Why do we like the things we like? Why do we prefer certain things?
I was reading in Adam Miller’s book Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology. In the second essay, Notes on Life, Grace, and Atonement, he talks about how we allow distractions like preferences, hopes and fears remove us from the present, and that only in the present do we accept the grace that is the atonement. He further posits that we learned this pattern of judging the present moment from our family relationships which is why we can only be saved with our families. We must learn to see and then disarm these patterns in favor of living in the present moment regardless of our preferences, without fantasizing or worrying about the future or the past.
The particulars of my preferences depend on the situations in which they took shape, on the materials of time, place and circumstance out of which they were woven. Above all, the particulars of my screen were shaped by my relationships with those closest to me in my earliest years: my parents and family . . . . These tangled and co-dependent knots of familial fears and desires are what we use to screen and judge the experiences of the world.
Richard Bushman has theorized that Joseph Smith’s focus on sealing was dynastic, not romantic or sexual; he lusted for kin; if he could weave the whole human family together, he would. He viewed heaven as a network more than a kingdom (to use an analogy from Miller’s more recent book Future Mormon). Adam Miller continues (in Rube Goldberg Machines):
Pull the thread of sin and both family and body inevitably come with it. To address the unconditional character of the present moment is to address the nature of my relationship with my parents and family. To lay aside the screen of judgment and preference in favor of life is to set myself the task of unknotting the threads of fear and desire that have prevented me from unconditionally embracing my family and my family from unconditionally embracing me. . . . Liberation from the bonds of sin cannot be disentangled from the work of sorting out our family relationships.
I mean, yuck. Right?
Before he went where I didn’t want him to go, I thought he was headed in a direction I blogged about many years ago in a little post I called The Genetics of Sin in which I suggested that we focus on genealogy to comprehend our own foibles and proclivities which were originally influenced by our families. For example, temper, passive-aggressive behavior, gullibility, self-medication, and co-dependency are all traits often modeled and incubated in the walls of the family home. Apples don’t fall far from trees. Learning from these negative traits at arms length is obviously more appealing than transcending them to embrace what we don’t want to accept about ourselves and those who fostered those flaws, but the gospel is only effective if it challenges us. Otherwise, it might as well be a daily affirmation. Apparently.
Back to the original question: how do we get our preferences?
Adopted. In the case of many of our preferences, we simply adopted them from our families. Our fears and desires are the ones we are comfortable with because we have seen them modeled by family members. They feel normal. We are taught to want or fear certain things, to worry and hope in specific ways. When we marry or have close relationships with others whose fears and hopes differ from our own, we can recognize that our own preferences are largely adopted from our families (as are theirs).
Aspirational. Some of our likes are aspirational. We say we like a thing because we perceive that liking it is superior or will garner approval from those whom we wish to emulate. I want to be well-read, stylish, attractive, accepted, so I say that I like the things that those I admire like. There was an article linked on my sidebar today that said Angelina Jolie had found the perfect travel shoe, and did I like it? Yes, I did. Theoretically at least. But do I actually own any shoes like that? No. Not yet at least. Maybe I will buy some.
In a recent Atlantic interview, Julie Beck speaks with Tom Vanderbilt who wrote You May Also Like, a book about the psychology of our preferences:
Tom Vanderbilt: maybe we’re just reflecting that cultural anxiety and trying to be those people that we’re supposed to be, those better people. The key to deceiving others is the ability to deceive yourself. That helps the lie. So I create these playlists and reading lists, and I orchestrate my bookshelves very carefully to have nothing but the finest tomes. How many of those I’ve actually read is another question.
Do we like the thing or the idea of liking the thing? How do we tell the difference?
Categorization. Sometimes we can’t bring ourselves to like something because it defies categorization. Movies that are sleeper hits are often those that couldn’t reach their target audience in theaters because people weren’t sure how to market them and viewers didn’t know what to compare them to in order to know if they would like them. In essence, liking and disliking things is how we engage with the world, judging things as either “good” or “bad” from the standpoint of our own experience. When we encounter what can’t easily be sorted, we may ignore it because it defies categorization. Familiarity breeds fondness, not contempt. We like novelty, so long as it’s not too far outside our norm.
