The Virtue of Irrelevance
The true foundation of learning
While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are unseen are eternal.
Paul, the Apostle.
My argument is simply put: striving for relevance contributes massively to our modern exhaustion.
By removing learning from its original organ of leisure—in order to serve the technique of the day and attach learning to relevance—we ensured that people will walk the endless treadmill of relevance to the point of exhaustion without rest.
The rallying cry of “relevance” is a merciless one. And sadly, everyone is being mired in its premise. From the meme showing us how a drone camera has rendered a helicopter pilot and a cameraman jobless and obsolete, to the very recent struggle by lawyers and writers to keep up with ChatGPT, to the low-skilled workers who were mocked years ago by the lawyers and the writers, you are being made, every day, to think about staying relevant. If you cannot imagine what this is doing to your psyche, then maybe you need to stop reading. If you can, read on.
“Relevance! I want to stay relevant!” the man cries out every day with a silent fear that if he misses one sick day at work, he will immediately be replaced and he will be at the mercy of cruel poverty. “Relevance!” he rallies, as he signs up for the next training course. Not because he has an appetite for knowledge but because demands are increasing, and everyone is stacking up credentials, he had better get with the times or he will be left behind by it. No rest, no respite, no intrinsic reward, and definitely no love of learning remains.
When it pertains to knowledge, learning, and education, the relevance crusade remains one of the most exhausting vocations one may pursue. And this relevance takes its form in Baconism: knowledge is power. Once we stop looking upon knowledge as something that the soul — yes the soul — enjoys, and we instead think of it as raw material for manipulating nature, we sign a Faustian deal where there is no rest; where we are perpetual machine operators unable to ease your hands off the engine.
That honey is nutritious does not mean that we do not eat honey simply because it is sweet. However, the modern mind (and the mind captured by technique) can only conceive of honey in its nutritious terms. I admit it: the hardest concept to explain is “a thing as an end in itself.”
A mind that hungers only for only the functional is doomed to exhaustion. For a thing as an end in itself is a different type; a less relevant type and it is possible that we can occasionally find uses for them. Geoffrey Harold Hardy said of his own work: “Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating.” To be myopic then is to limit a thing to its practical use and forget its pure, useless end. The true life of the mind which is incidentally functional, belongs to a fading and unfading realm where they may be simply enjoyed.
When all our learning yearns for relevance, we would miss out—as we are already doing—on the wonderful types of learning that do not present themselves as always functional. Counterintuitively, however, irrelevant knowledge forms the foundation of relevant things. Relevant things come and go; which is why keeping up with the trend wearies the mind. But when relevant things come and go, the things that underpin them remain. These things enable anyone who possesses these qualities to adapt to the new age. It gives them at least a fresh but enduring perspective on the matters that are fleeting.
If the need exists to learn every new thing that comes and goes, it is reasonable to assume that no greater skill is needed than the skill—more like the metaskill—of learning itself. There then, is no greater skill than the skill of learning. Strangely but not surprisingly, many do not possess this metaskill; they do not possess this metaskill because they are enchanted by the new and relevant thing. But a disinterested posture—one of wonder, patience, and contemplation—is the foundation of true learning.
And here is your meme. Be like Tolkien
Great essay!