Russ Roberts: This is a seemingly silly book, but it’s actually delightful and thought-provoking and wonderful, and not silly at all. But, the premise is a little bit unusual. So, tell us what you were trying to do in the time that you prepared this book, and how did you do what you tried to do?
A.J. Jacobs: Absolutely. Well, thank you. Yeah, I feel it’s a little bit silly, but also I tried to be not silly, so I don’t mind that appellation.
This partly is a sequel to a book I wrote many years ago that we’ve talked about on the show called The Year of Living Biblically, where I try to understand–I grew up in a very secular home and I tried to understand the Bible by getting in the sandals, walking in the sandals of our forefathers, and actually following the rules from the Ten Commandments, to growing my beard because Leviticus says I should grow a beard. And, I found that an amazing experience.
And, I realized I had a bit of a similar feeling about the Constitution. I was shockingly ignorant of it. I had never read the Constitution from start to finish. Have you read it? I had not read it from to start–
Russ Roberts: Such an embarrassing question. Not only have I not read it, I haven’t even thought about reading it.
A.J. Jacobs: All right, I retract the question. I retract the question. But, every day I read another news story about how this 230-year-old document was having a huge impact on my life and millions of other lives. So, I thought: Well, one way to understand it would be to do what I like to do, immerse myself and walk the walk, talk the talk, carry the musket, write with the quill pen, quarter a soldier, eat the boiled mutton. And, it was–it was amazing; I got insights. And, my hope was that this would be entertaining, but it would also teach me how to look at the Constitution, how to interpret it, and hopefully that I would more optimistic at the end about our democracy, because it has been a rough few years, just with the fire hose of negative news from all sides. So, and that is what happened. I do feel more optimistic and empowered. But, it was an amazing experience.
Russ Roberts: We’re going to talk about some of those things that you mentioned, but I first want to just verify: you’re still married, correct?
A.J. Jacobs: I am. As of this morning.
Russ Roberts: Okay.
A.J. Jacobs: But, yes, I put her through the ringer with the Bible book. She’s definitely very patient. Patience of Job. 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 was quartering a soldier in our New York apartment, to having muskets in our apartment, to the smell of the candles, and etc.
Russ Roberts: Let’s start off actually with–one of my favorite things is the quill. And, I want to know–you could describe the candles, too–what role did that quill play in your life for this past year?
A.J. Jacobs: Well, I figure part of my goal was to express my constitutional rights using the mindset and the technology from when it was ratified. So, I thought, ‘I’m going to give up social media as much as I can, and I’m going to write with a quill and old-style ink on parchment if I can, or just 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 how writing with a quill–the experience itself–I felt was profound because it made me think differently. It slowed down my thoughts. I couldn’t just type some acronym and press Send. I had to take out the pen, and it was like a waiting period for my thoughts. And, there were no dings and pings to distract me. I do think that there is–I don’t think we should all go back to quills, but handwriting or just cutting off from the Internet completely while writing will have an impact on our thoughts, make them more nuanced, make them more deep. Yeah, so I am a big fan.
And, I didn’t write the whole book with a quill pen, but I did write large portions of it, and I found it wonderful.
Russ Roberts: And you did occasionally sign a credit card receipt with it, as you recount–to the horror of your family.
A.J. Jacobs: Yes. It was quite embarrassing for them. I took it out on the road because they had–actually, the laptop of the 18th century was a desk, sort of a slanted desk that you could carry around. That’s what Hamilton had. So, I would take that as my laptop-to-go, and I would get out my quill pen, sign checks. And, I got people to sign a petition. That’s one of my rights that I expressed is the right to petition Congress for the redress of grievances.
Russ Roberts: This is a goose quill, it’s a feather, for those of you who haven’t seen it. Did you have to sharpen it from time to time?
A.J. Jacobs: I did. Absolutely. I mean, I bought some pre-sharpened quills, but there are many–
Russ Roberts: Ugh.
A.J. Jacobs: Exactly. Thank you.
Russ Roberts: Shame on you, A.J.
