning conversations with Walter Hooper at St.Aldates Church in Oxford, all included herein. While we were there I interviewed several other wonderful guests, whose inter- views I strongly encourage you to find at www.SocratesintheCity. com. Have I mentioned how wonderful these conversations are?

God bless you as you read.

Eric Metaxas

New York City

June 2024