Taste
I hereby declare a holiday, after this post, from analogies of bad arguments to bad art and from further references to the intellectual and moral philistinism of neocons. But allow me to offer David Hume’s minor masterpiece “Of the Standard of Taste“. A selection:
A good palate is not tried by strong flavours; but by a mixture of small ingredients, where we are still sensible of each part, notwithstanding its minuteness and its confusion with the rest. In like manner, a quick and acute perception of beauty and deformity must be the perfection of our mental taste; nor can a man be satisfied with himself while he suspects, that any excellence or blemish in a discourse has passed him unobserved. In this case, the perfection of the man, and the perfection of the sense or feeling, are found to be united. A very delicate palate, on many occasions, may be a great inconvenience both to a man himself and to his friends: But a delicate taste of wit or beauty must always be a desirable quality; because it is the source of all the finest and most innocent enjoyments, of which human nature is susceptible.
There is such a thing as good taste, and it applies to argument as well as art. The ability to spot excellences and blemishes in a discourse is as much a part of taste as is the acute perception of beauty and deformity. The intellectual case for National Greatness Conservativism is easy enough to debunk. But I am constantly struck by the gag-making vulgarity of its moral vision, and I think that’s worth pointing out. Yes, many people do find it appealing, and that’s central to the point. Taste is a refinement of sensibility; it is elitist, not populist. Of course, I don’t think it’s wise to lean very heavily on such transparently aesthetic judgments. Indeed, it is in poor taste to depend so much on direct appeals to taste. It makes you look like a supercilious jerk. But it can also be illuminating to occasionally note openly that ideologies do have an aesthetic dimension, and that some of them are just hideous.
Hume, of course, is not really observing a settled truth when he tells us just how fantastic it is to have developed delicate taste. He knows what he’s doing, and what he’s doing is coaching us to care about taste — to develop a taste for taste — because unless you do, you won’t even notice all the great stuff you’re missing. You won’t even notice how debased you are. You might even like it! And that’s sad. So, yeah, Hume’s being a supercilious jerk, too. But he’s a lot more clever about it. It is no inconvenience at all to a man of taste or his friends when he finds them dull and ugly. Not at all. That’s a delight!
January 31st, 2008 09:57
“But it can also be illuminating to occasionally note openly that ideologies do have an aesthetic dimension, and that some of them are just hideous.”
Certainly! But I can’t resist mentioning (even though as you put “some” you are allowing for it) that you could have nice aesthetics and bad ideology, and vice versa.
A critic of free markets could claim that Brittany Spears and The Enquirer are the vulgar aesthetics that arise when markets are allowed to “run wild.” I pretty much look down on populism, but I have to accept that in a free system, lots of people are going to choose the tawdry over the refined, and that there’s nothing wrong with that.
(I haven’t tried to poke holes in this argument, just relaying it.)
January 31st, 2008 21:49
You make an excellent point. The philistines with their vulgar taste for pomp and melodrama will never understand the liberal-individualist appreciation for subtlety and restraint.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go read a novel about how all the most super awesome geniuses in the world get sick of all the total jerk losers so they create their own secret super awesome genius city where no jerks can ever bother them ever again.
January 31st, 2008 22:40
Touche, sir!
February 1st, 2008 11:31
“so they create their own secret super awesome genius city where no jerks can ever bother them ever again.”
Is this another dig at Disneyland?
February 1st, 2008 11:34
Uh oh, should we appreciate TN’s jibe in good humor due to its excellent deployment of irony, or should we discerningly note that we are all full of shit and cry ourselves to sleep? What would Hume do?
February 2nd, 2008 00:10
Rand’s foreign policy wasn’t exactly pacifistic.
February 7th, 2008 09:17
“a novel about how all the most super awesome geniuses in the world get sick of all the total jerk losers so they create their own secret super awesome genius city where no jerks can ever bother them ever again.”
I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know for sure, but it sort of sounds like the plot of Carol Gilligan’s novel, “Kyra,” as described in Sunday’s NYT Book Review.