BRUTALLY GOOD: A Reflection Paper

A reflection paper about the famous Intellectual Midwifery of Socrates

Sometimes, brutality is the key. The art of using “force” is what I learned from Socrates in this week’s discussion about philosophy. In last week’s discussion, Socrates was described as a robust man who owns great physical strength with a scary appearance, and that description of his made me perceive him as a man who uses force in everything. But that perception didn’t end there because in this week’s discussion, Sir Siquig introduced us Socrates’ philosophy of “Intellectual Midwifery”, or the act of acquiring truth through dialectics, wherein the person acting as midwife helps another person by talking to him or her, in any way possible, just to get the truth. In those two connecting descriptions of Socrates and his philosophy, I therefore assumed that Socrates’ Intellectual Midwifery proposes us that force and brutality are needed in order for us to acquire truth.

I agree to Socrates’ way of acquiring truth by using force because most of the times, man is too evasive in facing the truth. Just like me, I am too evasive in many questions because I tend to hide the truth from other and from myself. I tend to make myself believe that I don’t know what is good but the truth is I really know it, I am just afraid to face it. Maybe because there is a severe consequence in facing it, or maybe because my pride can’t accept the fact that I really did something wrong.

Now, I therefore conclude that brutality is essential for people like me. People who are too afraid and too evasive. Maybe Socrates’ brutality is a great foundation of him being a philosopher and that brutality is a great foundation of acquiring the “truth” that each of us is aiming for. Force is bad, brutality is bad, but that doesn’t mean Socrates and I can’t put it into good use. Because most of the times, when brutality is in good use, it will be brutally good!