Louis Menand "The Metaphysical Club"

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
- Albert Einstein

Perhaps Einstein meant this in jest, but there are days when I wish that even a little of what I learned in high school history class would have stuck. Endlessly long hours spent sitting in the only blazing hot sun spot in the classroom, listening to the only man in the world able to lull you to the best sleep of your life while recounting the exact dates and places of the civil war. And while I do believe that my high school was below average on the excellence scale (even with the completely undeserved blue ribbon for, guess what, excellence), ask any student today and the general consensus is that American history class, the way it is taught in this country, sucks. Besides, the fact that most textbooks are so old you would have thought they were the original text. The content is usually not updated and heavily biased. This nations history is full of heroes, villains, and gritty, nasty, unsavory events. Modern textbooks simply choose to glance over these stories. Perhaps this is due to fear of misinterpretation, misrepresentation, or possibly due to a conscious choice by the authors to present a rosy, G-rated version to these "innocent" minds (insert evil villain laugh here). God forbid we allow our children to make up their own minds, to challenge them, to consider more than one version of the story. So what if they get the wrong idea, who are we to put one idea in their heads as the end all be all. If it incites a dialogue or argument, this means there engaged, period.

Having just finished Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, my mind is reeling with the possibilities of what might have been if this magnificent book were part of the required reading. The book is long and heavy with impeccably researched material on philosophy, metaphysics, law, and a slew of other concepts that were chewed by some of the greatest minds of our time. At its core however, it is an elegant unraveling of how this country formed its popular (and sometimes unpopular) thinking. Dealing with issues of religion, race, immigration, and the meaning of life to name a few, Menand weaves a tale of our evolving national identity. What does it mean to be American, where did this concept come from?

My parents and I came over from Russia in 1989 when I was six. Twenty years later and I am heavily Americanized and have all but forgotten my roots, but sometimes I look around and feel as thought I am missing something. Like there is some kind of underlying current of American I am not catching wind of, so naturally a book like Menand’s would draw me in. When I was first placed in school after emigrating, the backlash was pretty raw. As I imagine is a prevalent experience for children of other countries who don’t speak the language; assimilation can always be hard. But, for a country with such strong nationalism, the fact that our most notable defining characteristics come from French and German philosophy is ironic at best. Ironic, but not surprising, since America is one of the youngest countries in the world; if we were able to define our own way of thinking without the influence of the rest of the world from the get go, I think we would be in a completely different place as a nation. And further, having the influence of other countries perhaps in the long run made us a more varied nation in our thinking.

In our current world of ever updating, instantaneous information cycles, the time has come to integrate interesting, opinionated, challenging literature that actually stimulates your average 16 year old, and anyone with a child, cousin, brother/sister knows that is one daunting task. High school books need to force kids to ask questions and to keep them interested, even if that means confusing or shocking them. The whole point of high school is to help these hormonal, pimply, overly emotional walking iPod’s figure out what they want to do with their lives. The literacy, math, and science scores in America are the worst of any developed nation in the world. If The Metaphysical Club shows us anything, it’s that science and religion, law and language are not separate subjects to be taught exclusively. These are inextricable topics that would not function without each other.

I find these days that law students and attorneys surround me. Although most of my life, I have been inclined to the creative subjects, after reading this book, the prospect of being able to understand the law has become something of an eye opening experience. Menand has helped me to realize that laws are derived from someone’s personal, religious, scientific and philosophical ideals. All reasoning (which has turned into the laws that govern this country) comes from personal experience. Try telling that to a raging high school kid with a bad home life and seemingly no future and see if that doesn’t fuel something within her.

This is how it begins

What’s that saying? “Your mother was right”. In my case it was my dad. I never liked to read. It was tedious, and my mind would wander off almost immediately. I hated to read so much in fact, that I barely passed most of my classes in high school because I refused to read the required books/articles/text book chapters. My dad tirelessly pushed me to read. “If you took half the effort you put into memorizing song lyrics to reading…” But as all revelations go, when you have experienced profound love, loss, or even hunger and grow, you discover a side of yourself that you never knew could be so fulfilling. Maybe it’s just getting older and wiser (sort of), but reading has become one of my most cherished hobbies; a hobby I would like to thank Metro North Railroad for inspiring and continuing to nurture.

In November of last year, I began a job that would take me on the train every morning and every night to and from Connecticut to NYC for about an hour. For the first few weeks, as I was still adjusting to waking up at 5:50 am to get ready and catch the train at 6:30, I relished being able to snooze another hour before shuffling past grumbling, rushed commuters out of Grand Central to my desk, even if it meant a cranked neck and pain in my temple from leaning on the permanently stained windows of the train car. However as the months past, I began to feel like an outcast and a bit immature for not using that hour to inhale some best seller or the NY Times. First stop was the Nobel Prize winners for Literature webpage. A little ambitious I know, but I guess my fellow passengers influence sort of put me over the edge. Not having any real knowledge of what I was looking for, I started at the top of the alphabetical list and meticulously read the bios and names of published works of almost all the authors featured. Again, a little overzealous.

The selection process I have come to employ when choosing a book to read has both evolved and stayed the same. It’s just a feeling, whether it’s physically thumbing through the first few pages and wanting to continue or going on the recommendation of some website or magazine. The evolution of choosing what to read involves the awakening I referred to earlier. Suddenly when I see something that sparks my interest, I realize that it’s because I have wanted to read this for a long time. In that moment, it feels like home.

And now I am in the place where I imagine most fairly new readers eventually end up; wanting to share my thoughts and musings about what I’ve read with others. What it has made me think of, what memories it has spurred and why it ends up being important to me. This blog will end up being about more than books, articles, poetry and news are also part of the discussion.