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Leisure And Liberal Education: A Plea For Uselessness, John E. Jalbert

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

A liberal education informs a person in the proper use of leisure. Liberal education, as the word liberal suggests, is intimately connected with the idea of personal freedom.

The central role of the liberal or liberating arts is to free us, if only for short periods of time, from mundane affairs, from the need to subordinate our lives, wills, and intellects to external demands, from the need—whether real or merely felt—to place ourselves under the sway of the marketplace in order to make a living. After all, human excellence requires more than the material ends that are procured through labor, …