John Stuart Mill was inclined on improving the much debated utilitarian theory proposed by Bentham. For one he tried to deal with the differentiation between kinds of pleasures.
The basic force for choice in the utilitarian world is the love for pleasure and the dislike of displeasure including effort. In his analysis Bentham does not differentiate between types of pleasures, which makes him one of the most egalitarian people I know. No judgments based on who you are what you derive pleasure from. But of course people who are used to living in societies steeped in religion cannot have any of such non-sense. Stuart Mill was working on making the utilitarian theory reflect the reality of the word by differentiating higher and lower pleasures. He came up with definitions for higher and lower pleasures.
Everyone will agree that some pleasures need more socializing and education, such as classical music, or excellent art, some people would say wine and dark chocolate. Mill differentiates between higher and lower pleasure by saying, if people are educated in many kinds of pleasure, higher pleasure are the ones which they will choose repetedly.
A Harvard Prof. who is teaching the EdX class where I am getting all these thoughts (https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/ER22x/2013_Spring/about) shows 3 clippings, one of a Shakespeare soliloquy, a scene from Fear Factor, and a short clipping from The Simpsons and asks students to make a choice. A large no. of students vote to show that Shakespeare'’s art is ‘higher pleasure’, but they will still repeatedly choose Simpsons over Shakespeare.
I could dismiss this evidence by saying these are young Harvard students, who may not have yet been educated in Shakespeare enough. I have been“educated” in appreciation of Classical India music for quite some time and I always hold it in high regard, until, as I discovered, I am asked to pay for it.
When I search for things to do on Indiastage.in or bookmyshow.com, and I come across classical music performance that are ticketed, I ignore them. In contrast, this weekend alone I paid a total of Rs. 145 and 220 respectively for watching Chashme Baddor a cheap vulgar but very funny Hindi movie and GI Goe Retaliation (3D), a gory gun and action movie which I did not even enjoy very much.
I tried to reasons my behavior and came up with the following.
There are many many good classical music performers in this country. Too many in fact for me to be able to differentiate in the quality of their art. In other words I have not been educated enough in the landscape, to differentiate the artists by abilities. So I leave it to experts such as Kalakshetra, a highly respected classical dance school, to decide for me. Barring a few occasion, Kalakshetra performances are free. So I have perhaps actually never experienced a true willingness to pay based on my own knowledge for this higher pleasure.
An important observation in this case is the exceptional time when Kalakshetra had annual festival in end-Dec 2012 with ticketed performances, I bought many tickets for Rs. 500 a show, again without knowing the performers based only of my faith in Kalakshetra. This amount is more than I would pay for a movie in India, by at least 30% but up to 128%.
An important point that this discussion brings out for me is that one has to be educated not only in the appreciation of the art, but also must gather the knowledge about various artists, and be educated the process of purchasing tickets. While for movies, even bad ones, I know everything from where to purchase the tickets, to how I will feel later on, that is not the case with classical music. Which makes movies an easier choice for me to make.
This brings into picture the cost and time of learnings associated with any pleasure, which was assumed to be zero in the simpler version of utilitarian analysis I guess.
The basic force for choice in the utilitarian world is the love for pleasure and the dislike of displeasure including effort. In his analysis Bentham does not differentiate between types of pleasures, which makes him one of the most egalitarian people I know. No judgments based on who you are what you derive pleasure from. But of course people who are used to living in societies steeped in religion cannot have any of such non-sense. Stuart Mill was working on making the utilitarian theory reflect the reality of the word by differentiating higher and lower pleasures. He came up with definitions for higher and lower pleasures.
Everyone will agree that some pleasures need more socializing and education, such as classical music, or excellent art, some people would say wine and dark chocolate. Mill differentiates between higher and lower pleasure by saying, if people are educated in many kinds of pleasure, higher pleasure are the ones which they will choose repetedly.
A Harvard Prof. who is teaching the EdX class where I am getting all these thoughts (https://www.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/ER22x/2013_Spring/about) shows 3 clippings, one of a Shakespeare soliloquy, a scene from Fear Factor, and a short clipping from The Simpsons and asks students to make a choice. A large no. of students vote to show that Shakespeare'’s art is ‘higher pleasure’, but they will still repeatedly choose Simpsons over Shakespeare.
I could dismiss this evidence by saying these are young Harvard students, who may not have yet been educated in Shakespeare enough. I have been“educated” in appreciation of Classical India music for quite some time and I always hold it in high regard, until, as I discovered, I am asked to pay for it.
When I search for things to do on Indiastage.in or bookmyshow.com, and I come across classical music performance that are ticketed, I ignore them. In contrast, this weekend alone I paid a total of Rs. 145 and 220 respectively for watching Chashme Baddor a cheap vulgar but very funny Hindi movie and GI Goe Retaliation (3D), a gory gun and action movie which I did not even enjoy very much.
I tried to reasons my behavior and came up with the following.
There are many many good classical music performers in this country. Too many in fact for me to be able to differentiate in the quality of their art. In other words I have not been educated enough in the landscape, to differentiate the artists by abilities. So I leave it to experts such as Kalakshetra, a highly respected classical dance school, to decide for me. Barring a few occasion, Kalakshetra performances are free. So I have perhaps actually never experienced a true willingness to pay based on my own knowledge for this higher pleasure.
An important observation in this case is the exceptional time when Kalakshetra had annual festival in end-Dec 2012 with ticketed performances, I bought many tickets for Rs. 500 a show, again without knowing the performers based only of my faith in Kalakshetra. This amount is more than I would pay for a movie in India, by at least 30% but up to 128%.
An important point that this discussion brings out for me is that one has to be educated not only in the appreciation of the art, but also must gather the knowledge about various artists, and be educated the process of purchasing tickets. While for movies, even bad ones, I know everything from where to purchase the tickets, to how I will feel later on, that is not the case with classical music. Which makes movies an easier choice for me to make.
This brings into picture the cost and time of learnings associated with any pleasure, which was assumed to be zero in the simpler version of utilitarian analysis I guess.
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