Why You Should Either Come With Me Or Go on Your Own to the Symphony
Loyola University of Chicago used to have a law school professor named George Anastaplo.
I learned about him in my late teens through a long piece in The Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine, which was written before most newspaper journalism turned into irredeemable garbage.
I think it if fair to say he is someone who the informed readers of these pages should want to know. I wanted to know him better, so I showed up at his office one day.
Anastaplo was the brilliant and stubborn son of Greek immigrants. He came of age during World War Two. After serving as a B-17 and B-29 navigator in Europe during the war, he came back and graduated with a law degree from the University of Chicago.
When asked during the Illinois State Bar Association application process if someone who was a member of the Communist Party should be admitted to practice law, he answered, “Yes.” When questioned further, he explained that the belief in revolution was a founding premise of America, citing the Declaration of Independence. He said free association was a premise of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and that no one should be asked about their political affiliation in order to be a lawyer. It is worth noting that since the state bar association had a state-provided monopoly with total control over who could practice law in Illinois, this policy was as good as government asking about political affiliation in order to be admitted to practice law.
Anastaplo’s law school classmates who agreed with him simply said whatever they needed to say in order to get their law licenses and move on with life. Anastaplo effectively threw away his law career by taking this stand. He actually ended up driving a taxi to make ends meet. And he wasn’t even a communist. He was, in fact, quite the patriotic American.
He just thought the questions were a lousy thing to ask in an allegedly free country. He took the matter over the next ten years through the court system and eventually lost his case In re Anastaplo at the US Supreme Court.
Justice Hugo Black wrote the dissenting opinion. After reading it, Justice William Brennan told Black that his opinion would “immortalize Anastaplo.” Part of this opinion was read at Black’s funeral in 1971. The last line of the opinion was, “We must not be afraid to be free.” The dissenting opinion used to be required reading in my classes when I taught material covering that period.
I believe the Mises Institute, one of my favorite non-profit organizations, exists partly to inspire young men and young women to be more like Anastaplo and to fight the principled fight regardless of the cost. I like people who stand on principle, even if I am not in total agreement with them. I like organizations that do the same. On top of it, Anastaplo had such a keen and hungry mind that allowed him to see all angles of an argument, rather than just being one who blindly followed. As far as the students of Leo Strauss go, the father of American neo-conservatism, there are few students who I have encountered who I truly appreciate. Anastaplo is my favorite. There are aspects of Anastaplo’s life and his intellectual influences that I do not agree with. There are other aspects that I find totally inspiring.
The Chicago Tribune piece that I read those years ago had some life advice from Anastaplo, “Avoid specialization too early in your careers. Allow principles to guide your decisions, even in the face of fear or ignorance. Act prudently; behave honorably. Buy a subscription to the symphony to enlarge your world. Know Shakespeare. Be a student all your life.” (emphasis added)
This advice stood out from the rest of the article. Shakespeare? Symphony? What could these possibly have to do with being a freedom fighter? What could these possibly have to do with living the principled life?
One of Europe’s many gifts to the world is classical music. There is beauty in classical music. I will list a few thoughts around why beauty is good and worthy of pursuit.
1.) There is beauty in the world.
2.) Aesthetics matter. They remind us that life doesn’t suck.
3.) There is ugliness in the world. If you do not stop to curate what you choose to be exposed to during the day, your life will be filled with the ugly.
4.) Beauty is worth fighting for.
5.) Beauty is worth spending time on.
6.) Beauty is worth pausing your day for. One a day is set in motion, there are few who are flexible enough to pause when the moment truly calls for it.
7.) Beauty is worth paying for. Those who are cantankerous will fight at a moment’s notice, and will waste their time at a moment’s notice, but expect them to spend a dime on the thing that they will spend time and spill blood over, and they suddenly look much less principled, because they will then cantankerously fight will all their energy to hold on to their precious shekels.
8.) Beauty reminds that you are not just a worker drone.
9.) Beauty reminds that you are not just a slavish consumer. Virtually all channels of communication have turned into insistence that you be a slavish consumer. Don’t fall for it. Yes, buy things of value to you, but do so thoughtfully, prayerfully. They think they can get you to drink Pepsi with your next meal if they just say that word 8 times in front of you in the next 4 hours. Don’t be the marketing con man’s easy mark.