Categorization is behind a lot of our “likes,” but it’s not fool-proof either. It’s why Facebook thinks I will like peacock-print leggings (I won’t), while Amazon thinks I will like trashy Regency era fiction (I double won’t). The article calls it the Napolean Dynamite problem. Some things are hard to pin down, and people who like them may not in fact like everything else that is also hard to categorize.
Contextual Liking. The article refers to Lawnmower Beer, a beer that one likes after mowing the lawn. It’s not high quality, but when you are very thirsty and sweaty, it’s good enough to hit the spot. In a rom-com, this is similar to a rebound relationship or “not Mr. Right, but Mr. Right Now.” We like certain things because they are available to us at the right time or place. In another situation, we might not like them nearly as much.
Here in the land of the free, my preferred beverage is a fountain Diet Coke from QT with crushed ice. They blend it well. When we were hiking in Nepal, we hadn’t had a Diet Coke for days, and at the high point of our trek, we found a single expired can of Diet Coke. We had just hiked over 900 meters straight up It was about the best thing we ever had, even though it was flat and slightly warm with a silty layer of dust on the top. Context is king.
Hate Watching, Guilty Pleasures and Ironic Liking. Last weekend my sister and I binge-watched the second season of Smash. For those who haven’t seen it, spoiler alert, it blows. If you were sitting in the next room you might have thought we were watching a sporting event with particularly bad referees. Shouts of “Come on!” and “Puh-lease!” could be heard as the season progressed.
Likewise, I have read some Jane Austen knockoffs that were cringe-worthy. I’ve read a few that were really good (h/t Elizabeth Aston and Monica Fairview), but one I read resulted in this Goodreads review:
So bad. It’s like the author hates Darcy and wants to heap humiliation on him. Why not just kick him right in the nards? And Elizabeth is like the Mom in Back to the Future with some twisted Florence Nightengale fetish. Then throw in a dash of Groundhog Day. The middle of the book was tolerable I suppose. The ending involved repeating the word “persistent” enough times to justify the title. Also the image of Darcy as a devout religious man praying earnestly after his failed proposal is just inconsistent with his character and his station in life. Not buying this one at all. The love scenes with variations on the word “lip” to describe them kissing . . . puh-lease.
So why did I read it? Why not just cast it aside partway through? Vanderbilt suggests:
You can even perhaps have a kind of a pleasure that emerges from your own sense of moral superiority.
In the case of watching the second season of Smash, I think it was a mix of the elements we enjoyed (some outstanding singing) and then sharing our hatred of the bad parts (some irredeemably bad–yet somehow in this implausible fiction–Tony-award winning choreography). There was a camaraderie to our outrage and incredulity. In the case of the Austen knockoff, some of my pleasure came from knowing I could write a luxuriously scathing review of it, which I then did, and a Facebook friend of mine remarked “If I could hug this review I would.”
Guilty pleasures are a little different in that they denote some anxiety about popular preferences, particularly for women. Few men use the term “guilty pleasures,” but women apply the term to any indulgent activity like eating carbs, reading novels or shopping. Women are culturally trained to be apologetic for pleasure-seeking, to be anxious for approval by keeping “pleasures” at arm’s length with the word “guilty.” Vanderbilt expounds on this notion:
Just to segue a little bit to the concept of the guilty pleasure—this is a very interesting and complicated dynamic. I do think it has been used culturally as kind of a cudgel to try to shape people’s behavior and influence them and rein them in. You can find intimations going back to the emergence of the novel, for example, that the novel was a guilty pleasure enjoyed largely by women. I do think there has been this tendency to try to reign in guilty pleasure behavior when it comes to women. As a weird example here, if you go to a stock photo site like Shutterstock or something like that and type in the words “guilty pleasure,” what you will see is a page of women basically putting chocolate into their mouths.