A.J. Jacobs: But I did learn, thanks to Ye Olde YouTube, I learned how to sharpen my own quill, and that is actually one of the–it’s not a major theme, but a minor theme is the DIY [do it yourself] of 18th century. There’s a lot that we don’t want to return to from the 18th: it was sexist, racist, smelly, dangerous, antisemitic. But, there is some virtues that I think we should revive. And, one of them was this DIY: just being able to make your own ink and make your own quill. It just connected you to the physical world in a lovely way.
Russ Roberts: I’m pretty sure that the quill is a connection between The Year of Living Biblically and The Year of Living Constitutionally, because I think the scroll of a Torah has to be written with a quill by hand–
Russ Roberts: and, it’s a certain style of calligraphy. And it’s actually quite beautiful. But, the idea of taking a feather of a goose and using it to create this incredibly human language experience–the written language of Hebrew from thousands of years ago–is quite amazing. And of course, the quill was still popular in the late 18th century.
A.J. Jacobs: Right. And in fact, as part of this, I went to visit the only place that still makes parchment, real parchment, which is made with animal skin, and that’s what the Constitution was made on. So, their business now is partly for writing the Torah, writing scrolls.
Russ Roberts: Yeah, it’s a bizarre, fascinating thing to me that you’re not allowed to use that any more advanced technology than the quill and the parchment for the writing of the Torah. But, as you point out, for fine documents, like the Constitution, that was the habit of 230 years ago.
And, you of course visited the Constitution at the National Archives, the actual piece of parchment. And, it’s under protective lighting, right?
Russ Roberts: But, it’s doing okay, right, on that parchment with the ink?
A.J. Jacobs: Yeah, no, it has survived. It is remarkable. Going to the Archives was one of my favorite adventures because, like you say, it’s like a cathedral. So, it’s very dark and it’s in this titanium case with argon gas.
And, the good part–as you know, I like to see the pros and the cons of everything. So, the pro is that we still have this amazing document that did build America, and it does inspire people when they go see , and they think, ‘Oh, I should be more involved in politics. I should learn civics.’ So, that’s the pro.
The con–and this I got from several of my advisors–was that it sort of turns it into this sacred, static piece of parchment that is frozen in time, as opposed to the way the Founding Fathers viewed the Constitution as something–a process. And, it was about people; it wasn’t just about the parchment.
Russ Roberts: There is an argument it should be more like the Stanley Cup, which–
A.J. Jacobs: Passed around.
Russ Roberts: Hockey players treat it like it’s a beer goblet, a beer stein. You take it around, you show it to your friends, it goes on tour.
You’re right: we kind of hide the Constitution away as this precious artifact when it might be better to mingle with it: let it come down off Mount Sinai and mingle with the people a little bit more.
A.J. Jacobs: Right. Well, one–I’m not sure we want to have it when people are too drunk on Madeira to treat it properly. But I do love the idea.
And I also was fascinated with James Madison’s view because the way we have it now is: You’ve got the Constitution, and then people append the Amendments at the end. They’re like p.s., p.p.s., p.p.p.s. But, the way he wanted it to be was every time you amend the Constitution, you rewrite it. So, it was more like a Google Doc than what we have now. And, that, again, has pros and cons. One, it would show it’s a more fluid document perhaps; but some argue having the horrible parts of the Constitution in there–the parts about enslaved people–reminds us how far we’ve come. So, like everything, it has its pros and cons.
Russ Roberts: Yeah, I want to talk about that. But, two quick things. At the end of your chapters, you have what you call ‘Huzzahs,’ which is a 18th-century word for ‘Whoopee,’ or you-go-girl, and ‘Grievances,’ which is a very constitutional word.
Russ Roberts: Love that.
A.J. Jacobs: And, by the way, I did learn that ‘huzzah’ was probably pronounced, ‘huzzay,’ but I’m going to stick with huzzah.
But, yes, there were, as you say, there were pros and cons to living. So, on the one hand, you had the quill and the joy of thoughtful reflection away from the ding. On the other hand, I dressed the part. I mean, I put on my tricorn hat and my stockings; and I have never been more grateful for elastic. You take these things for granted. We’ve talked about taking things for granted before, but the fact that these stockings that I had that were authentic-style, they had no elastic, they would just slump to your ankles. You had to put on little tiny belts every morning. The amount of time I spent putting on sock belts was extraordinary.
So, you do realize to be grateful for some of our advances. [More to come, 13:32]
