1. Reality TV isn’t just a blend of emotion + pranks; it’s life turned into ‘Truth or Dare.’
2. The genre's been around since Queen for a Day (1940s), which put suffering on a stage.
3. Followed by Candid Camera (50s), which put unsuspecting folk in awkward scenarios.
4. Then, An American Family (70s) turned everyday life into a soap opera minus a script.
5. The Gong Show (70s) turned talent into a circus, where the absurd overpowered skill.
6. COPS (80s) brought real-life danger into living rooms with cameras capturing action.
7. Funniest Home Videos (80s) turned viewers into storytellers with hilarious home clips.
8. MTV’s The Real World (90s) made conflict a show by filming strangers living together.
9. Big Brother + Survivor made survival a gladiatorial sport, taking the genre mainstream.
10. American Idol (00s) turned talent shows into intense dramas with spotlight and voting.
11. Reality TV isn’t just popular; it’s a cultural undercurrent that thrives on breaking taboos.
12. Its survival hinges on one truth: people love watching others break the rules they can’t.
13. Despite its appeal, reality TV is seen as tacky, lowbrow entertainment for the masses.
14. Critics argue it exploits, but participants accept the trade-off for their quick shot at fame.
15. Emily Nussbaum likens reality TV to the air we breathe: essential, invisible, everywhere.
16. It feeds our hunger for the raw and the ridiculous, revealing the illusion of unfiltered truth.
17. Mark Greif sees it fulfilling our craving for extreme myths, capturing triumph and downfall.
18. Reality TV thrives on the weird and absurd, turning the mundane into a spectacle of what-ifs.
19. The magic lies in its shallow thrills and sharp reflections; so expecting depth misses the point.
20. Nietzsche’s take on hope prolonging suffering mirrors reality TV’s loop of ambition + failure.
21. It keeps us guessing by blurring the lines between genuine emotion and orchestrated drama.
22. The undying allure of reality TV lies not in it being real, but in playing with what real could be.
23. Nussbaum notes that it strips us to the nerves; that if we’re willing to watch, it’s willing to show.
24. It creates a sort of 'you-can’t-not-talk-about-it’ feeling, turning fleeting absurdities into folklore.
25. It holds a cracked mirror to society, revealing both our deepest insecurities and highest hopes.
26. Reality TV isn’t about literal truth but rendering the emotional highs and lows of being human.
27. The genre defies snobbery by letting audiences enjoy entertainment without the need for high art.
28. It cuts through elitism, blending the crass and the captivating into something uniquely democratic.
29. Its best moments are unscripted, beyond most writers, revealing reality in a way only this genre can.
Notes by Praveen
Plannerly observations for you never know when they'll help with sorcery
29 points on why reality TV is like the air we breathe
26 points on why all desire is mimetic
1. Desires are different from needs and animal instincts.
2. Needs are real and natural; desires are mimetic and abstract.
3. We want things like cars and earrings, not just sustenance and sex.
4. But we don’t have a mechanism to choose between objects of desire.
5. Instead, we look for and rely on models that show us what’s worth wanting.
6. These models – people, places, things and lifestyles – act as signposts for desires.
7. So desire is an intellectual pursuit; a striving for what we lack, redefined by others.
8. This constant, never-satisfied striving for something we don't have is what we call desire.
9. From philosophy to psychoanalysis, we’re led to imagine that desires come from within us.
10. The post-Enlightenment, truly rational subject is meant to have an authentic mode of being.
11. Critical theories try to free the self from the suppression of tyrants, ideology, the unconscious.
12. But to think desires are our own is what the social theorist René Girard calls ‘the romantic lie’.
13. In fact, he added that all desire is mimetic — that we copy not just behaviour, but desire itself.
14. For instance, when coveting a luxury car, what we're really desiring is the status it represents.
15. We mimic our models' desires and constantly chase new things as new models keep emerging.
16. This endless dissatisfaction is what the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman calls 'liquid modernity'.
