Apparently purposeless activity

Useless is always used as a pejorative term. You know what I mean. Your distant cousin, who never fails to show up at holiday gatherings and no one quite knows how he always finds out about them, is frequently described as “about as useful as mammary glands on a wild porcine mammal of the male gender” or words to that effect. I would like to go on record saying that “useless” needs to be reevaluated.
To tell the truth I think we live in a world that leans too heavily on the utilitarian side of things. Utilitarians believe the value of anything is directly related to its usefulness. If this is the case then it makes total sense for the Pentagon to pay $6,325 for a wrench, but when the Japanese rich guy paid over $39,000,000 for Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, he got taken for the proverbial ride. Think about it. If the lives of hundreds of troops on a McDonnell Douglas C-9 depend on the bolts holding the wings in place do you want the mechanic to have a well-forged crescent wrench made from the finest American steel in his back pocket or a hundred and twenty year old oil painting created by a horribly depressed Dutchman?
Okay, that was a really crummy example. Especially since, I would like more people to look at things which do not have a means to an end utility as valuable. I’m not talking about truly useless things like Heinz 57 at a Vegan convention, Oscar ballots at a screening of anything starring Vin Diesel, or Mensa applications being passed around the infield gallery at the Daytona 500. I’m talking about things which will not, in and of themselves, accomplish tasks.
My brother, Eric, discussed this recently in a blog he writes. Now, my brother has read more books than the average B. Dalton has on their shelves and he understands things which when I try to wrap my mind around them it causes a brain hurtie worse than when I consume a DQ chocolate extreme blizzard in less than a minute, so I may have misunderstood some things, but I think we agree.
Here is a quote from what he wrote: “The value of anything is determined purely by its use towards an end. This devalues things that we would like to be ends in themselves, like people, animals and natural habitats.”
The same day I read his statement I came across an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine which was trying to explain the useful brain science and evolutionarily beneficial aspects of playing. No, not playing the harpsichord, not playing Hamlet, not playing third base for the Yankees, just playing. Playing, as in Ken and Barbie get tossed into the clay pits of doom (a.k.a sandbox) and are saved at the last minute by G.I. Joe and his battalion little green army men. Playing, as in seeing if you can throw a ball all the way over the garage, have it bounce off the hood of the station wagon and then carom into the plastic wading pool splashing water all over your sunbathing big sister. That kind of playing.
Scientists spending time and money trying to prove that play is beneficial to the brain development of children is good if that is the only way the powers that be will care about allowing kids to play. I would prefer a world that looks at play as good, because it causes smiling, giggling, and the occasional hearty guffaw. There are many things that should be valued for what they give rather than what they accomplish and the government should be more open to it.
I work in education so No Child Left Behind has huge impact on my daily life. Naming it as they have it makes it hard for people to attack it, because if you do, it appears you want to leave some kids behind. My problem with it is it values tools over entire human beings. I have a fear the capitalist society we live in wishes schools to create new and improved employees. This means people are valued more for what they will do (money they will make and tasks they will accomplish, for example Donald Trump) as opposed to what they are (caring individuals who can enjoy a song or a book for the sake of its artistry, for example…for example…oh, boy, I can’t think of anyone who is famous for being a caring individual who can enjoy a book or a song for the sake of its artistry).