Someday soon, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts will issue its decision in its gay marriage case, Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health. The court missed its own internal deadline of July 14, so the decision could be announced tomorrow, or next week, or next month; who knows. To those who are curious, the court does give some advance notice on its website of the decisions it will announce on any given day. At 8:00 every morning, the site lists the opinions to be announced that day, and the opinions are released two hours later at 10:00. (Not much notice, but better than nothing.) More information here (from last Tuesday’s Boston Globe).
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This post is going to make me look like a total nerd.

I’m feeling inadequate. Intellectually.

I don’t think I know enough.

And as for what I do know, I’m wondering what the point is.

I regret the deficiencies in my education. I graduated college without ever learning Greek or Latin, without ever reading Plato or Aristotle or Virgil or Dante or Milton, without taking a single philosophy course, without ever having read the Bible, which, even just from a literary standpoint, is probably the most influential work in Western history.

I’ve been trying to make up for all this in the last couple of years. Two summers ago I learned a great deal from reading a fascinating survey of Western philosophy, The Passion of the Western Mind, by Richard Tarnas. Then I bought How to Read a Book and The New Lifetime Reading Plan, both of which contain lists of recommended “great books” of Western literature. With those as my guide, I read the Iliad, having already read its sequel, the Odyssey, back in high school. The Iliad didn’t do much for me; I got through it just to get through it. I’m still glad I did, because it was an experience I wanted to have, but I’ve since wondered if there’s something wrong with me for not having appreciated it more. That summer I also bought and began reading the Histories of Herodotus, but I gave up out of boredom after about 40 pages. Perhaps fewer.

Then 9/11 happened, and the world was shaken up, and I didn’t return to the so-called “great books” until last summer. I read Plato’s Republic and several of his Dialogues, I read two plays by Aristophanes. Aristophanes bored me (maybe the translations were crap, maybe they’re just boring plays). But I learned a lot from Plato’s Dialogues — not from their content, but from their structure. They taught me the importance of questioning everything; they taught me how important it is to use well-defined, accurate terminology when discussing something, and the intellectual ossification, danger and mind control that can occur when you do not (witness the lazy use of the term elitism here, and consider the mischief that results when people unquestioningly accept such a premise). I began teaching myself Ancient Greek, but I gave up after the first 18 lessons because of diminishing returns: once I’d learned how to read and write the Greek alphabet and gotten a general sense of the language’s grammatic and syntactical structure, I was satisfied. This is another example of tackling something merely because I wanted to see what it was like.

Then I put the “great books” aside again for another year, in favor of contemporary books such as Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis, the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, Nabokov’s Lolita (OK, I guess that actually counts as a great work), and Look at Me by Jennifer Egan. In January I got tired of reading altogether, and I read no more books until the beginning of May.

Lately I’ve been reading American history, and then Virtually Normal, and then last night I finished reading John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. What did I begin reading this morning? Dante’s Inferno. I can’t seem to read something that’s not “edifying.”

Last night, having just finished Mill’s On Liberty, I popped online and read the first part of his Autobiography. Mill was reading Greek at age 3, learning Latin at 8. He was taught by his father, and he read great book after great book after great book. I was so envious, and I sank into despair, thinking myself unworthy. But, as Mill writes:

I remember the very place in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of leaving my father’s house for a long absence, he told me that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not.

So it’s not that I’m less worthy; it’s just that my circumstances were different. Had my parents made me learn Greek and Latin, perhaps things would be different. At any rate, I’m glad I’m learning these things now. I’m glad I’m reading what I’m reading, widening my intellectual experiences. And yet — there are others who know so much more, who have read so much more. Some of my readers, perhaps. How can I hope to keep up?

On top of that, knowledge alone does not make a good life. If I’d grown up learning Greek and Latin, would my life be any better? Would I be happier? Would I be smarter? Didn’t I already know how to think before I read several of Plato’s Dialogues?

And what’s the point of learning all of this stuff unless I’m going to do something with it?

And what about cultivating the other areas of my life?

I seem to be under the delusion that books and knowledge alone will make me happy, when really, I’ve just put myself into an imaginary competition with imaginary people. I will always know more than I used to know, but I will always wish I knew more.

I think the solution is to enjoy all of this learning for what it is, but not to make it the be-all and end-all of my life. Happiness requires more than knowing.

I want to clarify what I wrote yesterday about Andrew Sullivan. One reader e-mailed me, in part:

What I’ve managed to glean from [Sullivan’s] writing is that the basic middle-class, monogamous, law-abiding model that has been handed down to us as the American ideal is pretty much the only way to go, as long as same-sex couples are allowed to participate in it as fully as heterosexual ones. In this, Sullivan is deeply conservative, and I’m a little surprised that you write with unreserved approval of someone who spouts the Republican party line in so many other matters.

Let me make clear that I don’t necessarily agree with everything Sullivan says — I was mainly writing about Virtually Normal. I’m not sure how I feel about the rest of his views, including his views on foreign policy, the White House, etc. And setting aside his views, I still think he’s a terrific writer, aesthetically speaking.

Here’s a quick summary of Virtually Normal. It’s a political treatise, not a social one. Sullivan begins with the premise that homosexuality exists, that it’s not a choice (which, true, is not necessarily relevant to the argument), and, most importantly, that it’s not going anywhere. Given that there will always be gay people, how should society deal with them? In the next four chapters he summarizes four different positions on the matter, and he discusses why each of them has problems. Then, he sets forth his thesis: government should permit gay marriage, allow gays in the military, abolish sodomy laws, and generally treat gays equally, but it should not take any role in the private sector — i.e. no antidiscrimination laws, etc. His ideology is very taut and elegant. It’s the last part that I’ve had problems with — no antidiscrimination laws in employment, housing, etc. But after reading his book, I see that he does have a point. I’m not completely convinced that antidiscrimination laws are wrong — but he has at least made me confront the question.

I want to distinguish his political views from his social views. He might believe that monogamy and marriage are the best way to go, but he makes it clear that these are his personal views and should not be imposed on everyone. That’s part of his point — the government should guarantee equality in the public sphere and leave everything else up to us, all the choices about how we live our lives. Marriage should be available for those who want it, but he’s not trying to force all gay people to get married. He’s not spouting the Republican party line, if the Republican party line is one of an activist government encouraging a single moral and social value system. I find Sullivan more of a libertarian — more of a classical liberal, actually.

So what I find appealing are not necessarily his social views (not that I necessarily find them unappealing, either), but rather his political thesis, which makes a variety of social views possible.

Not that everyone has to agree with this. In fact, after Sullivan spoke at UVA a few years ago, a friend of mine wrote a spirited response.