The Foundations of Personality [138]
play and humor. The satisfaction of any physical desire is pleasant, so that to eat and drink and have sexual relations become great pleasure trends. There are some who live only for these pleasures, ranging from glutton to epicure, from the brutally passionate to the sexual connoisseur. Others whose appetites are hearty subordinate them to the main business of their lives, achievement in some form. There is a whole range of taste in pleasures of this kind that I do not even attempt to analyze at this point, even if it were possible for me to analyze it. Pleasure in dress, in ceremonials, in all the ornamentation of life, forms part of the artistic impulses. The love of music is too lofty to be classed with the other pleasures. This is true of only a few people. For most of us music is an entertainment and is usually poorly endured if it constitutes the total entertainment. As part of the theater, of the movie, of dancing, it is "appreciated" by everybody. To most it stirs the emotions so deeply that its pleasure vanishes in fatigue if too long endured. The capacity to enjoy music, especially the capacity to express it, is one of the great variables of life. It is true that the poseurs in music and the arts generally seek superiority by pretending to a knowledge, interest and pleasure they do not really have, just as there are some who really try to enjoy what they feel they should enjoy. Nowhere is there quite so much pretense and humbug as in the field of the artistic tastes. Nowhere is the arbitrariness of taste so evident, and nowhere is the "expert" so likely to be a pretender. I say this in full recognition of the fact that science and religion have their modes and pretenses as well as art. The "progress" of man is marked as much as anything by a change in "taste," change in what is considered mannerly, beautiful and pleasant. This progress is called refinement, although this term is also used in relation to ethics. Refinement in cooking leads to the art of the chef. Refinement in dress becomes developed into an intricate, ever-changing relation of clothes and age, sex, time of day, situation, etc., so that it is unrefined to wear clothes of certain texture and hues and refined to wear others. Refinement in manner regulates the tone of voice, the violence of gesticulation, the exhibition of emotions and the type of subjects discussed, as well as controlling a dozen and one other matters, from the way one enters a room to the way one leaves it. The savage is unrefined, say we, though he has his own standards of refinement. An American is a boor if he tucks his napkin in at the neck and uses bread to sop up the gravy on his plate, whereas Italians find it perfectly proper to do these things and find the bustle of the American life totally unrefined. That refinement and developed taste are matters of convention and entirely relative is not a new thesis; it is an old accepted truth. What I wish to point out is this, that every development in refinement adds some new pleasure to the world but subtracts some old ones. He who develops his musical tastes from ragtime to the classics finds joys he knew not of, but is offended and disgusted whenever he visits friends, attends a movie or a theater. When people ate with their fingers there was little to be disgusted at in eating; when people need spotless linen and eight or ten forks, knives, and spoons for a meal, a single disarrangement, a spot on the linen, is intolerable. The higher one builds one's needs and tastes, the more opportunities for disgust, disappointment and discontent. Most of the people of the world have never understood this. To the majority, acquisition, the multiplication of needs, desires and tastes constitute progress and seem to be the roads to happiness. Get rich, have horses, autos, beautiful things in the house, servants, go where you please and when you please,--this is happiness. The rich man knows it is not, and so does the wise man. Desires grow with each acquisition, the capacity for satisfaction diminishes with every gratification, novelty disappears