Ironic liking is like hipsters going to the Spam museum. Is Spam so bad it’s good? It’s more likely in this case that one is presenting a clever self-image at the expense of under-appreciated canned meat. Over the weekend, I DVRed Reefer Madness, a 1928 film on the evils of smoking marijuana which apparently include vehicular homicide and manic piano playing. I think it’s another example of ironic liking. We like the movie, even love it; it’s a cult classic, not because it’s an excellent timeless documentary on the perils of drug use, but precisely because it’s such a great example of bygone debunked thinking. We like it, but for what it unintentionally represents. Likewise with Spam (although Spam & Cabbage was actually a college favorite of mine). We don’t like it because it’s a tasty way to enjoy pig meat byproducts, but because it’s a relic of past nutritional ideas that have largely been discredited. It’s hip to be square. These are really examples of liking something, not for its stated purpose, but for the opposite of its stated purpose. Hence, the irony.
But ironic liking may also be related to the idea that current generations are aware of the marketing targeted at them, we are in on the joke; we see behind the curtain. For example, if you watch CW shows, you know what you are going to get. There will be love triangles and love quadrangles. There will be cheesy lines and impossibly attractive characters who can’t conjugate verbs properly. It’s really just a prime time soap with a much bigger budget. Knowing that’s what’s on offer doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, but you can also laugh about it because it’s transparent and predictable.
- What do you like that you inherited from your family, but your spouse doesn’t like? When did you become aware that this was a family trait?
- What do you like ironically?
- Have you hate watched (or hate read) anything? Why do you think you did it?
- Do you think “guilty pleasures” are more relevant to women’s social conditioning (as Vanderbilt hypothesized in the interview) or universal to both sexes?
- Do you like the notion of being saved as families? How do you reconcile that with notions of individual choice and accountability?
Discuss.
Inherited family trait: I don’t want to get too philosophically deep, but my family loves cheese and I have known it since I was a kid. My wife still shakes her head at how much cheese I put on food.
I only hate watch when I am bored. I guess I do hate watching some rom-com’s. Why do I do that? I do what I have to do to keep me “A Happy Hubby”. 🙂 I have learned not to spill the plot beans in the first 5 minutes of the movie (hint – they are all the same to me).
I would assume a “guilty” pleasure is something that in the end isn’t good for us, but we get enjoyment out of it so we consume it/engage in it anyway. I think generally men and women have different guilty pleasures. You even mentioned lawnmower beer. Imagine a sweaty balding middle-aged man slumped in a lawn chair drinking a beer with, “Guilty Pleasure!” Even though it could be classified as a guilty pleasure, it just isn’t going to improve sales. But I agree that society tends to associate that phrase with women.
So on being saved as families. “if he [Joseph Smith] could weave the whole human family together, he would.” That sounds like something God should have setup from the start. But I am an odd Mormon that is still struggling with “are we sure God said he is going to tear apart love bonds by default when we die.” I am still scratching my head on that one as it does not line up with a loving God. But I have been asked if I had my Vulcan ears altered by a plastic surgeon. I usually respond to that with, “That sounds logical, but no.”
Great post, hawkgrrrl. And really compelling questions. I’ll stick with the last one:
As far as families being saved, I’ve never quite gotten into that idea. I can’t speak for anyone else, but the LDS notions of family/salvation make me uncomfortable. I grew up in a far from ideal family situation and am not at all close with either of my parents, nor with my sister and I have no desire to hang out with them in eternity. I think Mormons tend to idealize family to such an extent that it becomes unhealthy, as if we’re obsessed with family ties and simply cannot comprehend anyone who might not want to be around family all the time.
Jorge Luis Borges was once asked about his idea of heaven and he envisioned it as a great library, containing all the books ever written. I like to think of it that way, that I’ll have plenty of time to read and play music and then be able to occasionally see friends that I really loved in this life. So I guess that means I’m much more about individual choice and accountability and I don’t really see the benefits of being tied eternally to a group of people I don’t really care for. I do love my wife and children fiercely, though, and would want to visit with them frequently in between periods of reading and trying to understand Proust. And pudding. There’s got to be lots of chocolate pudding in Heaven or I’m not going.
This post is like talking to my kids, there’s too many ways I can be wrong. Pre-modern was just so simple. Sometimes I wish I was my parents and could be instantly right about everything.
