I have this book left over from college. Actually, I have a lot of books left over from college. As much money as I didn't have, I could never really bring myself to be a sell-them-back-to-the-bookstore-at-the-end-of-term type. I did it the first quarter I was there and I was so distressed by the feeling of loss, I immediately went out and bought a new (more expensive) copy of shittily excerpted Voltaire as a replacement, which I have, to this day, never actually re-opened. As squirmy as I get when I'm nose-to-nose with my sometimes debilitating obsessive-compulsivity, I think: I have never once worn a garment sewn from human skin. There are worse psychoses to be afflicted with.
The particular book I'm thinking of is actually the written opinions of cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was one of the first classes I took after the gargantuan achievement of being accepted as a transfer student at an honest-to-socialism state-funded four-year university. Constitutional law was part of the History curriculum for serious scholars like myself. I had just made the jump from general ed to the upper-division courses specific to my major, so I spent most of the class doodling impressive academic postnomials after my signature in my university-seal-adorned notebook instead of paying actual attention. BA, MA, PhD, JD, or ooh! D.Phil. It's double pretentious because foreign-exotic! Plus it combines my two favorite things, meaningless achievement and pretending to be British. Like the same feeling I got when I learned all the rules to cricket.
Ha, I'm kidding. Nobody knows all the rules to cricket.
As I was saying, I still have this book, this constitutional law book. It's got the decisions from all the major cases from John Jay all the way through... whoever was on the Supreme Court when I was in college. Warren or Brandeis or whatever. I may not have grasped all the fine points.
It sounds like self-deprecating modesty, but this is me bragging. Right now on the steps of the Supreme Court there are all kinds of people out front with signs, screaming at passers-by about the constitutional merits of the Affordable Care Act. An act which is, and I hope I don't lose you here with my legislative exegesis here, really fucking long. There are, like, thousands of pages. So no, I haven't read it. But I would be very confident going far enough out on the wobbly, pencil-thin tapered end of the limb to say that just by the fact that I have that book in my house makes me 100% more equipped and qualified to say anything about the case going on in the court they're protesting in front of than they are.
And let me hit this point again: I don't know shit about shit. I have a constitutional law book because I am constitutionally (ha!) unable to part with it. For the exact same reason I own a monograph on the social importance of furniture in the French Second Empire period that is still in the plastic shrink wrapping it came in 17 years ago. Which makes me think two things: 1) how the hell can I not get anything published anywhere when that goddamned book exists? and 2) holy fuck, I was in college 17 years ago. Suddenly I'm not breathing so well. Give me a second.
OK, back. I think of the layers of displeasure we have to mine through with the Supreme Court protestors before we get to "constitutional law" way down at the bottom and, to be honest, it just seems so... unlikely I guess is the polite word. Working up, you'd have to penetrate through Genuine Free-Market Skepticism, Class-based prejudice, Race-based prejudice, Root-level partisanship, Tribal feeling, Reactionary unease, Irrational fear-based anger, SECRET MUSLIM ATHEIST SOCIALIST and, finally, Just Likes To Hold Signs.
How many of the people out front are clearing all those levels without stopping to nest in one? I'd say a good 50% bounce right off the latex-thin outer layer of Just Likes To Hold Signs. They're vain, unserious people, but I like them the most by far. They're getting something honest out of it at least. The ones in the middle dressing up their post-racial 21st century anxiety as anything to do with the commerce clause I have less time for and mostly roll my eyes at.
The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who actually do understand the constitutional complexities of the case. If you're unlucky, you'll bump into one. If you're cursed, they'll try to explain it to you.
I'd give you a better idea of what I think about it, but I'm waiting for MSNBC to help me finalize my opinion.
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Recently, I bought a book at a used book store, and it wasn't until I got home that I realized it was a book I had sold to them. I have now resolved to never get rid of books again.
And then there's the one (Scalia is an actual curse word now, isn't it? If not, I think I'll start using it) actually sitting on the court who admit that neither they nor their staff have read nor will read the actual law before coming to a decision on it. Now, see, I'm not all that much for holding signs, but I really like using qualifiers with the pseudo-prefix "n".
I did the same thing with selling back books: my first semester, I sold almost all of them back, for probably a total of under $12. One was this massive history called American Folkways or some such and I still feel pain over its loss.
Because I learned my lesson, I kept my two-volume Constitutional Law books when I took a poli sci class called, sneakily enough, Constitutional *Thought*. And sometimes, I even get them off the shelf and re-read decisions.
I'm not one of those people who understand it all - not quite, not yet - but I'm pretty close. But my blend of misanthropy and shyness keeps me from trying to talk to people about it. at least in person. on the interwebs, as you know, everyone can hear you scream.
Kate: See, that's what I'm most afraid of. Book karma.
Kay-Z: Life tenure. They don't have to do anything they don't want to. Clothing under the robes is optional even. Man, I spooked myself with that visual...
KnK: My goal in that class originally, as in most of my academic endeavors, was to get to a point where I could give a knowing, literate nod as other people were talking about them. If, say, Plessy v. Ferguson comes up in conversation, I can declare with confidence "Yes! I have heard of that!" and pray there are no follow-on questions.
I still leaf through my BritLit book now and then (because when you're looking at literature that's centuries old, what's another 30 years?) and I still have the old Plato/Aristotle/Strauss books (cause, you know, I could read them if I only had the time) but I think the others pretty much over the years just got tossed or left behind in moves ("oh, honey, I left you 'Hot August Night' and 'Modern Astronomy'"). I know I never sold them back. That would have required as much effort as actually going to class.
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