The comedian and actor Steve Martin turned an apt phrase on the study of philosophy.
“If you’re studying geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all,” he said, “but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.”
That’s a good description of my relationship with philosophy in college. This freshman year subject both stimulated and violently rearranged my whole way of thinking.
When I left the mining towns of the Iron Range for a college in Iowa, later transferring to UW-Superior, I thought I knew a lot. After all, I was a good student. A Type A high achiever. The path from smart kid to big city journalist was a straight line to my thinking at the time. It was a simple problem of getting the degree and being let loose on the world. I did not account for actually learning things or my mind changing.
But that’s what I ended up loving most about college. It started with a philosophy class in which the professor showed up as Socrates and answered every question with a question. Now, maybe that’s not for everyone. (I was deeply skeptical at the time). But it led to all kinds of thoughts that shaped the winding path that took me to the here and now.
That path recently included an interview with the world-renowned political philosopher Michael Sandel about what it will take to renew the civic spirit that he remembered growing up in Minnesota. I remember it too, and once in a while I see living examples growing like weeds between the cracked concrete of partisanship and collective grievances.
Conservations like this (gift link) are exactly why I left the relative stability of teaching Intro to Communication and Public Speaking every semester to write full time. Sandel reminded me that we don’t have to wallow in our perceptions of a tightly-regimented world. The mind is capable of opening, and with that process comes rewards beyond the material.
No, I didn’t not become a philosophy major. Nor did I move to a big city. In fact, “opening my mind” led me back home to the Range, where I wanted to make a difference in my own community.
Sandel’s philosophy speaks of a value-system I long for — one in which society is shared, not separated.
Read “This award-winning philosopher’s big ideas started in Minnesota” in the Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
