I got to hear a Supreme Court justice talk last week. It was pretty cool. He talked about many interesting things. Past cases, the role of the court in a democracy, the role of the press in covering the court. Why, despite some necessary mystery, the Supreme Court ought to be understood and questioned and open to the public.
But what was most interesting to hear wasn't what was said. It was how it was said. His way of thinking, sorting, balancing every thought with a counter-thought or variation on the original. Dilineating good from bad, then switching them up on you like a bored magician. Like all good, noncommittal lawyers, he is accustomed to thinking vertically, getting deep into issues rather than scraping meekly over top of them with a broken plastic fork like the rest of us. This type of thinking leaves one full, but not necessarily satisfied. Still, it was all very impressive.
Of course, the balding bench jockey has the luxury and mandate to think in such terms. His institution is one that, if democracy serves, sets the boundaries of what's permissible in a free society. He and his fellow robed wizards are tasked with taking and defending sides using precedents, hypotheticals, common sense and a choice of myriad Constitution-interpreting philosophies in order to reach a conclusion that is invariably angsty and unsatisfying, using a degree of intellectual elbow grease so indulgent, if his job weren't so hard and important, I'd say it's narcissism in need of some quaaludes.
Unfortunately, the rest of us don't have the luxury of masturbating for hours and days with any given political and social issue that comes before us. (In that vein, you might consider my blog a dirty whore. A two-bit trick. A dimestore pimp. CNN.)
We don't have law-brilliant (different than actual brilliant, I think) clerks handing us 200-page briefs about pre-emptive war, hanging chads, or extrajudicial detentions, briefs that some might consider a lifetime achievement.
I, for one, prefer boxers.
We've got to make do with headlines and analysis by average shmos, and some above-average shmos, as well as a dizzying rain of pictures and radio waves that more beat down than enlighten.
While watching his somehow cherubic jowels move, I felt keenly this gap in how he gets to think and interact with issues versus how I get to. I admit I was jealous. I wanted to go immediately to the nearest bookstore and purchase an LSAT book. I desperately wished to be able to sit and ponder issues and solutions and swim in the synapses of the great legal minds of yore. I'd rather come up with opinions after weeks, months, even years!?! of labor, rather than read a few headlines, proclaim something using the words "fuck" and "ludicrous," and then eat my bagel with tomato, onion, lettuce and cream cheese, and type a few uninspiring words while secretly harboring the fear that I could be completely and utterly mistaken.
Yep. I'd rather. But I can't. I'd rather be Shakira for a day. I'd rather be dancing with a ripped merchant marine named Sid. I'd rather have 51 percent ownership of the Baltimore Orioles. I'd rather buy my mom a house in her hometown. The list is real, my friends. Sadly, "rathers" are not.
So I stick with the simple things. Many of these simple things I find in numbers six through 8 of the
Big Ten. In the so-called
ethic of reciprocity, interest-free. Inside the
wordy declarations of Europeans. Among portions and intentions and haughty assertions of certain
manifestos and headlines of
thoughtful publications. And in remembering little things my dad told me. Like when I tried not to pay a parking ticket. "Do the right thing," he said, well before Spike Lee came along.
It's what most of us have to do. It is through these simple lenses that we have to see the world. It's not that we don't want to acknowledge nuance, relish working through contradictions and admissions of wrong or see the value in letting ideas evolve and be shaped by reality. It's just that, very often, we don't have the time or, given the oppressive nature of information these days, the inclination for much else.
