I'm reading a book, "Fatal Mountaineer," about Willi Unsoeld, and the author, a non-climber journalist, keeps referring to the "uselessness" of climbing and mountaineering.
On one hand, I can agree that climbing is useless to general society--it doesn't solve any of the world's problems. OTOH, climbing does a lot for/to the individual climbing--obviously. It tones your body and mind in a way possibly particular to climbing. Climbing isn't any more useless than the Tour de France or any other sport, really.
Also, stories about climbing also are inspirational to armchair climbers, so you could say climbing contributes culturally, as do other sports.
If I didn't climb, I doubt I'd be pursuing a Ph.D in cellular biology and finding a cure for cancer. It's not distracting me from higher pursuits.
This also brings to mind my grandfather's question, when I told him I was going climbing: "What do you do when you get to the top, just come down?" He doesn't get that the going up is what it's all about.
Thoughts? (Notice this is not in the Spray forum, eh.)