From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: Reply to Colin
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 15:40:03 -0500 (CDT)


I finally could not resist getting into this debate, but to begin with
only on two subordinate questions, (a) the metaphor of "taste" (gusto,
gust, gout [with a circumflex], relish) and (b) snuff films and Hamlet
(with a twist). Below I have edited Colin's post down to just those parts.

a. "Taste." It has been several decades since I explored this some, and my
conclusions then may have been wrong or my memory of them now defective. 
But I believe that this metaphor leaked into literary discussions first in
Spain, since early English uses of it usually use the Spanish rather than
the English (mid-17th c.), and slightly later uses of it speak English
(taste, sometimes relish) and occasionally French: suggesting two routes
to England, an early one direct from Spain and a later one Spain > France
> to England. Dryden, if I remember correctly, makes great use of "gusto," 
while in Pope the term is almost always Taste. 

But in any case, I think it is a very *bad* metaphor and has been screwing
up thought about first literature then all the "arts" for almost 400
years. (Does anyone know the history of this metaphor in *non-European*
cultures?) [The metaphorical use may have screwed up discussions of *food*
taste even more than discussions of literature.] Responses to whatever it
is we call "art" seem always (self-evidently so in literature and drama) 
to pass through parts of the brain other than or in addition to those
parts which process sensory data: only in a derivative sense is this true
of taste or smell. Does anyone know either in fact or legend of any case
in which judgment (or whatever) was in the least involved in human
responses to the smells of shit, skunks and decayed meat (the same
chemical is involved in each)? I cannot think of the remotest parallel or
analogy between opening a refrigerator which has been disconnected in hot
weather and liking or disliking any drama, poem, painting, building,
musical performance, article of clothing, any "artifice" or "artifact." 
I really think discussion of "aesthetic" responses should keep food, wine,
etc. out of it.

(b) Snuff Movies and *Hamlet* (or *Othello* or whatever is your favorite
dramatic tragedy). I think I have seen discussions suggesting that the
reported existence of "snuff films" is a bit of urban myth. None has ever
been made. So we are dealing with the element of the hypothetical here. So
I propose a better hypothetical case than snuff films: a performance of a
tragic drama in which the deaths are for real. Othello *really* smothers
Desdemona; she really dies; he really stabs himself and dies. Gertrude
*really* drinks poison, and Hamlet and Laertes really wound each other
with poisoned rapiers. New cast every evening. 

One could even imagine a really wild performance of *Samson Agonistes.*
Those screams off-stage would really be several thousand people being
crushed (the audience needs to see the bodies on the way out). Perhaps one
could produce it in the round and crush the audience too.

Carrol

Colin writes: [SNIP]

what i absolutely reject is the idea that the working class person who
prefers opera and good wine to football and fish and chips has either
moved onto a higher aesthetic plane, or is a traitor to their class. 
[SNIP]

Now I certainly don't want to go so far as arguing that the Power Rangers
are as valid as Shakespeare, but I can muster no valid arguments that old
Will "really" is better - this is simply my opinion and I have many good
friends whose opinions I value who would take Red Ranger (fools) over Will
any day.  [SNIP]

>But how then to explain
>the capacity to learn and thereby to change one's taste culture?

But this is a phenomena that occurs not only across cultures but within
them Michael. Moreover, it take splace within one's life cycle. Your
subjectivity isn't fixed but changes across time and space. 

I hated cheese as a child, now I even eat the rotten stuff with the blue
bits in it. Has the cheese changed (Actually, my older relatives would say
it has), or has my subjective experience of it? I would reject Bourdie's
assertion. Changes in subjectivity (however produced) are not mere
ideological illusion.  [SNIP]

I don't understand this, nothing in my position states that tastes are
purely arbitrary. My tastes are my tastes and not yours, my subjectivity
isn't arbitrary is it? I like red wine for very good reasons: but notice
the i in all of this. Red wine isn't nice in itself, lots of people hate
it, but I like it.  [SNIP]

>Or a religion could view it as a sort of Zen reminder that
>while two wrongs don't make a right, two rights can make a wrong.  So maybe
>your partner, who likes red with salmon, is on a higher spiritual plane than
>you, and you should seek her level!  (And as a veggie, I'd find the bad
>choice to be the salmon, not the wine.  Besides, I generally prefer reds
>over whites.  I am what I drink?)  [SNIP]

It seesm to me though Tobin all of this presupposes my argument, you are
talking of coming to appreciate. But some people might mever (no mattter
how much we re-educate them) appreciate the beauty of strong cheese even
though I do. 

>None of this forces me to approve all aesthetic choices or see everything as
>art.  Snuff films are bad, period; I don't care how "arty" they might get,
>and frankly I'd be loath to call them art at all. 

Now this is a good example, do you reject them as art becuse of their
moral content or because you don't like them as art? Because while I
accept the relationships issue, the form of the questions: is this water
or wine; is this water/wine nice; and, is it moral to drink wine/water
produced in amoral (exploitative) circumstances, are distinct. At least
they had better be or the postmoderns are ultimately right.

The whole point of me asking you for the aesthetic structure of Hamlet
wasn't because i was too lazy to go and look in the library. After all, no
matter how many treatise I read on the bard, I never seem to agree and
there is no point at which it might can be said that my dislike of Hamlet
is wrong. I simply don't like the play (quite like Othello), and consider
my opinion as valid as any other. But it was nice to hear you say that
there isn't an aesthetic structure to Hamlet but many. Question now
becomes, how many? As many as their are opinions of the play perhaps? And
do scripts, or music scores have objective aesthetic structures? You seem
to be suggesting that perfomance art has primacy, over more static forms. 
Does the posited aesthetic structure of Hamlet depend upon its performance
or is Will partly responsible? 



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