On Doing Irrelevant Things

Having recently transferred to a new city, I am often greeted with the typical “and what did you study?” about three minutes into whatever polite conversation I find myself in. My ears perk up immediately, partly because I love discussing what I studied, and partly because I cannot wait to see the reaction of my interlocutor as the well-trod path of small talk suddenly shifts into unknown territory. "Why, I study (note the present tense, even after graduation) Political Theory." And without fail, my response of “political theory” never fails to elicit looks of confusion. For certainly—the average man supposes—people do not actually graduate with such degrees and maintain their functionality and relevance to society! What sort of hideous chimera must this be who can both quote Plato at length and also use an Excel spreadsheet? How does one interact with one who studies "political theory", the words falling from his lips with the same disgusted expression of a prima donna forced by cruel nature to remove some sort of lately deceased rodent from her sidewalk. What, to quote dozens of perplexed loved ones and friends of mine, does one actually do with that?

Dearly beloved, I gather you today around the casket of the Renaissance Man. While he had a good run, it seemed that he died of a tragic case of consensus—consensus that things deemed “irrelevant” because synonymous with things “contradictory” and “worthless.” And thus died the Renaissance Man, his epitaph reading “Here lies a contradictory and worthless old specimen who never could sufficiently specialize.” Yes, the Renaissance Man is dead, and whenever a doctor happens to mention that he is perplexed by the opera more than by an anatomical chart, or a lawyer betrays his love for latin, or a lone college graduate looking to pay off debts sheepishly pulls out Dostoevsky at his lunch break, someone will undoubtedly note the family resemblance to homo Renaissanus with bewilderment. If, they often wonder, it does not contribute to your future income, or fit neatly on a polished resume, or improve your sex life, then why, pray tell, would you have any reason to spend time on it? The funeral will be celebrated by refraining from all such pastimes and obsessing about weight, cars, mortgages, and, albeit infrequently, the romantic life of British aristocrats.

So today I make my declaration: I will forever be a political theorist. No matter how I make my money or which books I continue to read, I will throw my lot in with those who staunchly defend the virtue of irrelevant things and study them joyfully even if they cannot easily explain to inquiring relatives at Thanksgiving just what exactly it is that they “do” with them.

What does one do with so-called irrelevant things? I will tell you. He becomes a true human being. Dancing and smiling have naught to do with mammon and materialism, yet we do not therefore disdain them as “irrelevant” because somehow we know; the Dionysian daemon within reminds us that there is something about them that is truly and profoundly human. So also philosophy, literature, and political theory. Perhaps it is just those things that we ought to “do”, and leave the money-making as a hobby, a necessary evil to try to placate our bestial nature that clamors for physical sustenance, but certainly not how we define our identity as humans. It is given by God to the squirrels and the birds and the beavers and the snakes to concern themselves primarily with where their next meal will come from and whether it is served on a silver tray. But we men, the image-bearers of God, must have higher things to concern ourselves with—things whose connection to each other are as truly real as they are superficially untraceable, things uniquely given to man along with the Promethean fire of the gods, so-called “irrelevant” things to toil and fret about. This is what it is to be human.