The words amateur, dabbler, and dilettante all conjure a reputation for surface-level attention, one that as Nigel Warburton argues for Aeon, gets an unnecessarily bad rap. Warburton surveys history and the evolution of language, asking you to shift your perspective in this fun and engaging defense of those who enjoy many passions without a requirement for rigour.
But what if the scheme has it backwards? What if the dilettante’s perpetual movement from one thing to another is not a failure of nerve but a different and defensible way of being, one whose exploratory zeal turns out to be just what a hyper-specialised, over-optimised and all-too-serious world needs most? Then the dilettante would turn out to be not a capricious buffoon but a kind of modern anti-hero. That, I argue, is a dilettantism worth defending.
More picks from Aeon
More Nothing Now
“We are most human when we play freely, imaginatively, pointlessly. Gamification risks atrophying that most precious capacity.”
Reversing Extinction
“Technologies of preserving and reviving organisms are already redefining the meaning of life, death, and extinction itself.”
Deskilling the Body
“We are, moment by moment, doing less sensing, navigating, remembering, walking, choosing, and attending.”
