You've probably seen the (outstanding, of course) essay linked many times, but don't miss this excellent associated bibliography!
Currently wondering how cultural products fit into a "build" mandate. Renaissance salons are interesting to ponder vs. "what are you building"?
Conversation
Some subset of these cultural products *are* a kind of building—a building of tacit knowledge, of systems, of lenses. Others are aesthetic products which are essential to human flourishing, but which seem otherwise orthogonal to the mandate.
Replying to
The ideal in my mind is for the aesthetic products to inspire the building and vice versa in an upward spiral
1
1
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
One cultural product of the salons was democracy (you could quibble about extent, but fair to say that it was a significant contributor). That's a kind of building. They also gave us belletrists—say, Proust. Not sure that's building, though arguably important for flourishing.
3


