Why We Love “Useless” Knowledge: The Status of Knowing Things That Don’t Pay (Thorstein Veblen)
You can’t put Gregorian chant on your resume. Knowing the difference between Doric and Ionic columns won’t get you promoted. Being able to name all the moons of Jupiter doesn’t increase your earning potential. Yet people spend enormous amounts of time acquiring exactly this kind of knowledge. Why? The economist Thorstein Veblen had an answer, […]