17. And as Girard recognised, there's no autonomous being or authentic self, only mimetic desire.
18. So the irony of desire: in striving to be unique, we find ourselves copying the wants of others.
19. It’s useful to note that mimesis exists on a spectrum; some desires are less mimetic than others.
20. Less mimetic desires, like a mother's love, have deeper roots and fewer variables over time.
21. Then there are entirely mimetic desires, like buying a stock because everyone else wants it.
22. Our abstract desires are either thick, enduring, values-based or thin, fleeting and superficial.
23. While thick desires, like personal growth, offer lasting fulfilment; thin ones, like fads, don't.
24. Girard’s revelation means freedom isn’t found in the individual, but in one’s choice of models.
25. That is, we can’t author our own desires, but we can curate them through intentional imitation.
26. Therefore, the greatest freedom lies not in escaping the mirror of desire, but in choosing its reflection.
23 points on why boring contains the interesting
3. And a whole lot of basic people, from TV addicts to those who live in mid-sized towns.
4. Problem is, such stereotypes define boring in perceived, objective levels of excitement.
5. They fail to notice the nuances and complexities of individual experiences/preferences.
6. Boring is a subjective experience; like what’s boring to one person may interest another.
7. Kenneth Goldsmith studies boring to the bone, and teaches ‘Uncreative Writing’ at Penn.
8. He claims to be the world's most boring writer, producing monumentally boring work.
9. Like retyping the contents of a NY Times edition to transcribing a year’s weather reports.
10. He suggests that his work is better thought about than read; thinkership > readership.
11. He observed that there are two types of boring: ‘boring boring’ and ‘unboring boring’.
12. Boring boring is a forced state; something to endure, like Duchamp’s urinal Fountain.
13. Or Jackson Low’s anti-war poetry reading that goes on and on until the room is empty.
14. Unboring boring is a voluntary state; something to surrender to, like John Cage’s 4′33″.
15. Or Warhol’s films: a static image of the Empire State for 8 hrs, a man sleeping for 6 hrs.
16. Boring makes you think, and nothing's boring if you justify it being there conceptually.
17. The writer Liz Gilbert goes so far as saying everything that is interesting is 90% boring.
18. Or as Cage puts, if something’s boring for 2 mins, try it for 4, 8, 16, 32.. until it won’t.
19. Point is, activities can be interesting not despite their tedious nature, but because of it.
20. Indeed, G.K. Chesterton noted that there are no boring things, only disinterested minds.
21. Thinking about boring this way might mean one won’t be bored in the same way again.
22. G.B. Shaw realised that the harder and more thoroughly one is used up, the more they live.
23. It could well mean that the harder and more thoroughly one is bored up, the more they live.
23 points on the definitive new status signal
2. The term is the subject of Thorstein Veblen’s 1899 hit, The Theory of the Leisure Class.
3. It suggested that outward signifiers, like clothes, were an obvious tool to signal wealth.
4. Like you could literally tell who the rich people were, simply by seeing what they wore.
5. Fashion, born off it, became a language to show allegiance to social groups distinctively.
6. Today, you can’t reliably tell who’s rich anymore because the rich dress like the rest of us.
7. As writer Kate Wagner puts, Zuckerberg looks like your dad’s friend, Gates like grandad.
8. While actors, actresses and celebrities are snapped in Nike sweatpants and Starbucks cups.
9. Wagner notes that clothes have always been a clear class signifier, respecting stereotypes.
10. The rich relied on signals like tailored suits, dresses, beautiful shoes, curated jewellery etc.
11. They no longer embrace formality, eliminating the significance of such aesthetic signifiers.
12. Costumer Colleen Morris-Glennon notes that the richer someone is, the more they blend in.
13. But at least two movements in fashion reveal such discreet forms of understated signalling.
14. Quiet luxury: intentionally going for high-craft, high-quality clothes that deflect attention.
15. Like Gwyneth Paltrow's courtcore, Succession fashion, Cate Blanchett’s wardrobe in Tár etc.
16. Stealth wealth: avoiding ostentatious displays with basics that imply living within means.
17. Like Zuckerberg’s plain tees, Jobs’ normcore mom jeans, Fetterman’s hoodies + shorts etc.
18. Point is, rich people don’t dress like the rich people we think rich people should dress like.
19. They are not wearing Balenciaga hoodies over Supreme tees or Gucci-printed sweatpants.
20. Writer Sheluyang Peng notes that ostentatious clothing displays scream tacky, or worse, poor.
21. Peng adds that with clothing no longer a reliable signal of wealth, virtue signalling steps in.
22. For those with fewer resources can’t afford the flexibility to participate in such costly signalling.
23. But, as the law Prof. James Allan puts, the rich can afford to virtue signal at least more than us.
25 points on why happiness lies in the process
