What Are Literature, Philosophy & History For? Alain de Botton Explains with Monty Python-Style Videos

Alain de Botton presents three short films about why we study Literature, Philosophy and History

Once upon a time, questions about the use-value of art were the height of philistinism. “All art is quite useless,” wrote the aesthete Oscar Wilde, presaging the attitudes of modernists to come. Explaining this statement in a letter to a perplexed fan, Wilde opined that art “is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way.” But if you ask Alain de Botton, founder of “cultural enterprise” The School of Life, art—or literature specifically—does indeed have a practical purpose. Four to be precise.

In a pitch that might appeal to Dale Carnegie, de Botton argues that literature: 1) Saves you time, 2) Makes you nicer, 3) Cures loneliness, and 4) Prepares you for failure. The format of his video above—“What is Literature For?”—may be formulaic, but the argument may not be so contrary to modernist dicta after all. Indeed, as William Carlos Williams famously wrote, “men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found” in poetry. How many people perish slowly over wasted time, meanness, loneliness, and broken dreams?

Open Culture | Read the Full Article

What Are Literature, Philosophy & History For? Alain de Botton Explains with Monty Python-Style Videos

Open Culture | Read the Full Article

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