I have yet to develop an adult palate. This makes me sad. I’m probably a little paranoid, but I do at times sense a subtle condescension as it becomes apparent that no, I have not grown to appreciate the kinds of food that adults like but almost no children like, or that yes, I have indeed retained my affinity for stuff that kids like that adults grow tired of very quickly. I haven’t become less picky over the years, even if my pickiness has slightly shifted focus. The thought that I will have to eat every day for the rest of my life depresses me. I know this is a very privileged problem, of course, since I’d be infinitely worse off if I would go hungry every day for the rest of my life; but still, from within this privileged perspective that most of you share with me, I wish it wasn’t so. I wish I was one of those people who can scarf down anything and be happy. It’s not like I’m hopelessly stuck on unhealthy food, either: though I don’t eat particularly healthy, I’m not fat. I’m skinny, because I eat little of anything, even if an unadvisable proportion of the little I do eat is unhealthy.
But back to that subtle condescension. I hate it when people imply or infer that the chemical reactions on my tongue have some direct correlation to my level of maturity, as if I could simply will myself to enjoy (or even to swallow without gagging) the many things I can’t stand. Believe me, I’ve tried. I don’t want to be picky or to dislike all those “adult foods” you like. It would make my life so much easier if I wasn’t and didn’t.
This attitude doesn’t just extend to food, though. Food is an extreme example of things that seem almost entirely visceral, unconscious, purely chemical: there’s very little you can do to consciously shape your gustatory response. Sure, some tastes are acquired, but there is — from personal experience — a certain rigidity to some basic preferences that is very hard to bend. But even in areas that are supposedly more cerebral, there’s a kind of resistance to some forms and a kind of attraction to others that was, is and will forever be subjective. I’m not going to convert my parents to the sort of music or the sort of visual aesthetic I like. That’s fine. I’m not a true believer in my auditory and visual aesthetics; I don’t consider myself graced with the fire of Prometheus, nor do I believe I have had a conversation with God or had a drink from the well of Mimir, thus granting me supreme insight into the one true aesthetic and if you can’t appreciate it you’re an idiot.
You find these types everywhere. Classical music snobs. Actually, [any musical genre] snobs, although few genre fandoms — yes, these are fandoms! — are as firmly entrenched in the belief that they are indisputably and extremely Other to every other genre as the classical music lovers. But not only classical music snobs. You’ll also find true believers in all sorts of boring old films, books, paintings, sculpture, and so on and so on. They’re convinced that their taste is the one true taste, and that not appreciating what they’re appreciating is an intellectual shortcoming. I’m convinced they’re completely off base.
I think these people fail to appreciate the wide gulf between reason and sentiment. I think they overestimate how much of a role theorizing and abstract understanding play in their appreciation of their given art/aesthetic, and I think they underestimate the power of raw, emotional connection. This sort of emotional connection can be forged through unique personal circumstance, or be simply innate, but however it was created, the emotional connection is what keeps the snobs coming back to their chosen form, not the theoretical wankery.
The snob is guilty of an intellectual shortcoming of his own: he fails to bridge, or even to acknowledge the existence of Hume’s infamous is-ought gap. The snob believes that understanding a certain structure or perspective automatically leads to appreciation; or, more generally, that if X is the snob’s favorite thing in the world, then X’s having (the properties X has) implies that one ought to appreciate X. But a motherfucking butterfly having a leopard pattern on its wings, or a classical symphony having a certain progression and harmony of violins, or a certain type of food giving a certain pleasurable reaction in the “adult refined snobbish palate”, does not imply that there is something inherently and logically obvious about our obligation to appreciate said things. They’re just butterflies, man! Just motherfucking violins! I don’t care! Leave me alone! And don’t tell me my fucking taste shows my inferior intellectual understanding of your stupid favorites, when in fact the disconnect lies not on the logical plane but the emotional, where the irrational rules. One more word and I’m smacking you with a philosophical treatise (philosophy happens to be one area where, in some cases, one can logically prove that the person who doesn’t accept a certain position given a certain argument is, in fact, intellectually inferior in some way).
Jan 27, 2011