I share your revulsion at the Adam Miller quote (like I know who he is), and I’m wondering why it does that to me. Perhaps he has something. I too had a very sad relationship with both my parents and in-laws, and have no pleasant anticipations of happy re-unions in the eternities.I’m guessing we will need to be able and willing to look at our behaviour in an enlightened way in order to share any kind of space-so I’m guessing ‘family’ may be a very loose term theologically speaking-kind if along the lines that Joseph viewed it- an honorific. So does that mean I get to choose?
Brain just popped, can’t get any further than that. Actually, I put a great deal of energy not thinking about this.That’s how much I’m avoiding the eternal now.
And also, no-one else gets to tell me whether I’m using the atonement right or not.
The classic text on the social origins of tastes and preferences is Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction – here’s the full text:
https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Pierre_Bourdieu_Distinction_A_Social_Critique_of_the_Judgement_of_Taste_1984.pdf
His theory is that our tastes (especially those to which we attribute some moral valence) are the means be which we distance ourselves from those immediately below us within the social hierarchy in which we have been raised (so as to avoid the charge of being “trashy”), and attempt to assimilate ourselves into those immediately above us within that same hierarchy (at the risk of being seen as “pretentious”). Thus, the evolution in taste and art is an evolutionary arms race of sorts.
My guess is that “ironic” liking is merely a ploy by which we attempt to deflect the accusations of “trashy” or “pretentious”.
After conducting a massive survey, Bourdieu found that different tastes vary differently according to the two primary institutions of cultural reproduction: family and academia. Those tastes to which we assign the highest degree of “cultural legitimacy” are those which correlate most strongly with formal education whereas those tastes which we view as “personal preferences” and having relatively little “cultural legitimacy” most strongly correlate with the economic standing of the family in which we are raised.
My suspicion is that this difference is rooted in the Protestant work ethics which spawned and continues to reproduce capitalism with its ideology of “mobility”. Within traditional cultures that frown upon upward ambitions, I would expect family-based tastes to carry much greater cultural legitimacy than formal education. The fact that the church does see upward ambition as a kind of pride (we are not supposed to seek promotions and status within the church) probably explains quite a bit of the art to be would within LDS culture as well as the reasons why so many feel compelled to express themselves culturally through outside/unauthorized channels such as the bloggernacle.
to be *found.
The concluding thought is that many members cultivate cultural tastes and accrue cultural capital through academia. These people then come to resent the fact that LDS culture does value or morally praise these tastes and capital as much as society does. These member thus form a sub-culture outside of the mainstream church so as to seek from and grant each other the cultural legitimacy which they have come to expect, but not receive from the mainstream church membership.
Jeff G: I think the conclusion that tastes set us apart from those below us and help us demonstrate our alignment with those above us (socio-economically) is a sound theory.
I don’t follow your observations of LDS culture, though. I don’t agree that upward ambition is frowned upon in the church. Not from what I see. That includes both ambition for church callings and in one’s career. You can’t be a jackass about it, but there’s a definite sense that those who earn more money or have higher callings or more ideal family situations are more worthy and righteous. It’s dumb, but it’s Mormon cultural bias. Prosperity gospel.
It also seems to me that there’s nearly as much variation in “liked” things within the bloggernacle as there is within the church unless you are simply referring to the liberal bent of some sites and the conservative bent of others. I’m not sure many bloggers and commenters are watching the same TV shows or dressing the same or eating at the same restaurants, at least not disproportionate to the rest of society. Those types of likes are fairly hidden from bloggernacle discussions, so these groups aren’t really influencing common likes.
JeffG–that was interesting. I have encountered so much singaling with taste and that provides a context.
Hawk–I like the idea of sealing as creating kin — the expanded tribe or mets family vs the nuclear family.
I know my family is dear to me. Even my brothers. 🙂
A lot to unpack and think about.
And 900 miles hiked through Nepal?
Wow. I feel like a piker.
Especially sitting in a bed complaining about a little rain and intermittent internet.
But that’s why you are a super hero and I’m a lawyer. 🙂
HG,
Well it looks like you agree with Bourdieu but not my attempts at elaboration and application…. Which I suppose is to be expected.
