This thread ceased to be useful the moment it cut itself off from charity, so I am closing the comments.

–jrp

“The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.

And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation … No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food:

‘Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I — it must be a vile, upstage, la-di-da affectation. Here’s a fellow who says he doesn’t like hot dogs — thinks himself too good for them, no doubt. Here’s a man who hasn’t turned on the jukebox — he’s one of those goddamn highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were honest-to-God all-right Joes they’d be like me. They’ve no business to be different. It’s undemocratic.’

Now, this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices…

Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level.

But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being Like Folks; that people who would really wish to be — and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be — honest, chaste, or temperate refuse it.

To accept might make them Different, might offend against the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals…

Meanwhile, as a delightful by-product, the few (fewer every day) who will not be made Normal or Regular and Like Folks and Integrated increasingly become in reality the prigs and cranks which the rabble would in any case have believed them to be. For suspicion often creates what it expects. (‘Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.’)”

“I’m inclined to think that a necessary condition on having good taste is an inability to tolerate products in bad taste. ”

Now you are saying that people of good taste… tolerate products in bad taste!

If the inability to tolerate products in bad taste is a NECESSARY CONDITION of having good taste, as you stated, then people who occasionally dally in bad taste do not meet the necessary conditions of good taste. Because they would not be able to tolerate such products. Their tolerance of such products would be dispositive.

If tell you that an inability to tolerate sunlight is necessary condition of being a vampire, and we see someone tolerating sunlight, however briefly, we must conclude that person is not a vampire.

I would add that, in my mind, your definitions of good taste are beginning to strike me as a definition of “insuffereable snob.” For instance, let’s say that guy from small Iowa town has a family reunion. He does not have enough seats at the table in his home, so he arranges to have people eat at the local restaurant. He knows it’s not great, but he has no other options.

So Cousin Good Taste arrives and announces, upon seeing the buffet: “Sorry, Cousin Bad Taste. This food does not appear to be good food. And I CANNOT TOLERATE bad food. I will have to sit here and go hungry until I can arrange to eat food that meets my high standards.”

I think your idea that people of good taste cannot tolerate products of bad taste is a completely untenable definition.

Back in the day, I got on — and today I still get on — quite well with the *ladies.*

My problem is with *witches* like Mr. Peters and you.

You’re ‘counterexamples’ aren’t that. They’re examples of people whose tastes, to some degree, deviate from what’s good. So, while we might claim that such people “have good taste,” we really mean, “for the most part, such people have good taste.” But what justifies the “for the most part” is the very fact that they have some preferences that deviate from the good. And the greater the degree that their preferences are so deviant, the weaker their claim on having good taste. After all, it’s even weirder to imagine the gourmand who prefers and indulges only in fast food. How could such a person believe that some food was the best (e.g. not fast food) and nonetheless prefer the very antithesis to the food they believed was the best?

And just to drive home the point, you know these people who have good taste, save for the occasional happy dalliance. But wouldn’t it follow, then, that if those dalliances just are deviations from good taste, their tastes would be better if they didn’t bother with those happy dalliances? Since, if they didn’t bother with deviations from good taste, their Self Set would be constituted entirely of tasteful things?

To help motivate this, consider asking a music historian for advice on what music was the best. Now, both historians might have listened to all of the same music, and they might even recommend the same music to me. But if I were to discover that one had an idiosyncratic preference for Boyz 2 Men, having memorized their lyrics, bought tickets to numerous concerts, and the like, whose advice would it be most reasonable to treat as the more trustworthy? The point becomes starker if they make contrasting recommendations. Whose advice, honestly, would you take to be the more trustworthy?

“But–and maybe we’re actually getting somewhere with this–I’m inclined to think that a necessary condition on having good taste is an inability to tolerate products in bad taste.”

My evidence is anecdotal as well, but it works in the exact opposite direction. I know people who have excellent taste in food. People who work at five-star restaurants. And these are people who crave McDonald and Taco Bell from time to time. I know excellent novelists who yearn to watch sophomoric teenage soap operas. Tenured professors in the Classics who wallow in pop fiction.

