Lord Bertrand Russel, mathematician & philosopher 'extraordinaire', wrote an essay called 'Useless' Knowledge. In it he postulates that the Renaissance involved a revolt against the utilitarian conception of knowledge. The utilitarian concept is the needs man shares with the animals like sustenance & pecking order (called 'Status' euphemistically in human society.) Learning, in the Renaissance, was part of the 'joie de vivre' like drinking or love-making. The French Revolution gave a blow to 'gentlemanly culture' whereas the Industrial Revolution offered new scope to the exercise of 'ungentlemanly' skill. Lord Russell felt that there is indirect utility in the possession of knowledge which does not contribute to technical efficiency. He also thought that some of the worst features of the modern world could be improved by a greater encouragement of such knowledge & a less ruthless pursuit of mere professional competence.
Dr. Zena Hitz, in her book "Lost in Thought" devotes an entire chapter to "The Uses of Uselessness." Her credo is that "The exercise of the love of learning is a form of the inner life; it requires withdrawal from the pursuit of wealth & status, from politics & the pursuit of justice." She quotes the American Doris Day as saying "I am always telling people to read Dickens or Tolstoy." She also cites Jonathan Rose, author of "The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes" as saying the workers cultivate an inner world not subject to poverty's power to diminish. (Free public libraries being copious in England.)
The above views are particularly cogent here & now, where single minded pursuit of wealth & status have become the new be-all & end-all of human aspiration.
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