Returning to the World (Third Essay), with Help From Plato

I entered my brave new world of discovery beginning Feb. 1, 2003, and I decided to dig in eagerly wherever I could. I knew enough about myself to conclude that deep research was going to be very important my life, but I didn't know in which particular areas I would "land." I had rejected the "field" model in which I was nurtured. That is, I was competent in a field, even more than one, but I found it dreadful to go to conferences, play academic games, try to get your articles published in one of the three leading journals when 2000 other scholars were gunning for the same journals, etc. I rejected for myself so many things about the "specialized" way we did things, not because I didn't like deep focus, but I objected to having to do it only in one field. Why not have 10 focuses in study? Why not be able to write on the Bible on M-W-F mornings, on words in the afternoons, on law in the evenings, on history on the weekends, for example?

Not sure where to begin, then, I decided to start with topics growing out of my Jurisprudence class. I would look at one topic (which normally wasn't covered in any other Jurisprudence course I knew--such as the role of the Field Code of 1848 in New York in revamping our understanding of civil procedure), and not only study the Code but then get out a biography of David Dudley Field, look at his family (his brothers were Cyrus--the cable guy--and Stephen--the Supreme Court Justice), and try to "place" them in the complex world of the mid-19th century in America. Because I believe that "way leads to way" in scholarly investigation, I was soon studying other 19th century American figures, in poetry (Dickinson), in art (Winslow Homer) and other historical events.

Plunging In

Then I decided to "plunge in" on one subject. Professor Simon Greenleaf, a law professor at Harvard in the mid-19th century, was perhaps the most prominent early law professor in America about whom almost nothing was written. Indeed a law school had even been named after him in the 1970s. I discovered an "angle" on him that no one had treated, traveled to Cambridge, MA (his papers are at the special collections library of Harvard Law Library) with my daughter to show her law schools and ended up spending three days poring over 24 boxes of "unread" manuscripts and letters from his day (1783-1853). In fact, the thing that interested me was his treatise on Evidence (1846--the first American treatise on the issue) and then his work on The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by the Rules of Evidence (1847). I was so fascinated by the guy that I thought I would write the first "biography" of him (a professor in Buffalo is thinking of doing the same thing).

But like the two year-old toddler whose chest gets ahead of his legs as he runs, and he falls unceremoniously on his face, so I was getting ahead of myself. I was trying to "force" an interest when, in fact, it wasn't truly there. So, I turned to studying Nietzsche, then memorizing some of his German poetry, then to the study of post-modernism. But each of these only stayed with me for a few weeks; I still was searching. Finally, I decided to read the Shakespeare corpus, memorizing many lines as I went along (I memorized, for example, the entirety of Othello, Act V). Shakespeare was one person who held my interest, and I was, and am, captivated by his language and vision.

But still something was missing. I wanted to read and study widely, and write about all of it, but I was seemingly confined to my notebooks to do all my creative writing. Since I had "rejected" the culture of "refereed articles" and publishers, I had to content myself with occasional pieces in law journals and other more popular sources. One day late in 2003 I decided I needed to learn "Web" technology to put my ideas "out there" without "going through" the publication process that was "standard" in the field. The development of this site, which you can pretty easily follow, is the result. It has provided me with nearly endless challenge and joy. For the first time in my life I feel challenged each day--principally because I am the one setting the "high jump bar" for myself.

Returning to "Real Life"

As I discovered my solitude in study and my means of expression through web writing, I began to burrow myself so deeply into this research and writing that I found it difficult, and sometimes even distasteful, to return to the "real world." Here is where Plato's voice is helpful to draw upon. In Books VI and VII of his classic work, The Republic, Plato gives three images, the sun, line, and cave to describe the central point of his entire philosophical system--the difference between the world of Being, in which are the Forms or Ideas, and the world of Becoming, where we all live. The latter is characterized by a "shadowy" existence, where the best we can do is to see the reflections of true images on the "cave walls" of our lives. But the point that strikes me about Plato's image is the way he describes someone who has been "in the light" (i.e., who has contemplated the One or the Forms) who decides to return to the world. Here is Plato's colorful language:

"Further, I said, do you think it at all surprising that anyone coming to the evils of human life from the contemplation of the divine behaves awkwardly and appears very ridiculous while his eyes are still dazzled and before he is sufficiently adjusted to the darkness around him...?" Republic 517d.

In other words, what Plato does in this passage is to explain why those who have looked on the "Form of the Good" are "unwilling to occupy themselves with human affairs, and that their souls are always pressing upward to spend their time there" (i.e, in contemplation of the intelligible realm).

Plato has captured my experience fairly precisely. Though I would say that my unwillingness to enter this world does not necessarily produce awkwardness, it is motivated by my strong desire to "stay" in my "world of study." I do not claim that I have seen the "Forms" or, theologically speaking, that I have a more intimate knowledge of God than anyone else. I have, however, been residing in a new and different world through my study, a world that draws me in each day and weans me from the earth. While I had children at home and was married, while I had a "regular" job, I was tethered to the earth, sometimes in helpful ways. I still have friends and tasks that keep me "in the world," but for most of my time I am removed from it, and I feel a genuine discomfort and sometimes even awkwardness as I return to "this earth."

Conclusion

So, even though the life of the mind in study, thinking and writing is now my life's occupation--where I can, in general, set aside hours each day for these tasks, I need to "return to earth" quite often, and it is getting more and more difficult to do that. I haven't yet perfectly negotiated the sometimes tenuous intersection of these two world.

And then, there is one other thing I have not negotiated well at all. Thomas Jefferson will help me in explaining this--for it is a subject almost too hot to handle.

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