Kimberly Hatch Harrison (co-founder of Socratica) hosts this podcast that celebrates books and authors. She introduces you to the wide variety of writing that has influenced the work at Socratica. Often, it’s the incomparable Ray Bradbury. It’s his birthday, and we’re talking about his short story “The Pedestrian.”
“The Pedestrian” used to be in “The Golden Apples of the Sun” story collection, but it has been removed from the more recent editions. You might be able to find it in an older edition from a used bookstore.
Here’s a collection that does contain “The Pedestrian”:
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury
https://amzn.to/45iefWe
Kim’s book: How to Be a Great Student
ebook: https://amzn.to/2Lh3XSP
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3t5jeH3
Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/3atr8TJ
Sign up for Socratica Dialogue (Newsletter)
https://snu.socratica.com/join
If you'd like to talk about this podcast (and all things Socratica), you can join our Discord by becoming our Patron on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/socratica
Transcript:
Welcome Everybody! To Socratica Reads. My name is Kimberly Hatch Harrison, and I’m the co-founder of Socratica. We make beautiful educational videos that look to the future. We’ve had a lot of help along the way from a certain special fellow. It’s his birthday today. Ray Bradbury. He, more than anyone else, taught me to be a futurist.
I’m going to interrupt myself here to say—there won’t be any more interruptions, because this podcast has ZERO ads. That’s because we’re sponsored by The Socratica Foundation. And the Socratica Foundation is sponsored by—you. The Socratica Foundation is an educational nonprofit dedicated to the three timeless pillars: Literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking. Socratica Reads podcast is part of our Literacy campaign. You can learn more at socratica.org
A literacy campaign is an optimistic thing. Ray Bradbury is an optimistic writer, but he’s also a realist. One of the most powerful things you can accomplish with science fiction is you can do an end-run around all the psychological barriers we have—all the denial, all the whistling through the graveyard about the fate of humankind. It’s so much easier to face up to our frailties when they’re given to the people of the future.
That’s what this story, The Pedestrian, lets us do. Now this story was written in 1950, and it’s set in 2053, but it’s also about today. It’s pretty spooky.
Are you ready? Let’s begin.
{Kim reads excerpt}
This is a very short story, and I’m tempted to just read the whole thing, because that would be a good time for me, but I do very much want to encourage you to check this out from the library or support your local bookstore and find a copy for your very own. This story, “The Pedestrian,” is in my old copy of The Golden Apples of the Sun, but it’s been removed from more recent editions. You should be able to find it in other story collections, so I’ll include a link in the shownotes.
If this story reminds you of Fahrenheit 451, uh…me too. You can see Ray Bradbury pinning down this idea about how what is NORMAL is enforced and what kinds of formerly natural and beneficial human behavior becomes subversive. How do we anesthetize ourselves so we accept what our lives have become. Do you see yourself or your loved ones in this story? Can you do something about it?
If you want to chat about the ideas in The Pedestrian, our Discord Server is open to all of our YouTube channel members, and our Patrons from Patreon. You can join at patreon.com/socratica. Thanks for listening.