1. The evolutionary purpose of life is to survive and reproduce.
2. But unlike other animals, humans have this capacity to reason.
3. So Aristotle observed that the ultimate purpose of life is happiness.
4. He defined it as eudaemonia, meaning, ‘flourishing’ or ‘living well.'
5. A perspective that realises human potential by intellectual fulfillment.
6. This Aristotelian view has defined the nature of western thought since.
7. But happiness is subjective, so there’s no consensus on how it's realised.
8. So several theories on happiness have emerged, which fall in three types.
9. Needs satisfaction, process of activity, and personality disposition theories.
10. Needs theories suggest that reducing pains and tensions lead to happiness.
11. For instance, Freud’s pleasure principle and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
12. Process of activity theories posit that happiness comes from being engaged.
13. For instance, Csikszentmihalyi’s flow and Kahneman’s dual-process theories.
14. Personality disposition theories suggest that happiness is inherent and genetic.
15. For instance, Fiske’s Big 5 and Brickman-Campbell’s hedonic treadmill theories.
16. Perhaps the most practical of all theories: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory.
17. It's born from studying those who did activities for pleasure, even without rewards.
18. He discovered that happiness was the product of intense activities, not relaxation.
19. So happiness lied in the process—being in a state of flow, of complete absorption.
19. A state in which one is so immersed in the joy of doing something for its own sake.
20. A pattern he noticed in painters, musicians, athletes, dancers, scientists, surgeons etc.
21. If challenge exceeds skill, anxiety strikes, if skill exceeds challenge, boredom strikes.
22. So the flow state sits between boredom (activity is too easy) and anxiety (it's too hard).
23. Life’s worth living when one finds flow doing something so absorbing, nothing matters.
24. Like writing, playing an instrument, creating art, a meal, solving a problem, learning etc.
25. The happiest people spend much of their time in a state of flow; it's the happiness factory.
21 points on the strangeness of queues
1. From ancient Egypt to Rome, queues have been used to organise crowds/distribute resources.
2. The word queue comes from the French word cue, meaning ‘tail’, to describe a line of people.
3. Queue sounds strange because it’s a 5-letter word pronounced the same with 4 letters silent.
4. Queue seems strange because it means both a noun (a line) and a verb (to join or form a line).
5. Queues are worth studying for they reveal our strange ties to illogic, time, perception, norms.
6. The dictionary defines the queue as a line of people, usually standing, waiting for something.
7. MIT’s Richard Larson defines it as that which happens when real-time demand exceeds supply.
8. Seems like the dominant reason for people to queue is fairness, which is instinctive/intuitive.
9. The psychologist Stanley Milgram finds queue-jumpers being confronted only 10% of the time.
10. Which suggests that we prefer to absorb solitary rule breakers for the greater good of order.
11. Strangely, as the psychologist Adrian Furnham notes, our queueing habits run on a ‘Rule of 6.’
12. As in, we tend to give up in 6 mins, resist lines longer than 6, feel anxious within 6” gaps etc.
13. The Harvard professor David Maister points to at least 3 areas in queueing worth tinkering.
14. Unoccupied time feels longer than occupied time; so having us do something bends time.
15. Uncertain wait feels longer; so having us feel the progress or service dents the wait time.
16. And if people are made to perceive something as valuable or desirable, they’ll wait longer.
17. Indeed, Disney, the biggest researcher on queues, found that perceived wait > actual wait.
18. For people may forget the time spent waiting, but remember the way they felt during the wait.
19. Queues are strange because they balance fairness and efficiency, yet result in irrational actions.
20. Queues are strange because they're illogical, yet compel us to willingly subject to waiting/delay.
21. It's their strangeness that reveals ours, or as Descartes may have put, ‘We queue, therefore we are.’
17 points on how to appreciate poetry
1. Poetry feels terrifying because we feel stupid if we don't get it.
2. This wasn’t always so, for most of history, poetry was enjoyed by the masses.
3. With science/reason asserting itself in the 19th century, poets glorified poetry's meaning.
4. It became abstract, academic, pretentious, rejecting rhyme, harmony, form, meter and more.
5. By putting cleverness and detachment over joy and beauty, its ability to connect diminished.
6. To complement, poetry was being too well-taught, as difficult texts to be analysed, not enjoyed.
7. Such that we were required to spend more time understanding poetry, rather than appreciate it.
8. The poet Archibald MacLeish suggests that poetry should not mean, but be; felt, not fathomed.
9. Or as the writer Verlyn Klinkeborg suggests, meaning need not be the sole purpose of poetry.
10. That the purpose of each line in a poem can be the line itself, and pleasure derived for what it is.
