The

Idle Student and Useless Knowledge: Rethinking Academic Virtue in the

Liberal Arts
Adam Smith, BA Modern Liberal Arts, University of Winchester


Introduction
This paper will seek to expurgate the pejorative connotations of the terms useless and
idle in relation to higher education and reclaim them as academic virtues to be actively
sought by the thoughtful student. It will seek to root the idea of a leisured education in
the useless arts in both the historical tradition from which it originates and in the
intellectual context of the twenty-first century university. A philosophical, liberal arts
education isnt necessarily the preserve of the idle student and useless knowledge but it
is where they can find refuge and flourish.

Education as a means to an economic end is a relatively recent innovation in the
Western tradition. It springs from the advent of compulsory education for the
proletariat and the need for it to incorporate technical training toward creating skilled
workers. Educations origins, however, lie in the realm of leisure, rather than work. The
Greek word skole which means leisure became the English word school. The Greeks, as
Aristotle remarks in The Politics, worked so they may have leisure, this sentiment went
through the mangle of the 19th and 20th centuries and came out as Webers remark that
we live to work rather than work to live. Josef Pieper, who shall be viewed in more
detail later, insists that leisure, that is the absence of hard work for a period of time, is
not a Sunday afternoon idyll, but the preserve of freedom, of education and culture,
and of that undiminished humanity which views the world as a whole1.

Both Pieper and Bertrand Russell saw the world transforming in the middle of the
twentieth century into one of total work where every activity was infused with the
morality of the capitalist work ethic. Russell argues that throughout the last hundred
and fifty years, men have questioned more and more vigorously the value of useless
knowledge, and have come increasingly to believe that the only knowledge worth
having is that which is applicable to some part of the economic life of the community2

1 Pieper, 1952, p.59
2 Russell, 2004, p.19

Education in the humanities and arts, and especially in the liberal arts, has had to battle
against this state and institutional focus on the economic use of higher education for
decades. Cassandra Falke identifies this fault line writing in her paper John Henry
Newman and Today's Liberal Arts Community, she quotes a 2010 UK white paper which
lists one of the two major goals of higher education as harnessing knowledge to wealth
creation3. John Henry Newman provided a foil to the utilitarian viewpoint of university
and bestowed an importance on a liberal arts education in forming individuals rather
than in providing skilled labour, Falke outlines this in her paper:

the purpose of higher education is neither to make men good, nor to make men
employable, although it tends to make them both. Rather, its main purpose is to
produce a habit of mind which is free, equitable, moderate, calm and wise. In
order to pass on these mental traits, the university must operate upon these
assumptions: that knowledge is an objective unity and worth pursuing for its
own sake, that knowledge may be attained through the pursuit of an inclusive
liberal arts curriculum [and] that interaction among faculty and students will
occur across disciplinary boundaries4

Although some parts of his Idea are dated, the heart of it still exists in European liberal
arts education. This paper will look at the academic virtues of leisure, idleness and
uselessness, how they came to be seen as less than virtuous and how and why they can
be reclaimed in the twenty first century.

The World of Work
Max Weber and Charles Dickens both provide us with appropriate bogeymen who
illustrate the extremes of how the Protestant Work Ethic bought the ideals of work into
the world of education. Dickens, in Hard Times, presents Mr Gradgrind, a man who
comically embodies the Victorian belief in facts above all else.

What I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone
are wanted in life. Plant nothing else and root out everything else. You can only

3 Falke, 2006, p.54
4 ibid, p.55

form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any
service to them. [] Stick to the Facts, Sir!5

Mr Gradgrind serves here to neatly embody the most virulent anti-useless education. An
education of facts, facts which are not to be enjoyed or savoured or discussed but
merely to be ingested and regurgitated such that they will provide assistance in the
world of employment. What Mr Gradgrind reacts especially strongly against is fancy.
Fancy is the useless part of knowledge upon which the educational cast of Hard Times
wish to trample, it encompasses opinion and appreciation, emotion and intellect. Fancy
is the part of knowledge that makes it worthy as an end in-itself. Turning again to the
grim, Victorian classroom:

Ay, ay, ay! But you mustnt fancy, cried the gentleman elated by coming so
happily to this point. Thats it! You are never to fancy.
You are not, Cecilia Jupe, Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, to do anything
of that kind.
Fact, fact, fact! said the gentleman. And Fact, fact, fact! repeated Thomas
Gradgrind.6

