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Comment by Apreche | Hacker News Reader

> The issue is that people become incapable of interrogating why we enjoy what we enjoy. Thinking critically about something is somehow synonymous with a moral condemnation of that thing.

This is something I have been thinking about for many years. I am always introspecting and trying to understand why I am the way I am. Why do I enjoy what I enjoy. When making assessments I strictly separate moral judgements, from judgements of quality, and from personal taste. I find it very difficult to have meaningful conversations about even basic things, like books or movies, because most people don’t seem to even understand how to answer the question “why do you like it?”

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> most people don’t seem to even understand how to answer the question “why do you like it?”

And how do I answer this kind of question?

It depends how far you dig. Let’s say there’s a movie you enjoy. First a person can describe how it made them feel overall. Then they can identify which characteristics and components of the film made them feel a certain way. What was it about those various aspects that caused those feelings? Which parts of the experience were the result of the craftsmanship of the work in question and which parts come from the eye of the beholder?

At that point you have to kind of stop digging. Repeatedly asking why will always lead to a psychological or biological explanation, which is too reductive to be relevant.

My take on this is that I don't need to examine my taste in movies that deeply. Unless I find it problematic for some reason, I can just let my taste be as it wills, enjoy what I enjoy. I watch movies to relax, to escape, to connect with people. I don't watch them to deeply analyze either myself or the field of cinema.

I do analyze other aspects of my life deeply. My diet, my fitness routines, my family, my relationships, my work, and other personal interests. But nobody has energy or time to analyze everything that they do, any thing that you do spend time analyzing is another thing that you don't.

So of you ask me why I liked a particular movie, maybe I'm just gonna say "because explosions go boom", and you shouldn't take that answer to mean that I'm incapable of critical thought. Let's just chill and watch a movie, then save the deep discussions for something else like our work, families, or recent discoveries in physics and medicine (personal interests of mine which I find far more interesting to discuss than cinema).

If you do like analyzing your taste in movies, that's great. And if you find other people who like it, that's great too. But it doesn't make you superior to or smarter than people who just watch the stories to relax and zone out for a bit.

It’s not about understanding something trivial like taste in movies. It’s about understanding yourself. People are out there trying to solve the great mysteries of the universe, but they don’t even know themselves.

There are many paths to understanding yourself. My personal opinion is that analyzing why I like certain movies is one of the less effective paths because movies are such a cultural thing - the movies I like say less about me as a person and more about the culture I grew up in. That in itself could be worth analyzing but honestly I rarely watch movies, they're just not an important part of my life.

You're free to feel differently - maybe movies have a more important role in your life and upbringing, and genuinely are a good path towards understanding yourself.

However, don't make the classic mistake of assuming that what is effective for you is effective for everyone. And don't make the even more classic mistake of assuming that people who don't respond deeply the way you want them to are not capable of deep thought.

To know yourself isn’t a matter of choosing one of many paths to arrive at a singular answer. It’s a big puzzle and you must gather all the pieces.

No human in one lifetime can gather all the pieces. You have to make value judgements about what is and isn't worth spending time on.

If it's Ok for you to claim that your taste in movies has no deep roots beyond what's immediately accessible to your consciousness, it's also Ok for us to derive from that claim that you are, indeed in this instance, incapable of critical examination. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Now, if what you wanted to say is that you believe that this domain is not worthy of critical examination, then there would be several difficulties still:

- how to know what's worth of examination without examination?

- How could such a culturally influential industry be not worthy of critical examination?

- Aren't we naturally more resistant to examine what we suspect would yield unpleasant knowledge rather than what we suspect would be unworthy?

> If it's Ok for you to claim that your taste in movies has no deep roots beyond what's immediately accessible to your consciousness

That's not what I claimed. Of course there are deep roots. My point is that there are deep roots for everything in your and my subconscious, and yet only very limited hours in the day for analysing them. I'm fully capable of analyzing my taste in movies, as is virtually everyone. However, I choose to spend that time analyzing other things that have more personal meaning to me. The issue I have here is that there's a certain group of people that will take that choice of mine, and use it to affirm a nonsensical belief that they're somehow superior, or more capable of critical thought tbecause they like analyzing movies (or art, poetry, books, whatever).

> how to know what's worth of examination without examination?

Everything is worthy of examination, of course. However, I am but one normal, busy human with only a few hours in a day. I spend my limited time in the things that have meaning to me, and analyzing movies is not on the list.

I don't look down on anyone for choosing to analyze movies, and thereby better understand themselves. I just ask that you also don't look down on my because I'd rather spend that time analyzing something with more personal meaning. Like physics, mathematics, culture, mental health, fitness, books that I've read, and lots more. But not movies.

I have no doubt that "virtually everyone" think they know why they enjoy this or that movie, but I also believe that virtually everyone is wrong virtually all the times when it comes to explaining our own acts or opinions.

Science, and especially social sciences, often give this impression of being looked down at. It's like, we lost being the center of the universe, we had to admit that we are just one species of ape, that we have unconscious thoughts, that some decisions can be predicted before we take them, that we can easily be manipulated in many ways, but at least can we not decide for ourself why we like some benign entertainment such as watching a movie or commenting on HN? :)

If you tell somebody that they like pink bows because yadda yadda overconsumption capitalism socialism, that's a personal attack: you're co-opting their enjoyment and insisting they're involved with "the system". If you procede to tell them that you were criticizing "the system" and that they just don't understand that it's not a personal attack, that's another personal attack, because now you're calling them stupid. Trying to get agreement that these are objective observations is like saying "just agree that I'm right about you". Their only option to resist is to engage on the same "deep" level, at which point they've already lost and conceded that it's all about overconsumption capitalism socialism or at least some similar shit.

"why do you like this?" != telling someone why they like said thing, this is basically entirely off topic

> We can — in fact, we must — interrogate the culture and society that simultaneously shapes us as we shape it.

It's not optional, you see, it's a moral obligation for everybody who likes fluffy pink whatevers to "think critically about the ways that our consumption or our For You pages might be reflections of that deeply political and social world" ... this amounts to telling them, in general terms, that the reason they like the thing is political. It's a disingenuous "just asking questions" deal where the objective is to talk to them about Marx, like a JW doorstepping you to just ask you whether you've thought about Jesus.

That is, to me, blindingly obvious in that it says to interrogate your own interests, not to interrogate others? My original "this is basically off topic" still applies.

If we revisit the original thread comment it doesn't really bring politics into this, or force people to consider their own political interests, or actually mention anything political at all!

This is very obviously your own bugbear brought into the conversation uninvited.

If you tell your opinion about the origin of someone's taste to that person, it's not a personal attack, it's just you being honest and open to discuss your opinions.

If that person takes that as an attack, it just shows how insecure they are about their taste.

Which, of course, would certainly lead to another difficult discussion :)

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