Full Title: A life of splendid uselessness is a life well lived
Highlights
He sought something splendid and beautiful, to be sure, but – in worldly terms – completely and utterly useless. ()
Great art and thought have always been motivated by something other than mere moneymaking, even if moneymaking happened somewhere along the way ()
‘Sometimes you have to act out your dreams,’ said the bassist and singer Mike Watt, ‘because circumstances can get you crammed down. And instead of getting angry and jealous of what they got, why not get artistic about it and create a little work site, a little fiefdom?’ The activity – meeting other bands, ‘jamming econo’ (touring on the cheap), cutting records, acting out one’s dreams – was its own goal, and building a DIY punk rock world was a happy consequence. The meagre profits just kept the fiefdom running ()
The culture of the 21st century – on an increasingly planetary scale – is oriented around the practical principles of utility, effectiveness and impact. The worth of anything – an idea, an activity, an artwork, a relationship with another person – is determined pragmatically: things are good to the extent that they are instrumental, with instrumentality usually defined as the capacity to produce money or things. Bright young people are shuffled into a narrow set of lucrative ‘changemaking’ career paths in business, consulting and law; so-called ‘relationship experts’ counsel status-based courtship, the acquisition of a ‘high-value’ mate; guides to ‘productivity’ – the cardinal virtue of the 21st-century US, now exported globally – top nonfiction bestseller lists. Ways of being together, including religious worship, are ‘social technologies’; knowledge of how to do something, even to quietly contemplate the strangeness of being, is a ‘life hack’. For today’s luminaries and wisdom-peddlers, it’s instrumentality all the way down. ()
Note: This text argues that in the 21st century, everything is evaluated based on its practical usefulness and the capacity to produce money or things. The culture is focused on career paths that lead to success, courtship is based on acquiring a “high-value” mate, and even religious worship is viewed as a “social technology”. According to this text, the emphasis on practical utility leaves no room for “useless” activities, such as contemplation, and a life without them is not as well lived.
cation in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) applies to the whole of human endeavour: the point is ‘not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.’ The good human life demands meaning and purpose, which cannot be won in any stable sense from things – like wealth or pleasure – that can only ever be means. Mere living might be possible under the solitary law of instrumentality; living well, however, is not. ()
Note: Sounds a lot like “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