Webers bogeyman appears in our midst to tackle the spectre of idleness, he is Richard
Baxter, a Puritan and writer on ethics and holder of a most practical and realistic
attitude. His work forms the backbone for Webers contention that Protestant
Puritanism was of great assistance in the creation and support of the Spirit of
Capitalism. Weber writes,

For the saints everlasting rest is in the next world; on earth man must, to be
certain of his state of grace, do the works of him who sent him, as long as it is
yet day. Not leisure and enjoyment but only activity serves to increase the glory
of God, according to the definite manifestations of His will. Waste of time is thus
the first and in principle the deadliest of sins.7


5 Dickens, 1999, p.9
6 ibid, p.14
7 Weber, 1994, p.157

Baxters thesis is that rational labour in a calling is the way to progress Gods will on
earth and, therefore, any other type of activity not aimed at this endeavour was sinful.
Baxter, faced with the lifestyle of the modern student would be appalled. He considered
sociability, idle talk, luxury, even more sleep than is necessary for health, six to at most
eight hours8 to be worthy of absolute moral condemnation. Not only does the liberal
arts student disgrace themselves with their idleness but also by wasting their time in
the pursuit of useless knowledge. Baxter did not consider all scholarly pursuits to be
antithetical to the Puritan calling but education must be pursued to useful, productive,
profitable ends. The usefulness of a calling, writes Weber, is measured primarily in
moral terms, and thus in terms of the importance of the goods produced in it for the
community9. Baxters conception of the value of education couldnt be further away
from what we might aspire to in the liberal arts but it might be seen as the basis for
what Bertrand Russell describes as the modern tendency to see knowledge coming to
be regarded not as a good in itself, or as a means of creating a broad and humane
outlook on life in general, but as merely an ingredient in technical skill10. Value is to be
found in employability and the provision of economic skills and to look at anything else
is sin, folly and arrogance all rolled into one, as Baxter remarks:

If God show you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way
(without wrong to your soul or to any other), if you refuse this, and choose the
less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be
Gods steward, and to accept His gifts and use them for Him when He requireth
it: you may labour to be rich for God, though not for the flesh and sin11

Knowledge Its Own End
With the enemies of idleness and uselessness established it is now time to review the
advocates for these academic virtues. In The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman
provides a passionate account of knowledge as its own end. He acknowledges that
knowledge is an instrument of economics and of power but his concern (and mine) is to
say that prior to its being a power, it is a good; that it is, not only an instrument, but an

8 ibid, pp.157-8
9 ibid, p.162
10 Russell, 2004, pp.19-20
11 Weber, 1994, p.162

end12. The division of education between the useful and the philosophical or liberal has
been developed in the twenty-first century into the split between STEM (science,
technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects and the humanities and arts. Whilst
there are useful elements to every degree, often enforced or introduced by institutions
focused on employability statistics, there is a tacit understanding that students studying
philosophy, theology or fine art are choosing the less gainful way as Baxter puts it. The
student who embraces the less gainful way is liberated from unrealistic expectations
about employment and economic benefit and is able to pursue knowledge as its own
end and consider any economic benefit to be a side-effect rather than the central aim of
their education. Newman argues that knowledge is evidently an end worth pursuing in
itself, he writes:

Things which can bear to be cut off from every thing else and yet persist in
living, must have life in themselves; pursuits, which issue in nothing and still
maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable, though they
have not as yet proved themselves to be useful, must have their sufficient end in
themselves13

Newman concedes that useful knowledge has been successful in its utility whereas
philosophical or liberal knowledge has failed to provide much by way of utility toward
the end of improving mankind. This is to suggest that such knowledge must tend toward
an end other than itself whereas it is inherent in the nature of useless knowledge that it
be allowed to stand alone, a closed loop activity whereby the value is measured not by
external improvement but against abstract values of erudition, creativity and the power
of thought.

Herein lies the crux of why useless knowledge is not merely a pursuit worthy in itself
but also a rejoinder to the hyperactivity of the post-modern world. Nietzsches criticism
of morality, which has been adopted by post-modernist theory, focuses on the
instrumental use of morality as a tool to improve man. Nietzsche describes the use of
knowledge in the taming of the beast, man [ which has] been called improvement14.

12 Newman, 2003, p.84
13 ibid, p.80
14 Nietzsche, 1982, p.502

A broad education whereby knowledge is experienced for its own sake with no recourse
to action effectively neuters the instrumental power of knowledge to be wielded as a
moralising force.