I guess we just know different sets of people.

But I am pretty convinced that I would never, under any circumstances, take a look at a whole FIELD of endeavor and declare that a passion for that field amounts to a sign of bad taste. I know lots of people who are quite worldly and manage to make a case for chainsaw carving or professional wrestling. It seems exceedingly strange to me to make the leap that these are the only cultural artifacts these people embrace, and that therefor their mere presence at the exhibirion of such amounts to a sign of poort taste.

Even Tom Wolfe had a thing for NASCAR. In fact, every single person who I can think of who has come to be associated with “good taste” had a thing for something. The famous Adam Gimbel, who built Saks Fifth Avenue from the 20s through the 70s, had a thing for fake ski slopes made of soap. His wife, the famous Sophi Gimbel, invented cullottes.

Cab you name a single person who was so enured with good taste that they had not a single happy daliance with something lesser?

“Let it be said—and then let us be done with the matter—that movies are inferior to books and conversation. If I allow that bad books are inferior to good movies, or that good movies are more to be desired than dull conversation, I hasten to add that movie-watching is never the same as reading—and it is certainly not as strenuous as engaging in dull talk.”

To categorically dismiss movies as a medium is a mistake. There are many forms of true leisurely activities. One could not say that experiencing art or nature or watching a play/ballet/opera/concert is inferior to reading, it may be or it may not. For example – meditating on an icon of the Theotokos “Donskaya” or reading the works of the Desert Fathers – to dismiss one as inferior would be to not take into account the person, time and purpose of the activity. As someone mentioned, Shakespeare is definitely meant to be watched rather than read and Homer did not sit down to write a book that was to be read. And sometimes, it is better to watch a sunset together rather than to talk. That said, to make a fetish out of one form of activity is to forget that we are human and that human creativity has many outlets.

Which brings me to movies. In my mind, movies are controversial because they are a modern medium. But it is as natural for people to be drawn to motion pictures as it is to pictures and it is as natural to enjoy watching people speak on a screen as it is on a stage. To dismiss motion pictures entirely as a medium because some (or even many) movies are bad or even because television is bad is to miss the opportunity to see the good in the creativity of the human, which reflects the creativity of God. The fact remains that there are good movies and these are worth seeing for their own sake, not because one has nothing better to do or to avoid a boring conversation, but for their *own sake*. It may be that movies have a long way to go before any movie has the genius of a Homer, but we do not stop reading Woodhouse because he is not Homer nor because the English publishing houses gave rise to Mills & Boone novels.

It’s not that ‘small town people’ (which, by the way, I thought you were using as a term in your example for ‘unexposed to good taste people’) necessarily have bad taste. It’s that people who haven’t been exposed to good things will almost certainly have bad taste. I mean, your only counter-examples to the small town diner involve people whose tastes have been developed elsewhere than the crappy diner. That is, even the small town people who have good taste didn’t get that way by being exposed to crappy food. So, by analogy, how could you then claim that movie-goers who’d never been exposed to excellent films could not have bad tastes without having been exposed to good films elsewhere?

And about books, I honestly don’t know how you’re not seeing the false comparison, here. No one is saying that being a reader is a sufficient condition for having good taste–as evidenced by the link you’ve provided. And no one is saying that being a movie-goer is a sufficient condition for having bad taste. The point is simply that access to excellent films and to the know-how necessary to find which films are excellent is something most people lack in a way that they do not lack with excellent books and the capacity to recognize those. Why? First, because very few of us have any culturally sanctioned exposure to films, and we do have such exposure with books. And second, because those who produce films have a significantly greater incentive to produce bad films than do publishers to publish bad books. It follows from these assumptions, then, that the likelyhood of a person having bad taste is increased if they are a movie-goer.

Part of the point you seem to be driving is that people might go to bad movies, even though they have good taste–just as they might eat at the bad diner, in spite of their knowledge otherwise. Maybe. But–and maybe we’re actually getting somewhere with this–I’m inclined to think that a necessary condition on having good taste is an inability to tolerate products in bad taste. I don’t have any real evidence that isn’t anecdotal, but here are two possible lines of argument.

