Good taste isn't a Good Thing. It's just admirable

Probably my favorite objection to consequentialism is the following:

1. Say there are siblings Bob and Carol, whose lives we judge to be worth equal utility…
2. Then Bob sacrificing his own life to save Carol’s is a morally neutral act.
3. But our intuitions clearly show that such an act of self-sacrifice is not only morally good, but heroic. Therefore consequentialism is false!

It’s a fun objection to consider, even if not necessarily persuasive. I think most would agree that Bob’s sacrifice is laudable regardless of outcome. If Carol happens to contract a terminal illness the very next day, then in retrospect, it would’ve been better for Bob to have survived and not self-sacrificed. But Bob shouldn’t be judged for that lack of foreknowledge. Unforeseeable consequences don’t affect whether a choice was right or wrong in the moment, nor does it change how much our world could use more kindness and selflessness1. Bob was selfless, therefore admirable.

This is sort of how I feel about good taste, and artists who make really good art.

Scott Alexander recently wrote about taste in a series of posts contending with whether “good taste” is actually good for anything other than snobbishness and hipsterdom. He writes:

I think the strongest argument in favor is that tasteful people claim to get a higher level of pleasure from their sophisticated art than normal people can ever achieve from their cheap tricks. I’m skeptical. For one thing, tasteful people spend most of their time criticizing one another’s art and saying that it sucks. For another, my daughter gets more joy from “Choo Choo Train” than I remember ever getting from anything.

My answer to this is simple:

I’m not saying that the world is better off for me having good taste.

But dear gods, don’t force me to listen to “Choo Choo Train”.

Scott says he has a smidgen of taste with regards to poetry. I can’t say the same, but there’s another art form I maybe know a little about2. I don’t have a degree in the subject, but I play an instrument3 and I can be a bit obsessive about music. Every week I try to discover new artists, and almost every day I’m curating and recategorizing songs into my many Spotify playlists (currently 149 of them), refining their orderings, and failing to reduce my backlog of songs I haven’t yet found a home for (currently 495 of them).

Maybe humans would be happier if we could forever retain our youthful enthusiasm for simpler joys like “Choo Choo Train”. Or maybe there’d be all sorts of bad, unintended side effects. In any case, I think most adults share the experience of sometimes wishing we could revert to a less-jaded or less-experienced state. E.g., “What I would give to experience Lord of the Rings again for the first time!” (Or Elden Ring, or Project Hail Mary, or ASOIAF, or…)

The real world has limits:

• Excessive exposure → leads to boredom → leads to aggravation

So humans naturally devise ways to alleviate that boredom and aggravation.

One way to do this in music is by varying time signatures. Almost all pop music is in 4 time4 (meaning you can count to its beat “one two three four, one two three four…”), and sometimes it’ll venture into 3. Much more rare that you’ll find a 5, 11, or 7. Writing in those time signatures is more difficult, but wherever there’s a challenge, there are folk willing to rise to that challenge. Those who succeed in overcoming such challenge? They deserve recognition.

I know that requesting engagement with video creates an off-ramp for readers who aren’t in the mood (or circumstance) to do anything other than read. Let me assure you: Each of the examples below should only require ten or twenty seconds of listening to get their ideas across, and none are inscrutably atonal pieces from bands you’ve never heard of.

First, here’s a song from a band I love that doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s in 7 time, and that makes it more interesting—but from the moment Chad Smith’s drums hit, you can feel the rhythm’s slight oddness. Even someone who’s never heard the phrase “time signature” could probably guess that something’s up with the beat.

“Ethiopia” - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

But there are some songs that so masterfully groove in 7 time, you’d never guess it was in an odd signature.

Or maybe you would, but I sure as heck didn’t. Decades passed without me noticing the time signature of this following song, which I never would have noticed if not for YouTube videos on the subject like this one.

“Money” - Pink Floyd

How. Is. This. Song. So. Catch. Y.

The melody yanks every measure into the next without hesitation, no detectable stammering or stumbling at all. It’s a perfect loop, even better at cycling than most melodies written in 4. Yet it’s not even my favorite song in 7, which is a prize that would have to go to one of the following two tracks.

“Unsquare Dance” - Dave Brubeck

Again, every measure leads perfectly into the next, with a playful tune that rushes along breathlessly. Between this and “Money”, 7 time begins to seem like a good structure for making songs fast-paced and catchy, if executed well—

But it can do more than just that.

“Desert Island Disk” - Radiohead

Here 7 is used in a mystical, almost meandering way, taking you on a journey more relaxing than rushing.

I’d say all these examples deserve respect, because constraints create challenge, and as I said before, overcoming challenge is admirable.

Admittedly, much more respect is due when the challenge is meaningful. Developing more disease-resistant wheat varieties to counter famine is more laudable than, for example, being really good at making 3-pointers in basketball. The adoration that Steph Curry receives is absolutely disproportionate compared to the amount Norman Ernest Borlaug ever received. But what Curry can do with a basketball is still incredible, and I don’t think Curry deserves any less kudos; only that Borlaug deserved more.

Radiohead is my favorite band, because of how much I personally enjoy listening to their albums. But though they’re my favorite, I wouldn’t say they’re the best band of all time.

I’d give that moniker to the Beatles.

John and Paul were truly once-in-a-generation talents who composed songs with a surprising amount of skill and complexity, whether through rich chord progressions (like in “Because”), pioneered new recording techniques (as with “Tomorrow Never Knows”), or playful time signatures (as in beloved tracks like “Blackbird” and “Here Comes The Sun”)5. I have to specify that surprising-ness, however, because milder fans and non-fans might not be aware of that musical complexity. A lot more children will be willing to listen to Hey Bulldog than Idioteque or the typical Dave Brubeck jazz piece6. That’s because the Beatles never put their complexities at the forefront (like in “Ethiopia”, or like Radiohead’s album Kid A7). Their music always sounds effortless, somehow magically appealing to both experienced and inexperienced listeners alike.

I’m not saying we all should listen to more esoteric, less approachable music (like Radiohead’s beautiful yet challenging Bloom). I’m saying that appealing to novices takes one level of skill, appealing to veterans takes another, and appealing to both takes yet another, and I appreciate those artists who have pulled that off.

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1

In other words: lack of perfect ability to predict consequences of any action means it’s useful for humans to have reliable guidelines of behavior to follow. What categories of action can we label as virtuous, and thereby on average benefit? This is the thrust of rule utilitarianism, which I also see as related to FDT and one-boxing in Newcomb’s: Don’t get confused over whether one-boxing violates causality (it doesn’t); just one-box because it’s the behavior that if you consistently adopt (or rationally land on after considering the problem, even if for the first time), then you’ll reliably end up walking away a million dollars wealthier than you would have otherwise. (Future posts on Newcomb’s to come.)

2

Another art form I don’t know so well is art, though I do love to share art on this blog. How are my choices? Are they low taste? Let me know!

3

Or two instruments, if bass and acoustic guitars count as distinct? Regular guitar playing requires prodigious skill that bass does not, with all the many things you can do with chords. But there are funky things you can do with a bass you can’t do as well with a regular guitar, like slapping, and you can have so much fun sliding on a fretless bass, which requires the skill of more precise finger placement.

4

(I’m writing 4 instead of 4/4 because for anyone unfamiliar with time signatures, the /4 and /8 would be an irrelevant distraction.)

5

If you’re interested, David Bennett has a good video on this.

6

I say typical because any human past a certain age should be able to love “Take Five”.

7

That’s not a knock on Kid A. “Everything in Its Right Place” is one of my favorite songs of all time. But personally, my favorite Radiohead album is AMSP.