De Chirico predicted contemplative persons would go extinct under pragmatism

Evidence

In the face of the increasingly materialist and pragmatic orientation of our age…it would not be eccentric in the future to contemplate a society in which those who live for the pleasures of the mind will no longer have the right to demand their place in the sun. The writer, the thinker, the dreamer, the poet, the metaphysician, the observer…he who tries to solve a riddle or to pass judgement will become an anachronistic figure, destined to disappear from the face of the earth like the ichthyosaur and the mammoth. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 11

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘observer as extinct ichthyosaur’ image is a vivid fossil metaphor for the book’s defense of attention.
• XREF: connects to: Pragmatism relates to ancient skepticism via valuing opinions by utility — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 399; Conscience can be selectively disengaged without psychological instability
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Pragmatism relates to ancient skepticism via valuing opinions by utility — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 399; Conscience can be selectively disengaged without psychological instability

Broader Connections

• Conscience can be selectively disengaged without psychological instability #complicates (0.70)