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.
'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.
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.
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
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.
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.