Action and Inaction
Bertrand Russell, writing in his essay Useless Knowledge contends that action is too
often seen as inherently better than inaction, and often as an end and good in itself.
Therefore useful knowledge has come to be given credence over useless knowledge. For
Russell action must be mediated by a wide and varied knowledge of the world:

I think action is best when it emerges from a profound apprehension of the
universe and human destiny, not from some wildly passionate impulse of
romantic but disproportioned self-assertion. The habit of finding pleasure in
thought rather than in action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love
of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind,
among worries15

Although useless knowledge may be useless as an instrument of action it does have the
major side effect of producing a contemplative habit of mind which aids the student in
a great many ways. Russell believes that such a contemplative habit can afford a Stoical
attitude when faced with lifes minor and major difficulties. When faced with such
problems, Russell writes, there is much consolation to be found in out of the way bits of
knowledge which have some real or fancied connection with the trouble of the moment;
or even if they have none, they serve to obliterate the present from ones thoughts16. In
a world where the call is to action the student of useless knowledge has the rare ability
to appreciate inaction. The rare gift which is provided by a liberal education is to be able
to appreciate knowledge as an aesthetic experience and as an ambivalent experience.
The student who doesnt feel compelled to action is able to entertain two contradictory
ideas without the need to decide on what is right. The power of knowledge is neutered
by the idle student, if they are not roused and, instead, seek to appreciate and enjoy
knowledge for its own sake, the power is lost. Machiavellis The Prince in the hands of
the idle student is a work of genius rather than an instrument of power.

15 Russell, 2004, p.24
16 ibid, p.25


Leisure the Basis of Education
The twentieth-century philosopher Josef Pieper wrote in his 1948 book Leisure the Basis
of Culture that the whole field of intellectual activity, not excepting the province of
philosophical culture, has been overwhelmed by the modern ideal of work and is at the
mercy of its totalitarian claims17. This is antithesis to the liberal arts, the useless
subjects which do not aid toward the economic output of an individual or a nation but
are ends in themselves. Pieper makes interesting remarks about the nature of leisure,
he writes of it being an attitude of non-activity, of inward calm, of silence; it means not
being busy, but letting things happen18. By silence he does not mean a noiselessness
or dumbness but rather the ability to be receptive and to be passive rather than an
active participant in what is encountered. He writes, leisure is a receptive attitude of
mind, a contemplative attitude, and it is not only the occasion but also the capacity of
steeping oneself in the whole of creation19.

Leisure is not the activity of someone who is wont to actively intervene but rather of
those who are open to everything. To be an idle student is to do the work of
philosophical thought but inside the realm of leisure rather than at the mercy of the
totalitarian claims of the modern work ethic. Pieper remarks that work is the act of toil
but leisure is an attitude of contemplative celebration. It is a thought which speaks to
the very heart of the idle student, the celebrant of the liberal arts. There is more than a
historical link between this leisured appreciation of knowledge for its own sake and the
liberal arts. The liberal arts are said, by Newman, to be the embodiment of a divine
harmony in human knowledge and demonstrate an objective unity. He argues that the
constituent parts of a liberal education have multiple bearings on one another, and an
internal sympathy, and admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment. They
complete, correct, balance each other20. In a post-modern, secular university there is
still a sense in which this is true, although the objective unity may be lost it is replaced
by the diversity of views in the Western tradition and, increasingly, by efforts to widen
the horizons of course material. Richard Tarnas, writing in The Passion of the Western

17 Pieper, 1952, p.30
18 ibid, p.52
19 ibid, p.52
20 Newman, 2003, p.74

Mind, makes the case for a revival of the pluralistic liberal arts in the post-modern
world:

If the postmodern mind has sometimes been prone to a dogmatic relativism and
a compulsively fragmenting scepticism, and if the cultural ethos that has
accompanied it has sometimes deteriorated into cynical detachment and
spiritless pastiche, it is evident that the most significant characteristics of the
larger postmodern intellectual situation its pluralism, complexity and
ambiguity are precisely the characteristics necessary for the potential
emergence of a fundamentally new form of intellectual vision, one that might
both preserve and transcend the current state of extraordinary differentiation21

He describes how nearly every element of the Western past is being revived in one form
or another in this new pluralist zeitgeist and how the melting away of a priori
structures, that post-modernism has bought, about has given a new relevance to the
Western tradition and its manifold different viewpoints.

