We tend to think of aesthetic disputes as reflecting the least substantive differences between people—you like vanilla, I like chocolate, there’s no arguing over taste, let’s move on. But that point of view may be infected by the wishful thinking of backwards argumentation: given that there is no arguing over taste, those differences had better be unimportant. What if some of them are not?
Consider the fact that the most passionate friendships—those of youth—tend to coalesce around aesthetic passions: movies, music, comics, games. When you meet a stranger and you “click” with them, isn’t it very often because you liked the same book, or movie, or fell in love with the same city or language or artist? Consider real gift-giving, which involves pre-selecting the recipient, by contrast with the self-selection of “whoever might pass by and want it.” Meaningful, personalized gifts tend to succeed precisely when there is some shared aesthetic between the giver and recipient.
...It is striking that Socrates lumps together ethics and aesthetics as the two sources of strife.
The history of ethical thought is a record of the attempt to insert a wedge between those last two kinds of judgments. In both cases, we’ve worked to turn down the heat, but in the aesthetic case it’s by agreeing to disagree, whereas in the moral one it’s by way of the conceit that some kind of unified moral theory—be it Kantianism or Consequentialism—can serve as backdrop for adjudicating all disputes. We can just “weigh” the reasons and see who is “objectively” right and who is “objectively” wrong. In aesthetics we don’t need objectivity and in morality we can have it: strife solved.
I believe there is no scale that resolves all moral disagreements, and that it is not always possible to agree to disagree about the beautiful and the ugly. These claims are not unrelated to one another, or to the fact that the aesthetic and the moral are not as separate as we would like to believe.
I find guns ugly; the gun enthusiasts I know find them beautiful. I find meat delicious; many vegetarians I know have a distaste for it. Whether the ethics drives the aesthetics or vice versa, once they have fused it is to be expected that some of the recalcitrance of a person’s ethical “intuitions” will be due to the fact that they are also visceral aesthetic responses. We pick our friends as much by the contents of their playlists as the contents of their characters—perhaps because we see the contents of their playlists as a not insubstantial part of the contents of their characters.
It is, of course, ridiculous of me to hate the person who gave me that silly bowl, just as it is ridiculous of you to hate the bearded hipster, or the backwoods redneck, or the sleek businessman, or the unwashed hippie, or whichever “type” of person strikes you as having contemptibly bad taste. When political disputes fall along cultural and geographic lines, as they do in our country, it’s hard not to suspect that the divide is as much about aesthetics as about ethics.
The fact that at some fundamental level we remain on the same page—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, etc.—is not necessarily cause for much optimism. When it is in the aesthetic dimension that people drift apart from one another, the rift between them is not very amenable to rational persuasion. We Americans have become multiple nations in taste.
An aesthetic divide between two human beings is not trivial; it obstructs their ethical relations. The earth-mother aesthetic encoded in the belly bowl ran counter to my vision of parenting a newborn, which involved no breastfeeding, no cloth-diapering, no co-sleeping. If I leave that bowl in the entryway, I am doing so with the hopes of establishing an ethical connection—benefaction—to someone solely on the grounds of a fundamental aesthetic divide. The person who picks up such a bowl is a “different kind of person” from me. I have no doubt that, were I to meet her, I’d find some common ground, but one thing that can’t serve as that common ground is the fact that my trash is her treasure. Or so I saw it.
Ben saw things more amicably. While granting to me the existence of aesthetic divides so profound as to occasion moral offense, he didn’t think the tackiness of the bowl qualified. He asked me to take a step back: surely I wouldn’t want to live in a world of monolithic aesthetic taste. The plurality of aesthetic points of view is a product of the genuine diversity between human beings, and the fact that they are free to judge for themselves what appeals to them. It should occasion respect, not contempt.
Agnes Callard is a distinctive and ambitious, fresh voice writing for a wider audience without pandering to the "many." Since there are few of these in the profession, this is very welcome. I use 'ambitious' because she is willing, as the post above suggests, to present herself as speaking to and on behalf of a much larger national 'we' even if, perhaps, especially when, she is being a contrarian. This latter feature was on display in one of her other pieces this past week, which appeared in the New York Times, and (alas) got lots more attention (see for example here).