11. Which is how children enjoy poetry, reading each line repetitively, and with incredible exactitude.
12. Each line in the poem itself has rhythm; it uses alliteration, hyperbole, metaphor, simile and so on.
13. Klinkenborg notes that children demand the line itself, whose meaning isn't a substitute for the line.
14. Reading poetry this way helps one pause, take notice, rather than obsess only on extracting meaning.
15. Henry David Thoreau observed that each of us are primed to receive only what we're ready to receive.
16. And to truly receive, or see anew, a special type of receptivity, unblinded by preconceptions, is needed.
17. Poetry provides that; it opens us up like no other form of writing, and lets us see more than we can see.
17 points on how comics make time happen
3. But there's no evidence in physics to support the intuitive idea that time flows.
4. Rather, time does not flow, it exists all at once; perception just limits our view of it.
5. None of us have multiple vantage points to see all space, at every moment in time.
6. So time is an eternal present that can't be translated to a linear, sequential narrative.
7. Meanwhile, comics can communicate multiple vantage points in near-simultaneity.
8. Say, one panel, unlike a photo, can convey some 30 sec interval of time, all at once.
9. Comics allow readers to move back and forth in time and space, to draw the whole.
10. This phenomenon, of observing the parts but perceiving the whole, is called closure.
11. Using imagination to fill gaps underpins cartoonist Scott McCloud's theory of closure.
12. Comics readers fill in the gaps to make sense between two seemingly unrelated panels.
13. They're able to jump from panel to panel with guesses/bridges to stitch a coherent story.
14. Each piece in a comic is just a piece, it can't be understood without connecting the dots.
15. Using closure to bridge time, space and motion, comics deliver a truly satisfying narrative.
16. Being discontinuous, coherent yet total simultaneously makes comics the art form unlike any.
17. It lets us experience time as it exists, all at once, rather than being a linear sequence that flows.
19 points on why liking is simply a matter of choosing
1. Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell estimates that we make two hundred food decisions a day.
2. So the question of what we like to eat confronts us more so than what we like to wear, read etc.
3. The what we like to eat conundrum presents two options: try something new or pick a favourite.
4. Which, as the psychologist Paul Rozen observes, depends on where we want pleasure to occur.
5. As in it would depend on whether we want our pleasure to occur before, during or after the meal.
6. Anticipated pleasure is greater if we pick a favourite; for we've already had it at some point before.
7. Remembering pleasure is greater if we try something new; for it creates new memories and favourites.
8. So liking circles around anticipation and memory; what we look forward becomes what we've had before.
9. Hence, the past and future feed thoughts, reflecting Blaise Pascal's maxim: 'The present is never our end.'
10. The present, expressed as living in the moment, is ambiguous for we're unsure how long makes a moment
11. But neither anticipation or memory is a reliable solution to answer how much we will like, or liked something.
12. For instance, eating a favourite meal every day for a while can alter the worth of how much that meal is liked.
13. Or the meals we ate during childhood may no longer be as desirable to the evolved palates of our old age.
14. Or a meal we didn't like at the time of having it may be liked later as we distort our perception when recalled.
15. Which suggests, as observed by the writer Tom Vanderbilt, that the key to liking may be the fact that it's chosen.
16. Which builds on the behavioural bias of cognitive dissonance: our tendency to avoid post-decision choice malaise.
17. So much that we increase our liking for what we've chosen, while increasing our dislike for what we've not chosen.
18. In other words, as Vanderbilt articulates, as much preferences influence choices, choices influence preferences.
19. Hence, a reliable solution to the conundrum of what we like to eat is simply what we choose to eat; liking follows.
22 points on why all humour theories miss the point
1. Although everyone understands humour, it's hard to explain what it is.
2. Or rather impossible, as observed by actual comedians and comedy writers.
3. Despite which, there have been a number of academic attempts to theorise humour.
4. For that which is inexplicable has tended to attract more enthusiasm than that which can.
5. So for 2000 years, it's been assumed that all forms of humour may have a common ingredient.
6. The search for this ingredient was occupied mainly by philosophers, and psychologists thereafter.
7. Superiority theory, the oldest, by Plato, holds humour as that which comes from the misfortune of others.
8. Relief theory, made famous by Sigmund Freud, holds humour as that which releases tensions and inhibitions.
9. Incongruity theory, by Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, holds humour as the result of a sudden shift in perspective.
