The Usefulness of the Useless

Synopsis

Machine Generated Contents Note: Pt. One The Useful Uselessness Of Literature -- 1. He Who Acquires Not, Exists Not -- 2. Knowledge Without Profit Is Useless! -- 3. What's Water? An Anecdote From David Foster Wallace -- 4. Colonel Buendia's Little Gold Fish -- 5. Dante And Petrarch: Literature Should Not Be Subservient To Profit -- 6. The Literature Of Utopia And Golden Chamber Pots -- 7. Jim Hawkins: Treasure Hunter Or Numismatist? -- 8. The Merchant Of Venice: The Pound Of Flesh, The Kingdom Of Belmont, And The Hermeneutics Of Socrates -- 9. Aristotle: Learning Has No Practical Usefulness -- 10. Pure Theorist Or Philosopher-king? Plato's Contradictions -- 11. Kant: The Pleasure Of Beauty Is Disinterested -- 12. Ovid: Nothing Is More Useful Than The Useless Arts -- 13. Montaigne: Nothing Is Useless, Not Even Uselessness Itself -- 14. Leopardi The Flaneur: The Choice Of The Useless Against The Utilitarianism Of A Proud And Foolish Age -- 15. Theophile Gautier: What Is Useful Is Ugly As The Jakes -- 16. Baudelaire: A Useful Man Is A Squalid One -- 17. John Locke Against Poetry -- 18. Boccaccio: Bread And Poetry -- 19. Garcia Lorca: It Is Unwise To Live Without The Madness Of Poetry -- 20. The Madness Of Don Quixote, The Hero Of The Useless And The Gratuitous -- 21. The Facts Of Coketown: Dickens's Criticism Of Utilitarianism -- 22. Heidegger: It Is Hard To Understand The Useless -- 23. Uselessness And The Essence Of Life: Zhuang-zi And Kakuzo Okakura -- 24. Eugene Ionesco: The Useful Is A Useless Burden -- 25. Italo Calvino: The Gratuitous Is Revealed To Be Essential -- 26. Emil Cioran And Socrates' Flute -- Pt. Two The University As Company, The Student As Client -- 1. The Disengagement Of The State -- 2. The Student As Client -- 3. Universities As Companies And Teachers As Bureaucrats -- 4. Hugo: The Crisis Can Be Beaten Not By Cutting The Culture Budget But By Doubling It -- 5. Tocqueville: Easy Beauties And The Perils Of Commercial Democracies -- 6. Herzen: Timeless Merchants -- 7. Bataille: The Limits Of Utility And The Vitality Of The Superfluous -- 8. Against The Professionalizing University: John Henry Newman -- 9. What Is The Use Of Dead Languages? John Locke And Antonio Gramsci -- 10. The Planned Disappearance Of The Classics -- 11. The Encounter With A Classic Can Change Your Life -- 12. Libraries At Risk: The Sensational Case Of The Warburg Institute -- 13. The Disappearance Of Historic Bookstores -- 14. The Unexpected Utility Of The Useless Sciences -- 15. What Do You Get From A Theorem? From Euclid To Archimedes -- 16. Poincare: Science Does Not Study Nature To Look For Utility -- 17. Knowledge Is An Asset That Can Be Transmitted Without Becoming Poor -- Pt. Three Possession Kills: Dignitas Hominis, Love, Truth -- 1. The Voice Of The Classics -- 2. Dignitas Hominis: The Illusion Of Wealth And The Prostitution Of Knowledge -- 3. Loving In Order To Possess Is The Death Of Love -- 4. The Possession Of Truth Is The Death Of Truth. Nuccio Ordine ; Translated From The Italian By Alastair Mcewen. Translated From The Italian. Includes Bibliographical References.