Kristen R. Ghodsee

Abraham Flexner from 1939

October 3, 2018 Kristen Ghodsee

Is it not a curious fact that in a world steeped in irrational hatreds which threaten civilization itself, men and women – old and young – detach themselves wholly or partly from the angry current of daily life to devote themselves to the cultivation of beauty, to the extension of knowledge, to the cure of disease, to the amelioration of suffering, just as though fanatics were not simultaneously engaged in spreading pain, ugliness, and suffering? The world has always been a sorry and confused sort of place – yet poets and artists and scientists have ignored the factors that would, if attended to, paralyze them.

Abraham Flexner, “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge,” Harpers, June/November 1939

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