I thought her NYT piece conflated the pure (politics free) form of philosophy with the institution of professional philosophy where (what I call) a species of philosophical politics is inevitable even as a means to improve philosophy (for, an example, recall this post on David Lewis). In it, she also stipulates (without argument) that philosophical teaching/influencing is about bringing other "people to believe only what they, by their own lights, can see to be justified."
Now, one feature of professional philosophy I am attracted to emotionally is our freedom to criticize. And when I reflected on today's Digression the nuggets in the previous paragraph where going to be its fuel. But I have come to think that our professional practices overvalue criticism and discourage us to seek out the lovely and handsome in other philosophers.* And, in fact, the part of me that admires Callard is not her persuasiveness, rhetorical or argumentative, if any, but her ability to raise significant questions in a playful-serious way.+ And she does so in virtue of her clear willingness not to see certain alternatives.
Take, for example, the gun case. This will illustrate both what I mean by a willingness not to see (in this case, it's my limitation), and something about her ruling out. I can find guns aesthetically pleasing objects. The aesthetic involved is one my eighteenth century teachers would call 'fit.' Often it is not solely fit; the beautiful guns draw on other aesthetic features (including speed, a certain kind of faux sexuality, and shininess, precision, etc.). I do so by taking a certain stance toward guns; the one that screens off the gruesomeness of the effects. There is nothing ennobling about hunting or killing people. But I think it's possible, genuinely possible, to admire guns and wish to see them banned. Quite clearly, if I allowed myself to see the gruesomeness of the effect(s), the aesthetic valence of guns might, gestalt-like, change as it clearly does for Callard. But it is not impossible that the gruesomeness would (if one has a Goth sensibility) enhance the aesthetic value. After all, sometimes a joke is funny because it is, in part, in bad taste (for more reflections on that issue see here).
It is possible that the last two sentences reflect, as I imagine Callard would say, a defect of character (in me). And what I like about her public persona is this very puritanical strain in her [to be contrasted with the amicable], which can be grounded in her sensibility of disgust (read the full essay to grasp what I am talking about it) and then seeks to justify the actions that follow from this sensibility (without, I note, trying to come to grips with her disgust).** I tend to find such sensibility comical in one off situations, yet when others aim to live up to it consistently (and so exhibit integrity), admirable, too. I think we can be plastic about our evaluative criteria depending on extremely minor variations in context. (So, yes, one can value another's integrity, while being a situationist oneself.)
Of course, she may think the flaw in position may not be of character at all. She may think I mistakenly keep distinct, aesthetic and ethic, that are simply intertwined. (But my appeal to the aesthetic quality of the gruesome is meant to illustrate that I do no such thing.)
Even so, my preference for Callard is not just aesthetic, it's also substantive. She is right to call attention to the significance of aesthetics in our lives, our friendships, and our politics. For example, one cannot understand the grip Trump has on his followers if one ignores aesthetics (recall here and here).++
She is right that the unwillingness to discuss taste is no evidence for its lack of significance in our lives. But it is surprising she does not note that the silence on difference of taste functions like a taboo (recal and here). As she recognizes it clearly prevents social conflict. And since she grants that it is very possible that aesthetic matters themselves are foundational, these conflicts could not be adjudicated by any arbiter.
Or at least she invites us to consider that possibility. I am struck, amazed really, by the felt need of adjudication. If Ben and Agnes were in the situation in which a collective decision was necessary, then, indeed, adjudication would be required. But I don't see why one would have to force a decision, and not allow further discussion.
What Callard does not seem to allow, perhaps cannot see, is that talking about differences in taste, to keep that conversation going despite one's differences (recall here and here) is itself, or can be, a joyful exercise. Adam Smith in presenting the exemplary nature of Hume's life, whose philosophical views he predicted would fail to persuade many, called this, with a nod to Addison and agreeing with Pope, a 'gaiety of temper.' It's an open question for me -- no really this is not an objection! -- if such a temper can facilitate Callard's wish to participate in badness-promotion.
*On the handsome and its significance as an aesthetic category, I warmly encourage reflections by Jonathan Kramnick in his collections of essays (recall) Paper Minds.
+Regular readers know that I very much agree with her idea that "there is a Socratic variant of the Hippocratic oath," but unlike her I think the harms are not solely or even primarily epistemic.
**For some Callard's self-command, her unwillingness to plumb her own psychological depths in public may be welcome rejoinder against a facile, exhibitionist version of know thyself. I am unsure where I stand.
++That's compatible with other reasons.
Comments