"What Brooks found holds true for the broader world of aspirational consumption. There is nothing innately wrong in gobbling up great art, important novels and educational credentials. Attending a performance of “The Rite of Spring” does no one harm. But if we fail to distinguish between attendance and appreciation, we may end up poorer for it, left with a corporate caricature of our cultural richness. The “intelligent” masses will work hard mining the store of culture artefacts, but will they read the texts and learn from them, or only use them as objects for trade?"

“The Age of Commodified Intelligence” in More Intelligent Life, a followup to their Winter ‘08 article “The Age of Mass Intelligence” (via gregbrown) (via rach)