Finance
Living with the Constitution (with AJ Jacobs)
Russ Roberts: This is a seemingly silly book, but it’s actually delightful and thought-provoking and beautiful, and not silly at all. But the premise is a bit unusual. So tell us what you were trying to do in the time you were preparing this book, and how did you do it?
AJ Jacobs: Absolute. Well thanks. Yes, I think it’s a bit stupid, but I’ve also tried not to be stupid, so I don’t mind that label.
This is partly a sequel to a book I wrote many years ago that we talked about on the show called The year of Biblical life, where I try to understand – I grew up in a very secular family and I tried to understand the Bible by stepping into the sandals, walking in the sandals of our forefathers and basically following the rules of the Ten Commandments, to my beard because Leviticus says I should grow a beard. And I thought that was a great experience.
And I realized that I felt a little bit the same way about the Constitution. I was shockingly ignorant of it. I had never read the Constitution from cover to cover. Did you read it? I hadn’t read it from the beginning–
Russ Roberts: What an embarrassing question. Not only did I not read it, I didn’t even read it thought about reading it.
AJ Jacobs: Okay, I’ll withdraw the question. I withdraw the question. But every day I read another news story about how this 230-year-old document had a huge impact on my life and millions of other lives. So I thought: one way to understand it would be to do what I like to do: immerse myself and do the walk, give the speech, carry the musket, write with the quill, quarter a soldier, eat the cooked food . mutton. And it was amazing; I got insights. And I hoped that this would be entertaining, but it would also teach me how to look at the Constitution, how to interpret it, and hopefully ultimately be more optimistic about our democracy because it’s been a tough few years. years, just with the firehose of negative news coming from all sides. So, and that’s what happened. I feel more optimistic and powerful. But it was a great experience.
Russ Roberts: We’re going to talk about some of the things you mentioned, but first I want to verify: you’re still married, right?
AJ Jacobs: I am. As of this morning.
Russ Roberts: Okay.
AJ Jacobs: But yes, I put her through the ringer with the Bible book. She is certainly very patient. Job’s patience. She wouldn’t kiss me – I had a huge beard and she wouldn’t kiss me for months. And this one also presented some challenges, from whether it involved billeting a soldier in our New York apartment, having muskets in our apartment, the smell of the candles, and so on.
Russ Roberts: Actually, let’s start with: One of my favorite things is the feather. And I want to know – you could also describe the candles – what role has that feather played in your life over the past year?
AJ Jacobs: Well, I think part of my purpose was to express my constitutional rights using this mindset And the technology from the moment it was ratified. So I thought, ‘I’m going to give up social media as much as possible and I’m going to write with a quill and old-fashioned ink on parchment if I can, or just on cotton rag paper.’ So I did. I wrote pamphlets. I handed them out in Times Square. That was my social media.
But what was remarkable was that I found writing with a quill – the experience itself – profound, because it made me think differently. It slowed down my thoughts. I couldn’t just type an acronym and hit send. I had to take the pen out and it was like a wait for my thoughts. And there were no dings and pings to distract me. I think so. I don’t think we should all go back to quills, but writing by hand or just turning off the internet completely while writing will impact our thoughts, make them more nuanced, make them deeper. . Yeah, so I’m a big fan.
And I didn’t write the lyrics whole book with a quill pen, but I wrote large parts of it and I loved it.
Russ Roberts: And you occasionally signed credit card receipts with it, as you say – to the horror of your family.
AJ Jacobs: Yes. It was quite embarrassing for them. I took it on the road because they… actually the 18th century laptop was a desk, a kind of slanted desk that you could carry around. That’s what Hamilton had. So I took that as my laptop to take with me, and I grabbed my quill and signed checks. And I got people to sign a petition. That is one of my rights that I have expressed: the right to petition Congress for redress of grievances.
Russ Roberts: This is a quill, it’s a feather, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. Have you had to sharpen it occasionally?
AJ Jacobs: I did. Absolute. I mean, I bought some pre-sharpened spines, but there are a lot of them…
Russ Roberts: Uhm.
AJ Jacobs: Precisely. Thank you.