10. Resolution of incongruity theory, its variant, holds humour as an unexpected solution from a shift in perspective.
11. Benign violations theory, by Thomas Veatch, holds humour as harmless violations of social, moral, physical norms.
12. Play theory, by Max Eastman, holds humour as a kind of pleasure that's drawn from playful presentations of pain.
13. Conflict theory, by Karl Marx, holds humour as that which acts as an expression of conflict, struggle or friction.
14. Ambivalence theory, by Louis Joubert, holds humour as that which is an inside battle between opposing emotions.
15. Dispositional theory, by Dolf Zillmann and Joanne Cantor, holds humour as that which is derived from antipathy.
16. Gesalt theory, by Max Wertheimer, holds humour as that which comes via tweaked meaning that change meaning.
17. Piagetian theory, by Jean Piaget, holds humour as that which derives pleasure from taking things out of place.
18. Configurational theory, by Paul Schiller, holds humour as that which arises from interpretations, not what it is.
19. But most theories are versions of incongruity theory, which is the most plausible account on what makes humour.
20. Since humour perpetuates unresolvable gaps in reason, gaps in theorist resolutions can be framed as deliberate.
21. By this antilogic, as the cartoonist Ben Juers notes, all theories prank the writer/reader, while missing the point.
22. Or as E. B. White puts, 'Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Nobody cares and the frog dies in the process.'
27 points on why we're all just acting out our lives
1. Animals like elephants, chimps, dolphins, magpies etc. are known to pass the 'mirror test'.
2. If you draw a spot on their foreheads and put them in front of a mirror they'll try to rub it off.
3. So scientists have recognised that they're self-aware, just as children are as early as 18 months.
4. So animals and children share a sense of basic self, recognising what's happening in the moment.
5. Cognitive scientists call this reflection 'episodic memory': the memory of undergoing experiences.
6. There's another kind of reflection that develops a little later in humans, and perhaps never in animals.
7. Cognitive scientists call this 'autobiographical memory': the memory of linking present with past experiences.
8. Like humans can not only imagine what happened before, but imagine by putting their current self in the past.
9. So whenever they access their autobiographical memory, they can put themselves into a mental time machine.
10. The issue with having an autobiographical memory is that it keeps supplying life episodes to fashionise our self.
11. Which means it's up to each of us to create and construct our life story with an assorted choice of life episodes.
12. So the mission of every rational individual is to build out a self, which philosophers call the constitution of self.
13. And philosophical observations on what it means to live well lead people to two goals: meaning and happiness.
14. At the same time, psychological evidence concludes that aspects of meaning and happiness can be in conflict.
15. Like activities increasing meaning can reduce happiness; activities increasing happiness can reduce meaning.
16. For instance, raising children has shown to reduce happiness, but people do so because it gives them meaning.
17. So happiness and meaning are two distinct aspects that stretch our lives, although neither dominates the other.
18. Meaning and happiness-filled episodes are created and supplied into our autobiographical memory to create life.
19. Or life story, which we're burdened to constitute/build, that clarifies the maxim: to live well is to live narratively.
