Status Updates From Theory of the Leisure Class

Chapter 1 more like I love talking out of my ass

“During the recent past some tangible changes have taken place in the scope of college and university teaching. These changes have in the main consisted in a partial displacement of the humanities—those branches of learning which are conceived to make for the traditional “culture,” character, tastes, and ideals—by those more matter-of-fact branches which make for civic and industrial efficiency.”

1899!

“All extraneous considerations apart, those persons (adults) are but a vanishing minority to-day who harbor no inclination to the accomplishment of some end, or who are not impelled of their own motion to shape some object or fact or relation for human use. The propensity may in large measure be overborne by the more immediate constraining incentive to a reputable leisure and an avoidance of indecorous usefulness