The Value and Luxury of Ambivalence
This paper came arose from the question posed by Nietzsche and his post-modernist
heirs: how can is it possible to love the modern without being complicit in it? The
books, thinkers and theories that have been taught with passion and learned with an
earnest vigour lie at Nietzsches feet when talks of how much blood and cruelty lie at
the bottom of all good things!22

To be a student of the Western tradition in the post-modern context means employing
the ambivalence that comes with leisure and a rejection of the cult of action.
Ambivalence is another much-maligned trait in the modern world but it is at the heart
of being able to reconcile the pleasure and value of studying ideas which do not stand
up to a transfer from theory to action but, nonetheless, contain an intellectual and
aesthetic value. There cannot be said to be any economic value attached to the two
weeks spent studying a geo-centric universe which are part of the first year of the
Modern Liberal Arts programme at Winchester. The medieval Christian, Jewish and

21 Tarnas, 2000, p.402
22 Nietzsche, 1968, p.498

Islamic views of the cosmos are presented unironically, not without critique but in a
way that sees the beauty in the Ptolemaic universe and Dantes spheres of education. A
student with an ambivalent mind-set is able to appreciate the intellectual and aesthetic
beauty of the writing and the ideas in the full knowledge that they are factually and
scientifically wrong. The student is also able to hold in one hand a love of Ptolemaic
harmony, an admiration for Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo and a scientific knowledge
of astronomy in the modern day.

By removing the need to form a concrete worldview on which actions can be based, the
student experiences a radical form of intellectual freedom, which not only benefits them
individually but also the wider community. Bertrand Russell outlines the wider effect of
this freedom when he describes how, the world at present is full of angry self-centred
groups, each incapable of viewing human life as a whole, each willing to destroy
civilisation rather than yield an inch23. The plurality of viewpoints and the ambivalent
attitude which the student of the liberal arts becomes imbued with, insulates them from
the tyranny of the single viewpoint. This can be roughly summed up in Russells
contemplative habit of mind or in Tarnas view of a post-modern liberal arts. Tarnas
writes of the human challenge to form a worldview from the almost infinite plurality of
viewpoints and the human adventure to be found in the realisation that this is not only
impossible but rightly so:

Since evidence can be adduced and interpreted to corroborate a virtually
limitless array of world views, the human challenge is to engage that world view
or set of perspectives which brings forth the most valuable, life-enhancing
consequences. The human predicament is here regarded as the human
adventure: the challenge of being, in potentia, a radically self-defining entity. []
There enter into the epistemological equation, in addition to intellectual rigour
and social-cultural context, other, more open-ended factors such as will,
imagination, faith, hope and empathy. The more complexly conscious and
ideologically unconstrained the individual or society, the more free is the choice
of worlds, and the more profound their participation in creating reality.24


23 Russell, 2004, p.26
24 Tarnas, 2000, p.406

A Liberal Mediation
The benefits to wider society of an idle student pursuing a useless education would
seem to be, by definition, limited. The reality is that the student who is fluent in the
liberal arts (or at least well acquainted with them) is of great value to society. This
ought not be a primary goal of higher education but it is a welcome by-product of it.
Goethe (quoted by Pieper) puts this well when he writes, I have never bothered or
asked in what way I was useful to society as a whole; I contented myself with expressing
what I recognised as good and true. That has certainly been useful in a wide circle; but
that was not the aim; it was the necessary result25. A student of the liberal arts who
enters the sphere of work will find their education to be a mediation between their
subjective life and the rigours of the capitalist work ethic. A leisured education is not the
provision of a fifteen-minute tea break on a ten-hour shift, it does not mean the student
who is exempt from the world of hard work for three years is then able to be twice as
productive for the next fifty years. A leisured education is the way in which a whole
person is made. Pieper writes:

The point and the justification of leisure are not that the functionary should
function faultlessly and without a breakdown, but that the functionary should
continue to be a man and that means that he should not be wholly absorbed in
the clear-cut milieu of his strictly limited function; the point is also that he
should continue to be capable of seeing life as a whole and the world as a whole;
that he should fulfil himself; and come to full possession of his faculties, face to
face with being as a whole.26

It is my belief that the liberal arts cannot be viewed as a luxury or optional extra for
society and culture but that they are a great mediating force for both the individual and
the wider world. Useless knowledge is not pointless, the idle student is not lazy and
leisure can be tough. Bertrand Russell wrote the following in 1935 and it is as prescient
today as it was before the outbreak of the Second World War:

The world is suffering from intolerance and bigotry, and from the belief that
vigorous action is admirable even when misguided; whereas what is needed in

25 Pieper, 1952, p.47
26 ibid, p.57

our very complex modern society is calm consideration, with readiness to call
dogmas into question and freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse
points of view27

27 Russell, 2004, pp.xxv-xxvi

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