What Knowledge Matters?

The value of useless, poorly remembered trivia is that it enables access to the social realm of educated society. Thos who lack this knowledge are handicapped in participating in elite culture,. thus shutting off their future economic advancement. Hirsch's argument is that we underrate how much knowledge is needed to understand a newspaper or popular non fiction book. Just as fluent reading requires knowledge of tens of thousands of words, fluent understanding requires thousands of cultural sthat cannot be derived from direct experience.