Umberto Eco on lists
Interviewed in Spiegel, Umerto Eco talks about the importance of lists to learning and culture, and how the list has changed in the age of Google.
The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.