While I would be willing to grant that upward mobility plays more of a role within the church than I granted above, surely you would not say it is as bad as one find within the “free market”?
Of course this just started being circulated ( it took a while to spread).
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/03/the-declining-taste-of-the-global-super-rich
Stephen, not 900 miles–900 meters elevation. It was just 3 days of hiking. But it totally kicked my butt. I couldn’t even walk afterward. It was a tough hike.
Jeff G, I’m not sure whether the church is less or more upwardly ambitious than the free market. It’s an interesting question. I guess it depends on where you are in the free market and where you are in the church. There are ways to express ambition in the market of the church that simply differ from how it is expressed in a corporate environment. I will grant you that people generally may be more unscrupulous and self-promoting in the work place than at church, but at church they may be more obsequious and mimicking of those in charge.
Our likes are influenced by all of our social circles, not just family. Sure, family gave me a baseline (well-prepared steak, coca-cola, etc.), but it’s hard to discount influences from school friends, work friends, ward friends…
Debating Mormon theology and related current events at gatherings is definitely a family trait. My husband spoke of it to his family once as one of my family’s traditions. I don’t think I really clued in till then how foreign it would appear in his family. It’s not something my husband hates, but he’d really prefer I spend less of our time together with it (which is why he fully supports me spending time on the blogs).
“Guilty pleasures” derive from feeling pressure from social expectations. Women are pressured to care about body image, so chocolate feels like an indulgence because it’s associated with a lack of discipline regarding health. Within Mormon culture I’ve seen tons of guys refer to guilty pleasures – because in Mormonism we like to put on the guilt. You then feel that you should at least display a little chagrin about something you know other members might look down upon. The less you care about taboos, the less I’d expect you to describe activities as guilty pleasures.
I like the idea of being saved with families, but I’ve had the benefit of overall positive family relationships among immediate members. I can understand why others with different experiences would not. I have no idea how to reconcile it with agency. I know God loves His kids, so I just work with that.
This post made me think of cars. I am a car person. At present I drive a Citroen C5 diesel wagon. It is the most comfortable car I have ever owned, and it is economical, at about 45mpg on the highway. It has hydraulic suspension, which rides very softly, and can be raised and lowered.
Citroens are not appreciated in Aus so it was very cheap second hand. Citroen C5s have had 9 airbags since 2001.
I have always liked European cars, as they are more advanced mechanically than most others. See airbags above.
My wife and I are about to set off on a trip round Australia, which we think will involve about 20,000ks and take 6 to 8 weeks. as far as I can tell most will be on tarred roads, though there are 700ks of dirt road on the Savanah way, and another few hundred on the Gibbs river road, and a number of river fords. It will be an adventure, as the citroen is front wheel drive, and most people take a 4WD on such a trip.
What kind of car a person drives can say a lot about them.
I don’t know if this is on topic or not, perhaps just less cerebral.
That was an interesting example–car culture.
I still remember buying a Subaru and discovering I had joined a cult.
Car culture hits all these points in spades. (Calling “a spade a spade” is racist and embarrassing. Saying something is x “in spades” isn’t. [because it follows a meme where spades trump everything] — which points to how a word can hit these markers too).
My eldest son’s wife is a meek and mild type who grew up in a household of conflict avoidance, whereas he (as I’m sure will come as no surprise to you, Faithful Reader) grew up in a home where ideas were discussed and debated with brio and sometimes a certain excess of energy. 🙂 She has trouble believing that we’re not all going to start brawling at the supper table; it really disturbs her.
Get used to it. 🙂
Nice post – just one question.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH SPAM, ANYWAY?
Calling “a spade a spade” is racist and embarrassing.
It is NOT. Stop debasing my native tongue, please. The expression was in use long before that particular term for people of African descent was coined (in the 1920s).
From Wiktionary: “A mistaken translation of Ancient Greek τὰ σῦκα σῦκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων (tà sûka sûka, tḕn skáphēn dè skáphēn onomásōn, “calling figs figs, and a trough a trough”). The word σκάφη (skáphē, “trough”) was mistranslated by the medieval scholar Desiderius Erasmus [1466-1536] as σκαφείον (skapheíon, “digging tool”).”