Russ Roberts: Shame on you, AJ
AJ Jacobs: But thanks to Ye Olde YouTube, I did learn how to sharpen my own quill, and that’s actually one of the… it’s not a main theme, but a minor theme is the DIY work. [do it yourself] from the 18th century. There is a lot that we not what I want to go back to from the 18th: it was sexist, racist, stinking, dangerous, anti-Semitic. But there are some virtues that I think we need to revive. And one of them was this DIY thing: just being able to make your own ink and make your own feather. It just connected you to the physical world in a beautiful way.
Russ Roberts: I’m pretty sure the spring is a connection between The year of Biblical life And The year of constitutional lifebecause I think the scroll of a Torah should be written by hand with a quill–
Russ Roberts: and it is a particular style of calligraphy. And it’s actually quite beautiful. But the idea of taking a feather from a goose and using it to create this is incredible human language experience – the written language of Hebrew from thousands of years ago – is quite amazing. And of course the feather was still popular at the end of the 18th century.
AJ Jacobs: Right. And as part of this, I even went to visit the only place that still makes parchment, real parchment, made from animal skins, and that’s what the Constitution was made on. So their work now consists partly of writing the Torah, writing scrolls.
Russ Roberts: Yes, I find it bizarre and fascinating that you are not allowed to use more advanced technology than the quill and parchment for writing the Torah. But, as you point out, for beautiful documents like the Constitution, that was the custom 230 years ago.
And of course you visited the Constitution in the National Archives, the actual piece of parchment. And it’s under protective lighting, right?
Russ Roberts: But it’s going well, right, on that parchment with the ink?
AJ Jacobs: Yes, no, it survived. It is remarkable. Going to the Archives was one of my favorite adventures because, as you say, it looks like a cathedral. So it’s very dark and it’s in a titanium case with argon gas.
And the great thing is: as you know, I like to see the pros and cons of everything. So the benefit is that we still have this amazing document that America has built, and it inspires people when they start looking and thinking, “Oh, I should be more involved in politics.” I should learn civics.” So that’s the professional.
The negative point—and I got this from several of my advisors—was that it turned it into a kind of sacred, static piece of parchment frozen in time, unlike the way the Founding Fathers viewed the Constitution as a thing. -a process. And it passed people; it wasn’t just about the parchment.
Russ Roberts: There’s an argument that it should be more like the Stanley Cup, which…
AJ Jacobs: Circulated.
Russ Roberts: Hockey players treat it like it’s a beer cup, a beer mug. You take it with you, you show it to your friends, it goes on tour.
You’re right: we’re kind of hiding the Constitution like this precious artifact, when it might be better to interfere with it: let it come down from Mount Sinai and mingle with the people a little more.
AJ Jacobs: Right. Well, one: I’m not sure we want it when people in Madeira are too drunk to handle it properly. But I love the idea.
And I was also fascinated by James Madison’s vision, because the way we have it now is, you have the Constitution, and then people add the amendments at the end. They’re like ps, pps, ppps But the way He wanted it to be this way every time you change the constitution, you rewrite It. So it was more like a Google Doc than what we have now. And that again has advantages and disadvantages. First, it might show that it is a more fluid document; but some argue that having the terrible parts of the Constitution in there—the parts about enslaved people—reminds us of how far we’ve come. So like everything it has its pros and cons.
Russ Roberts: Yes, I want to talk about that. But two quick things. At the end of your chapters you have what you call “Huzzahs,” which is an 18th century word for “Whoopee” or “you-go-girl,” and “grievances,” which is a very constitutional word.
Russ Roberts: Love that.
AJ Jacobs: And by the way, I learned that ‘huzzah’ was probably pronounced ‘huzzah’, but I’m sticking with huzzah.
But yes, there were, as you say, both pros and cons to life. So on the one hand you had the spring and the joy of thoughtful reflection, away from the thing. On the other hand, I dressed the role. I mean, I’ve put on my tricolor hat and my stockings; and I have never been so grateful for elastic. You take these things for granted. We’ve talked about taking things for granted before, but the fact that these stockings I had were authentic and didn’t have elastic, they just went down to your ankles. You had to put on little straps every morning. The amount of time I spent putting on sock straps was extraordinary.
So you realize that you should be grateful for some of our progress. [More to come, 13:32]
