ART APPRECIATION = KNOWLEDGE = CHOICE: YOU LIKE WHAT YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE DECIDES THAT YOU WILL LIKE
A Brief Essay By Ken Boe Concerning The Phenomenology Of Taste, Taste As Free Will, and Morality As Taste. (continues below)
The title of this essay goes directly to my point, which the essay reiterates, which is that you like what you choose to like which means that taste is also a moral decision by virtue of both what you exclude as well as HOW you include that which you will like. It is the choice of having knowledge or not having knowledge. If you decide that you DON’T LIKE Abstraction in painting, for instance, this is a moral decision and prejudice which is usually reinforced through purposeful ignorance. The same would go for not liking various ethnic art forms, or European Classical forms of art. But the morality of taste is skewed because knowledge is required to like something, so you must either choose to learn about something prior to being able to like something, or this learning was forced on you through body, environment, schooling, religion, or parents.
To declare that you DON’T appreciate something is therefore a very grave task because it reveals either your ignorance of it or a political decision to remain ignorant of it. For the more that you will learn about something, the more you will appreciate it, whether or not you agree with its politics, etc. For you should know that if you don’t like Opera, or Ballet, or Hip Hop it is because you don’t know much about it, or its language. Judgements of taste should always be reserved for this reason unless you are content with being amoral. This is not to say that Hip Hop is as sophisticated as ballet. This is not to say that you must listen to any kind of music outside of your current mood. But to essencially declare it off-limits by claiming that you “don’t like it” is the equivalent of being a moral idiot. The moral human is always learning about new cultural forms and always self-actualizing new tastes. Though this essay doesn’t go far into it, opinions and morals also work in this manner, and are related to other concerns which will be overviewed such as post-traumatic stress disorder as dis-taste, or mindless taste.The issue of quality is no trump card, either, because other concerns such as individuality, originality, and basic human beauty trump the issue of quality. We appreciate the quality of something based on a set of agreements and histories, and expectations. But we appreciate a wrecked car in the same way, it is just as subjective. Collectability and economic value may concern themselves with quality, though scarcity rules these forces, too, so I would not make excuses for political dislikes on the basis of quality. You will still betray your immorality and ignorance concerning basic human beauty.
There is no art appreciation of any particular kind of art, there is nothing, period, that you like that you haven’t acquired knowledge of either through formal education, self-education, direct bodily experience, enculturation, or instinct(species education.). The more you like something, the more you will want to learn about it, even more. The more you dislike something, the more you will want to avoid knowledge of it. But if you seek to study your enemies, beware, you may come to love them (unless, of course, you’re a real psychopath incapable of empathy.)Higher Tastes are those acquired mindfully, such as learning about a culture new to you, or learning to play a musical instrument later in life. Lesser are the tastes acquired mindlessly, such as nostalgia or sentimentality, which are likings based on those tastes acquired as children or culture and not out of free will. Only when the lesser tastes are revisited and studied with concern do they become higher tastes, and not merely nostalgic. Of course, we can become nostalgic about our higher tastes over the years, but this can devolve into “resting on our laurals.” This is an important distinction because many people today suffer upon themselves and the world a mindlessness of taste and immoral rejection of” the other”, or the “different” in their tastes, because for the most part they only like things nostalgic to themselves, including most of their so-called opinions about the world, and do not learn outside the circle of these opinions and tastes.
It is often said that Cigars, Scotch Whiskey, and certain foods are “acquired tastes.” This is of course true in the larger sense of all likes and dislikes, and is entirely based on knowledge and decision, either to learn, or not to learn. I suppose Smoking Crack is an acquired taste. I can try to impress your view of politics by saying I don’t want that knowledge, but this is immoral. One should always seek to be empathetic, and through reading fiction I may appreciate the human being phenomenon of smoking crack without actually doing it. The rest is all politics.
The enlightened modern human being is constantly self-educating and experiencing of new things, particularly through arts and literature. There may be a limit to what you can “master” (a dubious term) but one learns to be mindful, or “open minded”. If you merely live on automatic pilot in the idioms of the day/or the culture of your past, you will neither appreciate nor understand much of what is going on in the world. You will have a few tastes, they will be limited, and other people’s tastes and ideas will make you angry.
In most cases, for instance, your religious choices and tastes will have been chosen for you and you do not know them by free will. If you choose to learn more deeply about your appointed religion you will come to appreciate it even more even if you are to become a critic of its own limitations. If you don’t learn much about your appointed religion, you may continue to pay lip service to it and you may enjoy it nostalgically around the holidays. Appreciation Equals Knowledge. You may be too afraid to learn about other religions because if you do you will appreciate them, and if your mind is polarized in black and white thinking, then this would befuddle the little world you are accustomed to.
Polarized reaction ruins the common opinion in these situations. If I was born into, or have chosen Religion A, then Religions B though Z must be “wrong”. If I was born “white”, then “black” must be “bad”. If I’m a surrealist painter then pop art must be “crap”. If I was born “male” then “female” must be “lesser than”. If there are 2 then 1 of them must be better than the other. This kind of dualistic thinking is a skewed paradigm which further isolates the imagination, keeping people from opening up and learning about what other varieties of life have to offer. The good news is that one can learn to appreciate a world full of morally ignorant people, including ourselves. It’s called Comedy.
The most important thing to learn to appreciate are the arts because the arts are the Symbiotic Tree Of Everything, even food and science. This is particularly true for the modern, contemporary, and experimental arts. The avant-garde, or cutting edge of culture and technology. For these are the places where human beings broach the most crucial edges of our evolution in the broadest possible terms, the finest details, the old and the new. And if you don’t choose to join in and learn with them, you may miss out on this evolution. You will also miss out on some valuable collectables in the art world for the mindful collector knows that any artist who has developed their own knowledge and techniques will have scarcity and will become more valuable.