[selridge]

I think you can lead yourself astray imagining that there’s a big difference between subjectivity and intersubjectivity. One is just a college educated term for the other.

More importantly, I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant on this matter. When he says the taste has no interest in something what he is really implicitly describing is that taste is the province of rich people. If one has to strive or worry or self promote or anything like that, with regard to an aesthetic decision, it is easy to mark as tasteless. In most cases, the people with access to the kinds of habits that allow them to act in matters of aesthetic without interest are rich.

The main reason people drive themselves in circles, talking about taste and subjectivity, and college-educated words for subjectivity is because we don’t want to admit that it is bound up in class and upbringing. That and not the passage of time is why it is so hard to understand Kant on this matter. He’s describing a fiction that we agreed upon so that we didn’t have to talk about the influence of money.

[gopher_space]

> In most cases, the people with access to the kinds of habits that allow them to act in matters of aesthetic without interest are rich.

This isn't true at all. There's a whole world of artisans and fine artists that range from middle class to broke, and they wouldn't be in that financial situation if they felt like compromising their point of view for money.

[throw4847285]

[flagged]

[dang]

Whoa, personal attacks are not ok here so please don't post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[fao_]

IDK, I understood them perfectly well.

[throw4847285]

But what were they actually saying? They just used the phrase "college-educated" and several synonyms as an insult to put themself forward as just some working class Joe who has no time for rich people and their hoity toity high and mighty philosphizing.

If I was to be charitable, I guess maybe their argument was that Kant only believed in subjective universality because he was rich, but that doesn't make any sense. Both Kant and Hume grew up middle class, and ended up in academia, and had very different conclusions about what "taste" is.

It's just a knee jerk reaction to dead white men philosophers and anyone who is interested in them as a bunch of elitists. That's not an argument, that's some kind of misplaced class resentment masquerading as an argument.

[rbn3]

that's not what they said at all though, sorry but the only one doing knee jerk reactions here seems to be you

[ianbutler]

Idk I've read a lot of Selridge's comments up and down the whole post now and it really seems like any idea of taste to them defaults to classism and then they misapply that framework here, which is realistically one of the fairest arenas.

If someone likes what you make it doesn't matter where you come from.

[selridge]

It doesn’t default to class, people just pretend class doesn’t apply at all.

Taste is often advanced as this subjective yet ultimately discriminating notion which refuses to be pinned down. Insistent but ineffable. This idea that you and I know what good software is due to having paid dues and they don’t, and the truth will out, is a common one!

My argument isn’t that it’s class. It’s that this framework of describing taste is PURPOSE BUILT to ignore questions like status, access, and money in favor of standing in judgment.

[throw4847285]

Ok, so what were they saying?

[selridge]

Lmao. I love Kant. He’s great. I love dead white guys. One I’ve been banging on about in this thread is Bourdieu, who wrote a whole book on taste in France, Distinction. Here Bourdieu has the matter rightly and Kant doesn’t. Sometimes that happens. When you read a lot of dead white guys you find lots of them said very wise shit and also stuff that’s harder to find the wisdom in.

Here I don’t know what the trouble is. I’m sorry for calling your phrasing the equivalent of “hafalutin” (a word Marx has used more than twice—he’s dead and white), but what do you expect having come in to cloud the waters with 2 extra syllables to little end?

[throw4847285]

I know that I'm both pretentious and inarticulate. It's a rough combo. But I resented the idea that what I was saying was inauthentic. I legitimately love Kant, even though reading him is like trying to hammer nails through my skull.

[selridge]

He's quite good sometimes. But we don't always need to reach for that kind of writing if we struggle. If you want something from that era which is written by a young man who is trying to set the world on fire, you should try: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preliminary_Discourse_to_the_E...

This dude, Diderot, is gonna make a new encyclopedia of the world with his friends which breaks the monopoly on printed and well-regarded learning that was held by the traditional humanities. He wanted articles about the trades, about objects and engineered things, and he was PISSED OFF that he had to fight for it.

Is this guy's idea of how to organize knowledge "right"? Probably not. Will it light your brain on fire and make you grumpy or nosy or suspicious about categories of knowledge that persist still? YEAH.

[zoogeny]

I think your analysis is interesting but I would argue it has more to do with status than money.

[selridge]

They are both intertwined, often strategically. Bourdieu’s book Distinction is all about how (and when in life) status and money can buy taste.

[zoogeny]

Just skimming the Wikipedia article [1] and it is appears Bourdieu's argument is bit more nuanced than status and money. It is a bit laden with Marxist jargon, but at least the abstract seems to place the heavy burden on "cultural capital" which is a more precise term than what I chose (status) but close enough to my meaning.

Whether or not economic capital is actually transferrable to cultural capital seems to be another debate, but as the old saying goes "money can't buy taste". In fact, a newly rich lower class person marrying a contemporarily poor higher class person seems more likely.

As the abstract states: "Because persons are taught their cultural tastes in childhood, a person's taste in culture is internalized to their personality, and identify his or her origin in a given social class, which might or might not impede upward social mobility." Money can't rebuild the personality that is internalized in youth, but marriage might give your kids a shot.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_(book)

edit: also to add, the relationship between these is the underlying theme of The Great Gatsby.

[selridge]

Oh it's a bit laden for you? Was the plot summary on wikipedia taxing?

c'mon. Are you really going to tell me "ahem dear sir, I found out that this Mr Bourdieu likes him some nuance!" His most famous book is essentially an article ballooned into a monograph via nuance.

[zoogeny]

No counter argument? Ad hominin? I was politely saying you were wrong and your attempt to muddy the water with "They are both intertwined" was a poor deflection based on the source you provided. But now I see you are a troll and I was lured.

Your source does not support your position.

[selridge]

You didn't read it, how would you know?

[f30e3dfed1c9]

> I think that enough time has passed that we can critique poor old Kant

No, no, no! Here on Hacker News, it is apparently forbidden to criticize the dead because "they can't defend themselves." It's seen as somewhere between "cowardly" and "uncouth."

This policy seems to mainly apply, for some weird reason I suspect I would prefer not to know about, to the recently-departed Dilbert guy. But I'm sure his fans would stick up for Kant also!

[selridge]

Oh damn. Dilbert dude died. Pour one out for someone other than him who deserves it.