Line 1. When we take in cultural artifacts–like movies, books, essays, concerts, etc.–there’s a sense in which we make those artifacts a part of who we are. Call this the Self Set. And that’s the case even for artifacts that we reject; they define us negatively, in constituting the set of things we are not. Call this the Exclusive Set. But how is it that artifacts come to belong to and be excluded from the Self Set? My sense is that–and Plato and Aristotle would agree, I think–artifacts come to belong to the Self Set by habituation. So, when we listen to rap or baroque music constantly, that music becomes a part of who we are. When we watch pornography or read Romantic poetry often, those become part of who we are. And when some things become a part of the Self Set, other things that are opposed to the contents of the Self Set become parts of the Exclusive Set, and we develop a distaste for them. So, when video games become a part of the Self Set, it’s easy to see why exercise and physical labor become a part of the Exclusive Set. And that is not to say that people can’t enjoy video games can’t enjoy exercise; only that bringing mutually contradictory elements into the Self Set can be very difficult, and it is unlikely that most have achieved that sort of balance.

And this is just what good and bad taste amount to. One can be said to have good taste in proportion to the degree of good things that constitute his or her Self Set and to the degree of bad things that constitute his or her Exclusive Set. Conversely, one can said to have bad taste in proportion to the degree of bad things that constitute his or her Self Set and to the degree of good things that constitute his or her Exclusive Set. And it’s habituation that’s key, here. For when we become habituated to bad things, those things come to constitute our Self Sets, and we will be more likely to have bad taste. Conversely for good taste.

So, when we say that a movie-goer is exposed overwhelmingly to bad films (because such is their training and such is the incentive for movie studios to produce), it’s reasonable to say that a movie goer is habituated to seeing bad films, and thus that bad films are more likely to constitute such a person’s Self Set than are good films. And since a Self Set constituted of bad things is often the mark of a person with bad taste, it follows that being a movie goer will likely be a mark of a person with bad taste.

And the point here, again, isn’t that readers can’t have Self Sets comprised of bad books. It’s simply that almost all readers have some training in discriminating between good and bad books, and also that the incentive for publishers to produce and distribute excellent works is much greater in than is the incentive for film studios to produce and distribute good films. Thus, it’s more likely that readers will have Self Sets comprised of good books than will movie goers have self sets comprised of good movies. And so, Dr Peters’ original claim, that an addiction to movies is often a mark of bad taste, seems apt in most cases.

Interesting concept, but I am not buying it.

I also don’t buy the argument that people who live in a small town and frequent a single bad restaurant acquire bad taste, full stop. They might have developed good taste in food at home, for instance. Or they might developed good taste in food when living in a city for college, or when traveling in the service. Have you ever lived in a small town? Has it been your expereince that everyone there agrees that the limited cultural offerings are the cat’s meow? I have lived in small towns, and my experience tells me the opposite.

But what we do have is your claim that most people do not have access to good movies, so going to movies is a sign of bad taste.

And we have the fact that most everybody has access to good books, and evidence that almost all readers eschew the good books that are available in favor of Marley and Me, and choose to wallow in low culture despite easy access to high culture.

From this set of assumptions and evidence, you conclude that it’s the movie goers that are taste-challenged. Interesting.

I think my most recent post responds to your other considerations.

If you’d read my earlier post, you’d have noticed that the bulk of my criticism was leveled at films in theatres–not the complete set of available films. And further, that I agreed with you about the ameliorative effects of film-library sorts of institutions (e.g. Netflix) on the selection available to film ‘consumers.’ But you should also notice that the bulk of Peters’ criticism was leveled at theatre-going as well–not at deliberate, considered film screening in one’s own home. My sense is that Peters would have far less bad to say about films if such a high proportion of film profits weren’t dependent on megaplexes offering a tiny selection of varying shades of excrement. And how can I say that that’s what the film industry is producing and distributing? Because that’s what they’re most incentivized to produce and distribute.

