The proposal
About this, and how to write.
socraticmaverick.org is the long home for the method, for the essays, and for the Youngstown Agora. This first version is the pitch. The Agora is a concept. Wean Park is the venue in the plan. No night is scheduled.
Who
Matthew Coppola
Socratic maverick. A knack for novelty. Carpe diem, praebe futurum.
He has described himself, in a letter, as “a young student of ideas located in Youngstown, Ohio,” from Norfolk, Massachusetts, for whom the city is home. In the essay with Bibek Singh he writes, “I’ve lived in many other places that are not Youngstown,” and “Youngstown is my home and it’s where I want to be.”
He has notes toward a pitch at Liberty High School that begin, “I am going to try to convince as many of you as possible to join this activity called debate.” That is a note, not a claim that a class has been formed.
Essays will live on this domain. None are posted here yet. “The Builder’s Case for Youngstown” stays where he and Bibek Singh published it, and is quoted on the city page with both names on it.
What the plan is
Named, and not yet a place.
The plan, as he has set it:
- The venue is Wean Park.
- Debates there are the main event.
- Secondary to the debates: artists presenting their art, dancers dancing, and small businesses selling quality, American-made, highly curated goods.
- The people who present are Rhetors. A visitor, watcher, or spectator is a Xenos.
- The debates run on Socratic Maverickism.
What this site will not say, because it is not true:
- That the Agora is open, built, or operating.
- That a date, a season, a permit, a partner, a funder, or an attendance figure exists.
- That any city office has approved it.
- That a producer, a judge, or a record-keeper has been named.
Get involved
Two letters, and no list behind them.
There is no form, no dues, and no calendar. Write if you would be in the room.
Both write to [email protected]. The address is a placeholder and may not be a mailbox. A Rhetor’s letter is an offer to debate, present, perform, or sell. A Xenos’s letter asks to be notified, or sends a debate topic. The parts are explained on their own page.
Credits
Pictures and type.
Youngstown skyline from Wean Park, the photograph on the home page and the basis of the social-preview image. By Dblcut3, 6 August 2020. CC BY-SA 4.0. File page. The page uses a recompressed copy. The preview image is a crop with the title set over it, and that derivative stays under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Downtown Youngstown in winter, on the city page. By Kasamias9, 27 January 2014. CC BY-SA 4.0. File page. Resized.
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787. Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain. File page. Resized. Matthew Coppola set this painting next to the line “Admiring Socrates is easy.”
Type on this site is Cormorant Garamond and Source Sans 3, both under the SIL Open Font License. Source Sans 3 license.