“I suppose I read Aristotle in college but not to know I was doing it; the same with Plato. I don’t have the kind of mind that can carry such beyond the actual reading, i.e., total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me. So I couldn’t make any judgment on the Summa, except to say this: I read it for about twenty minutes every night before I go to bed. If my mother were to come in during the process and say, `Turn off that light. It’s late,’ I with lifted finger and broad bland beatific expression, would reply, `On the contrary, I answer that the light, being eternal and limitless, cannot be turned off. Shut your eyes,’ or some such thing."
-Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being
I read Ms. O'Connor's marvelous collection of letters years ago and you can find it on my bookshelves heavily highlighted with a yellow marker. Indeed, there is a terrific quote on every page. I did not remember this one, and that goes right to the heart of this post - like Ms. O'Connor, I don't remember much of what I read. Rather, the quote was called to my attention by Patrick Kurp over at Anecdotal Evidence - read his entire post. I got a kick out of the quote because it's the first time I've thought of my own aptitude of non-retention as a gift rather than a curse, something I should be glad of. Otherwise, we'd all end up being insufferable bores, quoting the Summa Theologica, right?
I read constantly: books, magazines, blogs, etc. And I read smart people, good writers, great polemicists, experts in their fields. For years I have thought that if I could only recall a tiny percentage of what I read I'd be able to hold my own in any conversation or argument, whether it be about politics, history, literature, movies, music. People would find me interesting. Problem is, I retain next to nothing. I feel really smart while I'm reading someone really smart. Two hours later I'm a dummy again. I've come to realize (actually I realized it long ago) that it's only through long and varied engagement with a subject that one can become conversant in it, can really know it.
Kurp also claims to be "blessedly unburdened by my education. The university was no more than an intellectual match-making service, an instrument of exposure – to writers and a large library that permitted me to read them." This recalled for me a passage from Joseph Epstein from the chapter on higher education in his book Snobbery: The American Version: "Most people come away from college, happy souls, quite unscarred by what has gone on in the classroom. The education and culture they are presumably exposed to in college never lay a glove on them."
So I guess I do recall some things, but the point is, I had to look it up. Epstein's book is open on the table in front of me right now, and only because I'd read the passage recently and the book was still on the dining room table in the next room. If I had to go downstairs and rummage through multiple Epstein books trying to find the exact quotation for this blog post, well, forget about it. I am far too lazy to be constantly looking things up in books just so you might find my post interesting. And that's where the Internet comes into play, and Google. By recalling that someone said something interesting about a subject once, I can google it and come up with the quote in no time, then cut and paste it into my post. Reading the passage might remind me of something else that someone else once said. So I google that. And so on. Before you know it, I have a post put together that I'm satisified with and which a few people might find interesting. People might think I'm the intelligent one, whereas all the knowledge in this post comes from Mr. Kurp, a really smart man, Joseph Epstein, one of the finest minds of our time, and Flannery O'Connor, one of the best writers America has ever produced.
This post's title comes from Robert Greenberg in a lecture from his terrific Teaching Company course How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. During one of the digressions that are part of what makes him such an interesting instructor, Mr. Greenberg advises the listener that if they are ever confronted with a snob at a cocktail party, the way to impress them is to mention, not that you're reading Kierkegaard, but that you are rereading him, and to say it in the most pretentious voice possible. Another possibility is to say, not that you were listening to Mozart's G Minor Symphony, but that you were listening to Mozart's Köchel 550, again in an preposterously highbrow voice. My wife and I still use that example whenever we run across a snob. It's great fun.
Of course, as Mr. Epstein argues, we all have varying degrees of snobbery in us. So now, back to Kierkegaard....
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