A bit of an aside the the thesis of the post - but I just reread Remains of the Day in September and was totally enchanted by Ishiguro's absolute command of voice, plot, and character there. Operated so deftly on many levels about risks to take, and roads not travelled (or ones too late). Amazed to hear it called good, but have not read Middlemarch (!). It is on the list, and perhaps will have to bring it up higher in the queue.
This sort of relates to something that came up in the Emma chat on Sunday. I mentioned Vanity Fair, which I love, but you seemed to dismiss it. Is that just preference, or do you think it is seriously inferior to Jane Austen,. All the best, Frances
'One way to think about the history of progress is to see it as a large system of well-informed, aspirational people constantly improving their own and other people’s taste across all areas of the economy.'
Sure, that's one way of thinking about the history of progress. It's also wrong-minded, doesn't reflect history, and oozes with snobbishness.
Who are these well-informed aspirational people who have powered human progress for all by sprinkling the fairy dust of good taste?
I'm confident most people would recognize and appreciate a professionally designed garden, but that's recognition of skills and quality, not acquisition of good taste.
In this odd proposition, only gatekeepers determine taste, and, oddly, drive the economy.
It is not a peculiar essay at all. It assumes educated audiences, people who have read much and deeply, have read the what preceding generations have considered the "best" best of other eras. And if people see enough gardens, experience different styles of gardens, they develop a sense of the elements of any garden and come to appreciate the ways traditions play off one another and the way plant material is used, and the world view that drives the designer's choices. Experience with a variety of elements of any genre establishes taste.
I'm a highly educated reader, and have read thousands of books, written by past and current generations.
I can't bring myself to look down on anyone who enjoys reading, but not books that I would choose to read. Anyone reading books and gaining a bit of joy from that activity should carry on.
Three comments - (1) Great essay, resonates with my experience, but with different examples; (2) de gustibus non disputandum est; (3) preferences for high literature should be praised and facilitated; but there is always a place I think for the lower brow. PG Wodehouse springs to mind, but there are myriad others that I wouldn’t be without.
Well, I struggled with Middlemarch to begin with but am now so enchanted that I have slowed down my reading pace (as you did with The Enigma of Arrival - I really must read that again, it was such a treasure). Am I likely to be disappointed with The Mill on the Floss, which I have just ordered?
I feel like this is onto something important, but also I'm not entirely sure I understand the work that "metapreferences" is doing here. I think the idea is that you have two (possible) utility functions:
Utility A where Remains of the Day > Middlemarch, and
Utility B where Middlemarch > Remains of the Day,
and two metautility functions,
Metautility A where Utility A > Utility B, and
Metautility B where Utility B > Utility A,
and an agent has 'taste' if they have Metautility B.
But I'm not sure what we get from that? The first-order preferences tell you what book to read; but what do we "choose" on the basis of our metautility? And why should one set of metapreferences be labeled 'taste'?
(economists have their own wacky notation for "preferred to" which is like a squiggly '>' but I can't be arsed to find the unicode for it)
perhaps I am paraphrasing McCloskey badly. She says, following Albert Hirschman, that taste is about higher-level preferences, wants about wants. We will sit through "boring" Shakespeare if we have a metapreference for appreciating Shakespeare. She brings in Richards on the basis that literary scholars have something to teach economists about the notion of preferences.
Hm, maybe I'll have to track down a copy of the book. But the problem is, it doesn't seem like there's anything here that distinguishes a 'metapreference' for Shakespeare from a 'preference' for Shakespeare; that is, unless you are using the term 'preference' non-technically, as a layperson would, to mean something like 'immediate hedonic enjoyment'.
But if you are using the mathematical machinery of 'revealed preferences', then the whole point is that you are NOT supposed to be using an intuitive definition of preference. A huge issue in scientific communication (and scientific thinking, really) is the constant conceptual slippage between intuitive concepts and the mathematical formalizations which scientists use as their stand-ins. This is constantly leading to terrible muddles where people are confusing the map for the territory, and vice-versa.
Though before I accuse Dr. McCloskey of doing this, I should probably *grumble grumble* read the book.