20. If Nietzsche wrote, 'We want to be poets of our lives,' the neurologist Oliver Sacks concurs, we live in narratives.
21. There are two fundamental life narratives, as articulated by the philosopher Jim Holt: 'Nietzschean' or 'Platonist'.
22. The Nietzschean way is to make life as one wills, of individuality or originality; one that's organised on newness.
23. The Platonist way is to make life not on newness, but on goodness; one that's organised on some objective value.
24. The Nietzschean way relates to happy, episodic types who have no interest in the past, except it forms their now.
25. The Platonist way relates to meaningful, autobiographical types who seek worthwhile projects for societal good.
26. Both have their arguments; one prioritises happiness, other meaningfulness; one is ephemeral, other is enduring.
27. But the truth remains, that the poetry of our lives is orchestrated by two narratives whether we realise it or not.
26 points on the creative department of thinking
1. Throughout history, humans have wondered about our mysterious faculty for creative thinking.
2. The belief being, conscious rationality is our supreme intelligence doing all that hard thinking.
3. But the role of some inner creative beast in influencing thought has been a debate before Socrates.
4. Empedocles, a pre-Socratic philosopher, brought a tradition of incubation; a creative healing process.
5. Dionysus was made the Greek god who enabled creativity via escape; from the confines of our selves.
6. For Socrates, a sort of inner madness was a divine form that worked up creativity, imagination and wits.
7. Aristotle thought creativity came from black bile, a body fluid he also linked to melancholy and depression.
8. The roman poet Virgil brought about the concept that creativity comes from abandoning conscious striving.
9. Medieval monks found a model for creative thinking on the interplay between rumination and concentration.
10. The model reflects the process of thinkers from saints to playwrights, poets to scientists, dancers to artists.
11. Thomas Aquinas used to pray immediately after sleeps, to draw out what to write/dictate the following day.
12. Shakespeare found drama in the space between unconscious imagination and consciously controlled artistry.
13. John Milton drew out so much magic from his incubation chamber that he christened it the 'faculty of fancy.'
14. Thomas Edison slept holding steel balls, and scribbled ideas immediately when awaken by the dropping balls.
15. The dancer Ghislaine Boddington took naps in her studio and danced immediately on waking up to feel them.
16. The painter Max Ernst called incubation a chance encounter of remote realities on a place unfit for neither.
17. The social psychologist Graham Wallas famously articulated the four phases of the creative process in 1926.
18. He called stage one preparation; the initial phase marked by part-research, part-entering the frame of mind.
19. He called stage two incubation; the phase of unconscious processing, between rumination and concentration.
20. He called stage three illumination; here the train of association ends, preceded by several unsuccessful trains.
21. He called stage four verification; this is the phase where the idea is finally validated and given shape/form to.
22. Wallas recognised what creative thinkers knew; that unconscious incubation is the mother chamber of thought.
23. It's useful to recognise, as noted by the psychologist Julian Jaynes, that consciousness is not the seat of reason.
24. Or that, as noted by the cognitive psychologist John Kilhlstrom, consciousness isn't needed for complex thinking.
25. But that thoughts, from reasoning to complex/creative thinking, are constructed in the chamber of unconscious.
26. Which the mind scientist Guy Claxton describes is the mind inside the mind that's off limits to conscious observers.
19 points on the usefulness of useless pursuits
1. From a practical pov, pure intellectual life is seen as a useless pursuit.
2. One marked by a sense of self-indulgence, self-satisfaction and useless knowledge.
3. But historically, it's the pursuit of useless knowledge that's been the source of utility.
4. Take the Scottish mathematician Clerk Maxwell's enthusiasm for abstract equations.
5. Maxwell went onto publish a full treatise on abstract equations in electromagnetism.
6. Which led to the German physicist Heinrich Hertz's detection of wireless magnetic waves.
7. But the Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi is seen as the inventor of wireless transmission.
8. Maxwell and Hertz couldn't invent anything, but it's their useless knowledge that led to something.
9. Something that was seized by a clever technician to create a new means for communication; a utility.
10. Maxwell and Hertz were geniuses without thought of use; Marconi, a technician with no thought but use.
11. Similarly, work in electric induction was done by the physicists Hans Christian Oersted and André Ampère.
12. But Michael Faraday became the father of electricity with electromagnetic induction based on their findings.
13. Oersted and Ampère were geniuses without thought of use; Faraday, a technician with no thought but use.
14. Throughout the history of science, most great discoveries were made by those who put curiosity before use.
15. For most of their careers, the Maxwells and Oersteds weren't interested in utility, but with useless knowledge.
16. And out of such useless knowledge came discoveries which proved more important than those with useful ends.
17. The point isn't that everything that goes on as self-indulgence will ultimately lead to unexpected practical use.
18. But that, as the American educator Abraham Flexner notes, it's useful to abolish the pervasion of the word use.
19. Such that the enemy of progress isn't the irresponsible thinker, but the thinker that undermines useless pursuits.