In pursuit of taste, en masse (NYT article)

[ErnstLudwig]

if you give someone wine A and wine B, and you ask him which he prefers, he'll tell you A some times and B other times. it won't be consistent if you don't employ a series of specific methods.

well inconsistency speaks against proper long-term "learning" of taste, but rather dominance of other stimuli? f.e color (known by butchers for ages).

You can lean to like coffee (blank value = bitter), soda is always sweet (well if saccharin is used = high concentrations activate bitter receptors, resulting in the aftertaste), salt is qualitative (concentration depended: low good, high bad), and sweat is either smelly feet or sexually appealing (if you carry a certain receptor mutation).

[mortalveneer]

Magic1 I think what you describe is due to comparative expertise being conflated with being an absolute "expert". It may also be linked to a sort of acquisitional frame of thinking about expertise and connoisseurship; there aren't enough degrees to go around to certify the number of people who wish to display the fact that they are an expert or a connoisseur, setting aside the fact of whether or not everyone who desires such certification is capable of achieving it, let alone the underlying actualization of the expertise or understanding.

Thus I feel as if we are awash in a sea of fake proxies for "taste" that substitute for more expensive and difficult signals that few care to recognize anymore. Taste isn't granted too much currency in this world; the appearance of taste is.

[Fuuma]

Interesting article - I don't know how I missed that one. I am assuming you posted it because you see quite a few parallels with SZ

I posted it because it touches upon all the major points of the lively discussion that has been going on here for months, in one form or another.

1) Artisan goods as a reaction to mass produced goods.
2) Matters of taste and connoisseurship (basically a connoisseur is an expert –not necessarily formally trained as such- who adds “good taste” to his expertise).
3) Consumer goods as a legitimate area of expertise and social validation.
4) Authenticity and artisan goods

Now the article isn’t amazing (this is the NYT) but it did show me I have missed my calling as I could be in a lab feeding people dog food while telling them it is foie gras.

[BSR]

Now the article isn’t amazing (this is the NYT) but it did show me I have missed my calling as I could be in a lab feeding people dog food while telling them it is foie gras.

why would you go to a lab for this when you can do the same experiment at home with "friends" or even better, relatives?

[Fuuma]

why would you go to a lab for this when you can do the same experiment at home with "friends" or even better, relatives?

I have a friend who did this to his sister but then he's Alsatian.

[Faust]

yes, yes, i'm familiar with him. however, you have to be careful drawing a straight line between increased choice and increased connoisseurship. subtle differences separate them.

for instance, in his TED talk, professor schwartz talks about the pension plan study, which found that when employers provide more than 10 pension options for employees, pension plan participation was lower than when fewer than 10 pension choices were available. (this study, by the way, is the only real piece of evidence that he offers in the 20-minute talk. the rest of his points are merely truths established in new yorker cartoons...) however, as choice has expanded in the apparel industry, consumer spending has risen year-on-year, with a few blips during the financial crisis. so schwartz's paradox cannot explain the way that consumers have become more involved in fashion, from a monetary and cultural perspective. my guess is that connoisseurship is not just choice. it is a subset of consumer choice that behaves differently from other types of choice.

be careful with professor schwartz as well because, as you might be able to tell from his work, he is primarily a kind of social and psychological philosopher. he is NOT an economist, so when he says that choice is making us worse off, the only real evidence he has are qualitative measurements of happiness showing generalized dissatisfaction after someone makes a choice or purchases something. however, he does not have the tools available to show that choice makes us worse off economically, on a macro scale. it may very well be that increased choice comes with the burden of dissatisfaction, but with the boon of increased economic efficiency. he cannot weigh in on the topic because, as i said, he is not an economist. there are economists, by the way, who have published work supporting the point i used as a hypothetical example two sentences ago.

i am curious though: are you okay with the expansion of curation? or does it trouble you as well? it seems that you think it is somehow insufferable.

This is a TED talk, we are not discussing his books

Consumer spending for clothing has risen year on year for different causes, namely the rock bottom prices that allowed for shopping to become a leisure activity.

Too much choice is bad and I don't need mountains of statistical evidence - I enjoy the small European pharmacies much better than Duane Reade and small organic shops as opposed to Whole Foods (where I run into laika too often!). It makes my shopping much faster and for the most part just as satisfying in terms of choice and much more rewarding because of less time and mental energy spent.

Anecdotally (yeah, I know, you hate that) I remember years ago a girl/friend of mine walking away from a perfect dress in SoHo because she wanted to schlep uptown to Bloomies "Just in case there is something better." This was the first time this too much choice paradox hit me. Here was a woman who would do exactly what Schwartz describes, blame herself even if her choice was perfectly fine, and expand time and energy in some ephemeral pursuit of perfection.

Yes, I am Ok with expansion of curation, as long as the curators are connoisseurs (I can't make a difference between a connoisseur and an expert, except that one is paid and the other one isn't.)