A bit of an aside the the thesis of the post - but I just reread Remains of the Day in September and was totally enchanted by Ishiguro's absolute command of voice, plot, and character there. Operated so deftly on many levels about risks to take, and roads not travelled (or ones too late). Amazed to hear it called good, but have not read Middlemarch (!). It is on the list, and perhaps will have to bring it up higher in the queue.
Remains is very good but yes do read Middlemarch
This sort of relates to something that came up in the Emma chat on Sunday. I mentioned Vanity Fair, which I love, but you seemed to dismiss it. Is that just preference, or do you think it is seriously inferior to Jane Austen,. All the best, Frances
I didn’t mean to dismiss it I just said that I don’t love it. It’s too long! I wasn’t making any claim about its value.
There's no simple test for developing taste.
I spluttered when I read the last paragraph.
'One way to think about the history of progress is to see it as a large system of well-informed, aspirational people constantly improving their own and other people’s taste across all areas of the economy.'
Sure, that's one way of thinking about the history of progress. It's also wrong-minded, doesn't reflect history, and oozes with snobbishness.
Who are these well-informed aspirational people who have powered human progress for all by sprinkling the fairy dust of good taste?
I'm confident most people would recognize and appreciate a professionally designed garden, but that's recognition of skills and quality, not acquisition of good taste.
In this odd proposition, only gatekeepers determine taste, and, oddly, drive the economy.
A peculiar essay.
It is not a peculiar essay at all. It assumes educated audiences, people who have read much and deeply, have read the what preceding generations have considered the "best" best of other eras. And if people see enough gardens, experience different styles of gardens, they develop a sense of the elements of any garden and come to appreciate the ways traditions play off one another and the way plant material is used, and the world view that drives the designer's choices. Experience with a variety of elements of any genre establishes taste.
I'm a highly educated reader, and have read thousands of books, written by past and current generations.
I can't bring myself to look down on anyone who enjoys reading, but not books that I would choose to read. Anyone reading books and gaining a bit of joy from that activity should carry on.
I’m not looking down on anyone
Three comments - (1) Great essay, resonates with my experience, but with different examples; (2) de gustibus non disputandum est; (3) preferences for high literature should be praised and facilitated; but there is always a place I think for the lower brow. PG Wodehouse springs to mind, but there are myriad others that I wouldn’t be without.
Well, I struggled with Middlemarch to begin with but am now so enchanted that I have slowed down my reading pace (as you did with The Enigma of Arrival - I really must read that again, it was such a treasure). Am I likely to be disappointed with The Mill on the Floss, which I have just ordered?
Mill on Floss is a great book!
I feel like this is onto something important, but also I'm not entirely sure I understand the work that "metapreferences" is doing here. I think the idea is that you have two (possible) utility functions:
Utility A where Remains of the Day > Middlemarch, and
Utility B where Middlemarch > Remains of the Day,
and two metautility functions,
Metautility A where Utility A > Utility B, and
Metautility B where Utility B > Utility A,
and an agent has 'taste' if they have Metautility B.
But I'm not sure what we get from that? The first-order preferences tell you what book to read; but what do we "choose" on the basis of our metautility? And why should one set of metapreferences be labeled 'taste'?
(economists have their own wacky notation for "preferred to" which is like a squiggly '>' but I can't be arsed to find the unicode for it)
perhaps I am paraphrasing McCloskey badly. She says, following Albert Hirschman, that taste is about higher-level preferences, wants about wants. We will sit through "boring" Shakespeare if we have a metapreference for appreciating Shakespeare. She brings in Richards on the basis that literary scholars have something to teach economists about the notion of preferences.
Hm, maybe I'll have to track down a copy of the book. But the problem is, it doesn't seem like there's anything here that distinguishes a 'metapreference' for Shakespeare from a 'preference' for Shakespeare; that is, unless you are using the term 'preference' non-technically, as a layperson would, to mean something like 'immediate hedonic enjoyment'.
But if you are using the mathematical machinery of 'revealed preferences', then the whole point is that you are NOT supposed to be using an intuitive definition of preference. A huge issue in scientific communication (and scientific thinking, really) is the constant conceptual slippage between intuitive concepts and the mathematical formalizations which scientists use as their stand-ins. This is constantly leading to terrible muddles where people are confusing the map for the territory, and vice-versa.
Though before I accuse Dr. McCloskey of doing this, I should probably *grumble grumble* read the book.