On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 14:29:13 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
> Would you hate me if I said that I was attracted to
> J.S. Mill's idea that there are different orders of
> pleasures, some are better than others objectively,
> and that you are a better person for being able to
> enjoy, indeed for preferring on the whole, higher
> pleasures? Not that the idea is that better people
> prefer higher pleasures, but the other way around: the
> developed capacity to enjoy higher pleasures makes you
> a better person.
Well, didn't Mill get this idea that pleasures should be distinguished along qualitative as well quantitative lines (like Bentham had argued) both directly and indirectly from German philosophy. As I understand it, a lot of his rethinking of utilitarianism was prompted by his readings of Coleridge but didn't Coleridge get a lot of his ideas from German philosophy?
>
> I think this is also a very Marxian idea. Isn't it a
> problem with capitalism that it degrades taste and
> human skill and accomplishment, producing stunted
> monsters? Isn't it supposed to be an advantage of
> socialism that it will enable people to develop their
> talents and tastes in a more refined way? Thus making
> them better, more complete, more fullly rounded
> people?
Well that's what the Bearded One wrote. According to him a communist society would be:
"an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the development of all"
>
> My own tastes are pretty Catholic. I like everything
> from Doris Day, the Fugees, and the Beach Boys to Duke
> Ellington, Stravinsky, and Bach. I like classic cinema
> and exploding car movies with a high shooting to
> kissing ratio. I read everything from Hammett to
> Hegel. So I am only half a snob. But is it bad to be
> half a snob?
Traditionally, Marxist intellectuals tended to treasure what they considered to be the highest achievements of bourgeois culture. Thus, Marx's affection for Shakespeare, Goethe, Balzac, and Beethoven. Lenin and Trotsky were similarly snobbish. Stalin, I think, had a greater interest in popular culture (he liked cowboy films and such) but did seem to have a genuine interest in classical music which didn't necessarily make life pleasant for Soviet musicians.
>
> jks
>
> --- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Ted Winslow wrote:
> > >
> > > But as much I personally love Vivaldi's
> > > Gloria, I would find it offensive if some one
> > were to write: "Vivaldi's
> > > Gloria gives more pleasure than
> > "Achy-breaky-heart."
> > >
> > > This is claiming, isn't it, that your "subjective
> > feeling" - "I find offensive etc." - is superior to
> > "the subjective states of _other_ peopls."
> >
> > No. It is the writing, a political _act_, not the
> > (presumed) subjective
> > feeling I object to. My expression of the point was
> > doubtless too
> > laconic, but I don't have time to develop it now. I
> > think that writing
> > such a judgment implies the superiority as humans of
> > those who have the
> > superior pleasure.
> >
> > Carrol
> >
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