#((usefulness))

A lamp cannot play the role of the Sun and the Sun cannot play the role of a lamp.

The cat may seem inclined to do nothing but lick her fur but we would soon be overrun by mice if we hanged her for vanity . . .

For the one who has never come in first place: Your importance, your worth, your usefulness is not positioned based on where others are or what they are doing. You are not above anyone else. You are not beneath them either. Your value can never, ever be ranked.

“The liberal arts are often distinguished from what are called the servile arts. While the word “servile” is a bit loaded in our day, here it simply means an art or practice that aims at getting us something useful. We might substitute the less provocative term “practical” for servile. The liberal arts, however, are pursued because they are good in and of themselves. If the city comes into being for the sake of mere life but has as its end the good life, as Aristotle argues, then we can make a similar distinction regarding these two arts: the practical arts exist for the sake of mere life, and the liberal arts for the good life. We might say that liberal education helps us not to live, but to live well. Story and narrative, what we sometimes call the humanities, are not the whole of the liberal arts, but they do seem to be at the core. Liberal education is like people: valuable even when it is useless.”

The recognition and the confession of truth is connected, not with usefulness and profit, but with risk and danger....