Good Taste

Common kingfisher (photo credit: Joefrei)

By the thirteenth of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the human “patient,” tempted by the junior demon Wormwood, has adopted a new set of friends. They’re socialists in a “purely fashionable” manner, their socialism stemming not from a serious critique of capitalism but rather from contempt for what most people believe, simply because most people believe it. They read books primarily to make “clever remarks” about them. They are fun, witty, attractive, and thoroughly poisonous to sincere Christian faith.

Dimly conscious that the attitudes and opinions he’s expressing to impress his new friends do not accord with his Christian beliefs, the man becomes reluctant to make contact with “the Enemy” in prayer. It’s going favorably for the powers of hell until, in a moment of complacency, Wormwood allows the man to read a book he genuinely enjoys. The real pleasure derived from the book instantly exposes the counterfeit, ironic “pleasures” with which Wormwood had been trying lure the man away from God. The man realizes the falseness of his recent behavior and repents.

In the thirteenth letter, the elder demon Screwtape chastises Wormwood, his nephew, for incompetence and then explains that tempters should detach human beings from the things they truly like and guide them into pretending to have Good Taste. Real love for anything outside of one’s own self is disadvantageous to the cause of hell, as it protects one from cynicism and pride. Screwtape writes,

The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books.

This passage from Screwtape raises a question, though: what if what a person “really likes” isn’t very good? What if, for instance, I claim Nickelback (for those of you who don’t know, an aggressively banal rock outfit that’s the worst thing to come out of Canada since Canadian geese) as my favorite band? In such a case, it would seem more like the work of angels than devils to move me up a couple rungs on the ladder of Good Taste.

I think Lewis’ point, though, is that Good Taste is not something to be pursued for its own sake. That is, if my goal is to be known as someone with fine aesthetic sensibilities, then I’m probably going to be dishonest (a “poser”) about what I really like and dislike.

Also present is the danger of snobbery, the practice of appraising people based on whether or not they hold to the canons of Good Taste. Far worse than liking Nickelback is blithely writing off people who do. A good aesthetic education is a privilege, one horribly misused by scorning those who didn’t get one.

(Incidentally, Good Taste isn’t ultimately all that important anyway. Nobody cares if your favorite band is Nickelback if you’re risking your life to save hurricane victims, and nobody cares if you have a deep appreciation for the music of Gustav Mahler if you’re being a jerk to your waitress).

All that said, it’s still true that one aspect of the Christian life is cultivating an appreciation for things that are beautiful and well-made. The trick is learning to love what is good without caring much one way or another about being recognized for Good Taste. What’s important are the things themselves. 

When you watch a film that forces you to deal honestly with uncomfortable aspects of the human experience, or study a painting that brings out details of everyday objects that you would otherwise never notice –  when you stop to appreciate the flavors of a great cup of coffee, even – something in your soul grows a little bit.

What’s growing is your capacity to love Christ, who is himself Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. Aristotle taught that a good person is one who takes pleasure in the right things. By extension, a Christian is one who takes pleasure in things that reflect Christ, in all the richness, depth and complexity of who Christ is.

“Christ plays in ten thousand places,” wrote the Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, in one of the most breathtaking compositions ever rendered in English.  As Christians, our job – our joy – is to learn how to see him.