This isn’t to say that a worthwhile film isn’t widely distributed once in a while. But if the cost of that one film once in a while is the gigantic edifice dedicated to the consumption of drivel, it seems reasonable to say that most of what people are watching when they go to the theatre is not worth watching. And if that’s what most people are watching, then an addiction to movie-going will covary with bad taste, simply because, by and large, the good films that are made aren’t widely distributed.

Consider a hypothetical analogue. What if bookstores were like movie theatres and could sell only ten to fifteen books at a time. Bookstores in large cities and suburbs could probably sell a few more, and those in small towns might be able to sell only three or four. In such instances, of course almost all of what gets sold would be tripe. Why? Because the production and distribution of tripe by publishing companies would be incentivized in ways that excellence would not be, because tripe would appeal to the lowest common denominator in readers, thus attracting the greatest number of consumers. So, maybe a few private publishing houses would put out a few great books that a few people would discover while reading a journal online and checkout at their library. In such an instance, you’d be right to say that taste in film would be the same as tastes in books.

The significant difference, of course, is that only the film industry is incentivized to produce crap in the way that the hypothetical book publisher is. By and large, book publishers are not incentivized in this way, because their products are almost all produced akin to the best sort of film viewing that you praise. That is, for the best films, you have to browse, consider, maybe experience a little of through a reviewer, and then almost always rent the film. The same for nearly all books, except you buy it and can read a little of them before purchasing. The difference is that movie-going does not allow for such careful consideration before the product is purchased–especially when we go to films “because it’s Friday” or whatever. The money is paid for the crappy product, and your preference is expressed, thereby incentivizing the film producer to produce more crap.

I don’t know how to write this in a way to make the point more clear to you: books aren’t like theatre-going because we don’t read books like we go to the theatre. Thus, the incentive structure for the production of theatre-films will not be the same as the incentive structure for printing books.

On a separate but related note: you seem to think that the public is no less discerning in choosing what it reads compared to what it watches. Perhaps. But you might note that all of our middle and high schools and most of our universities require some exposure to the sorts of criteria that people might use for assessing just what makes a book great, and thus how to select one. There is no such training whatsoever for films. And before you jump the gun and assume that I’m saying that every single student who has sat through English Comp 1 in 9th grade is more qualified to choose a great book than any film, let’s be clear: that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that I take it to be good inductive evidence that, by and large, we’re better at picking good books than we are good films, because every one of us who has graduated from high school has had more training in picking good books than we have had of picking good films. Of course that will differ from person to person. But the effects of such training across an entire culture would seem significant.

It’s worth diving into this claim again

“it’s unlikely that the set of films available to most people is of any significant aesthetic quality at all”

I obviously disagree. But even if I accept your point, doesn’t it argue AGAINST the notion that we should use an affinity for movies as a sign of bad taste?

For instance, let’s say there is a small, isolated town in Iowa. It has one restaurant. A really, really bad restaurant. But it’s the only one in town, so people go there for all sorts of reasons. Maybe someone is just passing through. maybe a guy’s wife kicked him out. maybe a family is having their kitchen redone. Maybe someone is having an event, such as a rehearsal dinner, that their culture seems to think should happen at a restaurant. Whatever the case may be, it is fair to say that some of the people there might not actually have bad taste, they simply don;t have other options.

Now let’s look at a fine French restaurant in New York City. It has received five stars from all the major reviewers. The foodies adore it. But you investigate, ans soon discover that 99 percent of the people there do not order off the menu, but instead insist that the waiters serve them twinkies and hot dogs. they completely ignore all of the excellent, culturally approved offereings in favor of junk.

I think that in THAT case, it is safer to assume that someone walking through the door of the restaurant has bad taste, seeing that you know that there in 99 cases out of 100, that patron will ignore the good stuff and buy the junk.

So in your view, we have movie theaters that offer no good films. Meaning that a person who likes movies is left with very view intellectual or edifying options. Well, what’s the guy supposed to do?

