Reflections On Living Outside of One’s Time

The opening lesson I offer whenever I teach any kind of classic literature, in a classroom or privately, and whether fiction or philosophy, is always some version of this:

“There are ideas in this book that might strike us as immediately strange, morally uncomfortable, or completely contrary to our modern way of looking at things. When you see such ideas, always remind yourself that this book has survived for generations or even centuries because many highly intelligent people, through various changing times, thought there was something true or valuable here. We should always approach a classic book with the assumption that its author is much smarter than we are, and therefore when he says something we do not like, we should never assume it is because we know more than he does. We ought to assume that the opposite is more likely true. After all, the main reason we read great authors from the past is not so that we can teach them what we know from our superior perspective, but rather so that they can teach us what they know, from a world of understanding that we may have lost through time. If we shut our minds to an author every time we read words that seem disagreeable by our standards, then we are rejecting the entire purpose of reading the books our civilization has preserved through many eras and ages, namely the opportunity to learn what we do not know, or to challenge our received ways of thinking, with the help of the best teachers we can find.”

This lesson, though it would have seemed self-evident and pedantic in past times, is now utterly urgent and indispensable as a preface to any great reading adventure, as it flies in the face of everything progressive education, from kindergarten to graduate school, teaches us about how to see the past. My little introductory remarks are intended as an invitation to put aside the indoctrinated preconceptions we have all absorbed for a century from the Deweyites and the Marxists, and simply cease imposing our meanings upon the great books, in favor of letting them propose their own meanings to us. It is as though I were to hang a sign on the reading room door: “Through this doorway, we will become naïve and uncertain again, and will meet people who will show us wonders we have forgotten how to imagine — wonders which might even be true.”

“Oh, what’s wrong with using AI to get some information or correct my writing? Everyone does it.” “What’s wrong with having a few drinks with friends or coworkers once in a while? Everyone does it.” “What’s wrong with bending the truth a bit to get more money out of the insurance company? Everyone does it.” “What’s wrong with enjoying the popular entertainment of today? Everyone does it.”

Everyone does it. He who falls back on that excuse to justify all the little compromises, conveniences, or comforts that make him a bit uneasy in front of the mirror has already revealed himself.

First, by virtue of insisting that everyone does it he is implying that he knows it is not true that everyone does it, since by deferring to the authority of “everyone” he clearly means to seek safety in numbers against the real or imagined judgment of those (the supposed minority) who do not do it. Hence, he completes the circle of rationalization by telling himself, in effect, “Why not fall back on the falsehood that everyone does it? After all, everyone does it.”

Secondly, by rationalizing a temptation or weakness on the grounds that everyone does it, he is revealing an instinctive (or rather learned) presupposition that an action or preference becomes acceptable or justifiable by majority vote. If, by contrast, he had the nature of a serious adult, and above all an adult living in such a nihilistic era as this one, the very thought that everyone does it would instead cause immediate revulsion, nausea, and an impulse to run for the nearest exit, perhaps quite literally. For a higher soul, it is precisely what I call the smell of Normal (“everyone”) that instinctively repels.

In short, what “everyone does” is what I least wish to do, for the simple reason that if everyone does it, then I know it is of little value to the life I wish to lead, the principles I wish to live by, and the goals I have set for myself. If, on the other hand, you ever wish to discourage me from any course of action, just tell me that everyone does it.

Slacken the tempo of your life. Receptions, visits that give rise to fresh obligations, formal intercourse with one’s neighbors, all the complicated ritual of an artificial life that so many men of the world secretly detest–these things are not for a worker. Society life is fatal to study. Display and dissipation of mind are mortal enemies of thought. When one thinks of a man of genius, one does not imagine him dining out. (A. D. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life¹A. D. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life (Mary Ryan translation), Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1960, 42)

The life of thought is a life of leisure, where leisure is understood not in the quotidian sense of amusement or rest but in the Aristotelian sense of spiritual detachment from, and indifference to, the practical activities and accompanying vested interests of ordinary social life. Hence Sertillanges, a quasi-Aristotelian by way of Thomism, describes the intellectual life, the life of the slackened tempo, as being proper for a “worker,” by which he means one living the life devoted to study and the search for wisdom. As he goes on to add, following upon the recommendations above, “Do not let yourself get entangled in that mesh of occupations which little by little monopolizes time, thought, resources, powers.” Expensive or time-consuming hobbies, regular appointments with casual friends, immersion in one’s “career path,” reputation, or portfolio, keeping up with the Joneses — such things are anathema to deep, private thinking, sincere dedication to one’s soul, and genuine friendship, all of which precious goods are profoundly inconsistent with a “normal” life. These are, rather, the essence, the bulwark, and the fresh air of the truest and most ennobling abnormality.