I am not sure what Laika means by taste having too much currency, but if she means that taste has become an important social phenomena, I am all for it. Ten years ago, food and coffee were some of the highlights of my European trips, because in New York they were shit unless you paid through the nose. Now, because of the increased connoisseurship, we have fantastic food one very corner, I can't throw a rock in downtown Manhattan without breaking a La Colombe cafe window and local microbreweries put out excellent beer, if not on par then close to the Belgians (especially after they kill off the fermenting agents upon entry into the US as an FDA requirement).

[MJRH]

Supper at Ammaus

i can't make up my mind fully on this topic. it's as fascinating as it is slippery.

i've been thinking on it in terms of art forgery. the ability of a Han van Meegeren or a Wolfgang Beltracchi to thrive in an environment that advertises itself as the height of discernment and is populated by connoisseurs and experts says something about connoisseurship and expertise that is of course not reducible to 'these concepts mean nothing.' if i read the NYT article aright, it seems to be arguing against a general trend of needlessly commodifying art. what is objectionable in this trend isn't the fact that there are people who seek validation in consumption, because i couldn't care less what gets others' rocks off, but the notion that quality or worth is an essence that inheres in objects, that was immutably rendered in the act of creation and can be verified by any expert who has a big enough magnifying glass. it ties in to Barthes' Death of the Author.

what i mean is, if upon visiting a gallery and viewing the above painting i am spiritually elevated, if it conveys a sense of divine mystery in the face of the resurrection to me, and i buy it—then are my feelings somehow later undone when i find out it's a fake? does the fact of its forgery retroactively invalidate the genuine awe i felt in its presence? should i seek my money back if i originally bought it for spiritual reasons rather than as an investment? would finding out you'd eaten dog food and not foie gras an hour previous really make you gag if you'd enjoyed it in the moment? what strikes me as disingenuous about the way a lot of people interact with art is that they obsess about whether others feel the same way they do... whether their understanding of art is "correct" (a false standard) rather than whether it enriches their lives spiritually or intellectually, and inasmuch as the NYT article is an argument against that mode of thought, i agree with it.

[galia]

I think in both your examples, it's more a case of people not liking to be deceived and lied to. For instance, I know women who wear knock-off designer goods, like fake chanel etc. However if they bought a bag they thought was genuine, even for cheap, they would be mad upon finding out that it wasn't, not because they object, but because they had been deceived

[endorphinz]

what i mean is, if upon visiting a gallery and viewing the above painting i am spiritually elevated, if it conveys a sense of divine mystery in the face of the resurrection to me, and i buy it—then are my feelings somehow later undone when i find out it's a fake? does the fact of its forgery retroactively invalidate the genuine awe i felt in its presence? should i seek my money back if i originally bought it for spiritual reasons rather than as an investment? would finding out you'd eaten dog food and not foie gras an hour previous really make you gag if you'd enjoyed it in the moment? what strikes me as disingenuous about the way a lot of people interact with art is that they obsess about whether others feel the same way they do... whether their understanding of art is "correct" (a false standard) rather than whether it enriches their lives spiritually or intellectually, and inasmuch as the NYT article is an argument against that mode of thought, i agree with it.

but perhaps you were spiritually elevated because of what you thought you were looking at. the realization that you were not looking at what you thought you were looking at changes your perception. Your new perception doesn't invalidate your old one.

unfortunately(?) perception is everything and what causes that perception is irrelevant. there's no denying that enjoyment gained from purchasing anything is a total experience and when part of the experience is tarnished, enjoyment diminishes.

I hesitate to use the word "disingenuous" because the perception is very much real. you can argue that the stimuli causing that perception is questionable but they are still genuine.

I do believe you are what you perceive.....

[MJRH]

galia: fully agreed that the victim of a forgery has a right to be mad of course. didn't address the ethical considerations because i didn't want to clutter my argument.

endorphinz: context is everything, yeah. apt song reference, btw. but some people take it too far, they only want "the best" and to have their experiences dictated exclusively by expertise and context. both are important, but so is a personal understanding of art, which is what i was trying to give a (hyperbolic) example of using forgery.

now that you mention it i regret the word 'disingenuous,' i'm usually careful not to use authentic, genuine or real in these parts for fear of rehashed skirmishes, but that one slipped through my net.

[endorphinz]

I've learned a long time ago not to question or judge what makes anyone happy. Life is soo difficult and if someone can find something/anything (good album 😉) to make themselves happy,I'm all for it.

someone may be "genuinely" happy owning an original,rare piece despite not understanding it. the reasons for their happiness may be convoluted to you and people may call that being pretentious and a waste, but I call it just reaching the ultimate goal . my ultimate goal anyway.

I always think of rats performing tasks after having their brain's pleasure center stimulated. I mean that's what we (I do anyway) strive for... the perception of happiness.
to me,how we get there doesn't matter much*


guess I've strayed from ot

* with the obvious disclaimers

[MJRH]

every time i visit this thread to write something, i find someone having said the words i meant in a far more eloquent manner. the personal relationship is subsumed by the social.

...and speaking of eloquence, that's what i was trying to get at in my second paragraph, thanks for putting it more concisely.

Magic1 and Faust, laika can correct me if i'm misinterpreting, but i think the bold is what she meant about taste having too much currency...