10.) Beauty inspires more creation of beauty. It inspires the creative mind to go create. It inspires the uncreative mind to contemplate that he too can create. It has potential to make the mind fecund, fertile, even prolifically so. This can be a reason that beauty can easily turn into an object of worship, but it should not be. It is but a gift. It is the Gift Giver (James 1:17) who is worthy of worship.
So, given the fact that a brilliant man in my youth spoke these words to me through a journalist, and then elaborated upon them in person, and convinced me that I needed a symphony subsection and more Shakespeare in my life, I tend to pursue those things every chance I get. I am not shy about welcoming others to join me either, since I know how edifying such activities can be.
I will be going to the symphony next weekend in Chicago. Those readers who are on my daily email list are invited. If you joined my daily email list, you could perhaps come too. But I don’t necessarily want to push you to do that. It might not be right for you for a variety of reasons. What I do however want to push you to do is this: Go to the symphony. Have a subscription.
Another of Europe’s gifts to the world is the work of William Shakespeare. Anastaplo is right that one should know Shakespeare. I had to read 7 or 8 Shakespeare plays aloud with a group of people on Tuesday nights, 3 or 4 hours at a time, before I finally started to be able to penetrate the language. Once the language is penetrated, the work is brimming with so much wisdom and beauty that it so often repays the one who takes the time, to read, re-read, and even memorize. From the St. Crispin’s Day Speech, to the sonnets, how glad I am to have a repository of that knowledge in my head.
The King James Bible specifically and the Bible in general requires similar repetitive reading before one can begin to penetrate the language and to begin to recognize the beauty contained within the language on paper. It is the only English language text that I have found more beneficial than Shakespeare to read, re-read, and memorize.
Similarly, in regards to repetition, I had to attend the symphony every week for some time before I finally got into a rhythm and began to understand the music. My favorite way to do so is to come with paper and pen and to write as the performance takes place. Some of my most passionate and beautiful writing has happened at the symphony. It took me time to understand that. There have been years when I have volunteered at the symphony to have exposure to more music, years when I had more than one symphony subscription and have dragged friends along, or years when I have multiple times each week attended. When you submerge yourself in brilliance and beauty, that brilliance and beauty refined through you, starts to come out of you.
I love listening to classical music in digital format but it is no replacement for feeling the tympani boom through your chest, to watch the aria mellow the entire room, to hear the collective sigh as the strings quiet down leaving a tension in the air broken by the triangle.
I did not always see that beauty, nor have that appreciation, but it has to start somewhere, and I think if you do not have that appreciation, today is the day to start with it.
There is beauty in the world. You must not forget that. Dear reader, you must not forget that. Dear woman of letters, you must not forget that. Dear man of ideas, you must not forget that. There is beauty in the world.
Get on the California Zephyr and sit in the observation car. Why? Because it’s beautiful. It’s not efficient. It’s not especially comfortable. It’s not fast, nor is it reliable. It’s beautiful to take the California Zephyr from San Francisco to Chicago.
Get three friends together and act out Troilus and Cressida. Why? Because it’s beautiful. It’s not efficient. It’s not especially comfortable. It’s not fast. It’s beautiful to spend your evening reading Shakespeare aloud in a small group.
Get online and find tickets for the next performance of classical music in your area. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would be a treasure. Or Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. And while classics known to you may be played, hopefully you will have a chance at something lesser known and equally beautiful, as well. Why? Because it’s beautiful. It’s not efficient. It’s not especially comfortable. It’s not fast. It’s beautiful to spend your evening listening to classical music in a symphony hall.
It will enrich the soul in ways you cannot even imagine. It will enrich your mind and impact your life. Cherish the beautiful. Stop hurrying. Stop doing what is popular. Stop bowing down to the god of efficiency. Seek that which is beautiful. Cherish it.
And not just once. But often. Break through the learning curve and make it part of your life. Make the pursuit of beauty a part of your life.
That is one of modernity’s great gifts. The technology is helpful. The efficiency is helpful. Technology for technology’s sake and efficiency for efficiency’s sake is a deep and worthless pit. Efficiency that makes more time for that which you love, technology that makes more time for that which you love, that is good. Embrace beauty. Either find beauty in all that you do or change what you do. So much of life depends on your ability to stop ceaselessly doing and to be able to pause and recognize beauty in your midst and to appreciate it for what it is.
Why? Not because it is efficient. Not because it is especially comfortable. Not because it is fast. But because it is beautiful.
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