Only enjoyable or exciting content can genuinely command attention.

Evidence

We should keep in mind the fine words of William James that opened the third part of this book: my experience is composed of ‘what I agree to attend to’. We should take this as both an affirmation of liberty and an IMPERATIVE OF AGREEABLENESS: as we have seen, from the moment that ‘attention cannot stay still’, and that we can only get it from those who are happy to give it, an attentional environment is only defendable if it is agreeable, and it is only agreeable if we know how to make it appealing. This is the challenge of all pedagogy and all aesthetics: only what we are able to make enjoyable or exciting is truly useful. Simone Weil saw this clearly, ‘intelligence can only be led by desire’. There is no alternative to generating agreeableness – even if the highest pleasure often means an asceticism by which is it considerably deferred, as is illustrated by the strategies of modern art. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 482

Categorization

• DEFINE: Formally introduces the ‘imperative of agreeableness’ as a core theoretical construct of attention ecology.
• XREF: Simone Weil’s ‘intelligence can only be led by desire’ connects to the Frankfurt School tradition’s account of the aesthetic as a vehicle of truth. — connects to: Prolonged attention transforms what initially seems boring; Boring texts can be good while exciting texts can be degraded

Broader Connections

• Boring texts can be good while exciting texts can be degraded #contradicts (0.95)
• Prolonged attention transforms what initially seems boring #contradicts (0.85)