But in the case of a library or book store, even a crappy library or bookstore, we have readers consistently favoring Dan Brown and Oprah over Alexander Pope and Shakespeare.

Would you have a sounder argument, then, by positing that the guy entering the bookstore is more likely to have bad taste?

I am entirely aware of this. I am not sure what I wrote that would indicate otherwise.

“it’s unlikely that the set of films available to most people is of any significant aesthetic quality at all, for precisely the reasons I’ve mentioned (and you’ve left unaddressed).”

I didn’t respond because it’s a complete non sequitir. I am not sure to what extent you are an authority on what’s available to “most people.” But I live in a tiny rural town and we have… a library. It has films of all sorts. We also live within an easy drive of a smallish movie theater that regularly offers all kinds of movies. Yes, they have “Dude, WHere’s My Car.” But they also showed “A River Runs Through It.”

Of course, most people live in cities, or with easy access to cities and all the cultural offerings thereof. People also have access to things like the internet.

But of course access is beside the point anyway. The people of England have access to world-class libraries and, as shown, choose to read something other than books that are accepted as “great.” I assume that the sales of movie tickets in cities with great cinematic assets shows a similar disinclination towards literary edification.

So… people can find great movies if they want. And great books. Most people, even when they do choose to consume these forms, choose something other than greatness. So I am not sure how this means that choosing to consume one form is an indication of bad taste.

“Thus, Peters’ claim that frequent movie-going is a sign of bad taste–not a sufficient condition for it–seems pretty well-placed.”

He says nothing of frequent movie-going. Again, what he said was: “an appetite for movies is a sign of bad taste, and ill-nourished is the man who feeds on them.”

So, even if we accept your claims that people don’t have access to great movies, which I think is easily falsifiable, that doesn’t matter. Even if I were a rural farmer with great taste in movies, a yen for the accepted classics of the form, and I refused to watch lesser entries in the genre, the mere fact that I have an APPETITE for the movies is a sign of my bad taste. I don’t even need to go to the theater. The fact that I WOULD go to the theater if great movies were playing is enough to tag me with the “sign of bad taste.”

Of course, if someone then built a theater in my hometown to meet my demand for cinema, and I “fed” on this terrible brain candy, my soul would then become ill-nourished.

But speaking of non-addressed claims… Does David Denby have bad taste? Is he ill-nourished? He wrote a whole book about re-reading the Great Books. It’s a wonder he has any fondness for them, isn’t it?

Sure, you can say, well, he’s an exception! Well, I can reply with the same response regarding readers with good taste and well nourished intellects. Yes, some people do regard reading as a way towards such benefits. But the vast majority of readers do not. Thus… is it fair to say that reading is a sign of bad taste, and that readers who feed on this form are ill-nourished? More often than not, that assessment would be true. So can we say that, generally, of the form?

If you are curious as to how often this happens, go to your local book store and ask how many copies of Canterbury Tales have sold in the past year. Then ask how many copies of The DaVinci Code have sold.

Darn readers. Such bad taste.

Good point. That must be why we can’t trust anything written, because writing is inferior to real experience, too. Someone should’ve let Shakespeare, et al, in on the secret.

And you’re point about ‘mean girls’ is well-taken, but unnecessary. Most who’ve followed your posts already got the idea that you didn’t get on well with the ladies, even back then.

Sam,

Since Dr Peters mentioned the “nourishment” of moviegoers in the context of “feeding on films,” one suspects that a metaphor might’ve been in the mix. Or did you think that films were edible?

And yes you can make the leap; read the Hume essay, for one. Film is going to be inferior because it hasn’t been judged by history in the way that literature has been. This is why it’s fair to say that any claim about the superiority of any contemporary novel to, say, The Odyssey is simply misplaced. Two, it’s unlikely that the set of films available to most people is of any significant aesthetic quality at all, for precisely the reasons I’ve mentioned (and you’ve left unaddressed). Thus, Peters’ claim that frequent movie-going is a sign of bad taste–not a sufficient condition for it–seems pretty well-placed.