by wj
I've been looking at the pictures of the redecorated Oval Office (and other White House "improvements"). It occurs to me to wonder, is it just an artifact of what got preserved, or did the ultra wealthy of the first Gilded Age (not to mention the aristocracies of the 1700s) actually have good taste? Or is it just that only the well done artistry from those times got preserved? Because what I'm seeing in the current efforts is massive bad taste and appallingly bad execution.
Of course, what else would one expect of this crowd? To call them "nouveau riche" is to slander the original nouveau riche. And awful as the industrialists of the first Gilded Age were, they ended up creating things like the Carnegie Libraries around the country, the Rockefeller Foundation, etc. Bill Gates seems to be somewhat in that mold. But Musk? Theil? It is to laugh (if only to keep from crying.)
Open Thread
There was very bad taste in the past too (even by the different aestethic standards of the day). There is a degree of preservation bias but also a “where to look” one.
Where one still can find lots of – in my opinion – aesthetic abominations is in churches with Roman catholic ones being the main culprits (and there churches dedicated to Mary leading the charge).
Orthodox churches also do lots of gilding but imo it’s not that ‘in your face’.
In the case of His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf the lack of tast is imo to a degree program. The absence of any kind of subtlety is the very point.
It’s not the amount of precious materials that makes bad taste but the lack of subtlety.
In the past there existed an art of showing off aimed at experts and equals. Those whose opinion counted would notice and that’s what counted.
These days that knowledge is there no more in either the target audience nor the show-off-ers themselves.
About the only thing missing is glaring price tags put everywhere to rub it in.
And then there is of course the cliche of “the kind of shabbiness only the very rich can afford”, putting pride in the very expensive stuff looking like crap deliberately while reminding everyone HOW expensive it was.*
Apart from that, the vulgarian ultra-rich seem to have lost the art of decadence with style.
They would not ‘get’ Trimalchio (or even see him as too intellectual).
* Remembering “The People vs. Larry Flynt” I wonder, whether the vulgarity of his mansion (the real one iirc shown at the end of the film) was him lacking taste or a bold statement of ‘I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!’.
(not to mention the aristocracies of the 1700s)
I was going to say that I get a Versailles-on-the-cheap sort of feeling from it.
“I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!’.
Well, we don’t have to consider that. Trump has no clue how vulgar it is.
As someone who grew up DC/MD and had a government worker dad may I say: this is as bad as anything anyone has done to that city. I took lots of field trips as a kid and nowhere was anything that awful. How fucking dare he.
It isn’t just that the design is tasteless. It’s that the execution is so poor. I think “sloppy” is the word I’m looking for.
It’s like no competent craftsmen could be found to do it. Although most likely nobody looked, if they had there might have been a derth of people willing to work under any terms except cash in advance. A poor reputation can do that.
Harmut’s typos make me laugh, but I want to extend them, from:
“His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf”
to
“His Orangeness and his role models round the Perversion Golf”
Re: bad taste. Napoleon should be part of the discussion.
I have to admit that everytime these inland forages of oceans come up, I have to struggle whether they are spelled with a u or an o in English (btw, the same with disaster vs. desaster)*.
No excuse for Persion though.
For that matter no one noticed that feasibility got misspelled feasability in the title of my PhD thesis until after it got approved and published (electronically). Well, at least it is easier to find that way.
*in German it is Golf and Desaster
Snarki, Napoleon I or III or both?
IIRC Napoleon I was more “over-the-top bad taste”, but that may just be he has more stuff to see in Paris, and what I saw.
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn’t razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
Thank your lucky stars that Strump hasn’t razed the White House and replaced it with a garish casino.
Yet. Gotta save a few big projects for the third term.
The casino is down the street, at will formerly be The Treasury Building.
Napoleon III was more into kitsch art afaik.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus_(Cabanel)
The reproductions I can find on the net all lack the correct (and aesthetically sickening) ivory/pink shade and thus do not give the proper impression of the original.
This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_as_Mars_the_Peacemaker on the other hand is more on the ridiculous side but not necessarily bad taste or low quality art (like the gilded plastic statue of His Orangeness).
The precedent would be https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Claudius_as_Jupiter_(Pio_Clementino_Museum)#/media/File:Claudius_(Vatikanische_Museen).jpg
Again not low quality art but the discrepancy between the real person and the image (Claudius being widely known for having a walking disability, so the proper deity would have been Hephaistos)
A bunch of people I read were talking very enthusiastically about this piece by a FT journalist who went to a party for Curtis Yarvin and the “new, new right”. It’s reasonably insightful, and rather entertaining:
https://archive.ph/qgC6d
GftNC, it made me a little nauseated. Weirdos in a bad way. I’d take an hour-long shower after being at that gathering.
hsh: I agree. But I liked her take on it
He begins telling me about how America’s biggest problem is “decades of mass immigration”. I point out that the US is, you know, a nation of immigrants, to which he responds: “It was originally founded by people of north-west European ancestry.” I note there were people there before them. “There were native Americans, and they lost out,” he replies. “Sucks for them.” This is an odd comment from the spokesperson of a party claiming one of its key beliefs to be that “indigenous people have an inseparable bond with their homeland and are its natural stewards” to make.
and particularly when she says this:
Cave turns to me. “So what’s your skill then, spinning stuff into a story?”
“No,” I reply. “My skill is keeping a straight face when someone tells me something, and inside I’m thinking: fucking hell.”
Whenever I read anything by Yarvin, I feel like I’m back in college listening to some zero-social-skill rando who overdosed on Ayn Rand in high school holding forth at 2 in the morning after doing enough bong hits to anaesthetize an elephant.
Yarvin has spent the morning chatting about Austrian economics with 86-year-old crossbench peer and Keynes biographer Lord Skidelsky.
I have to admit, every time I see the name Skidelsky, I think of skid marks, but reading the piece convinces me I shouldn’t feel bad about it.
The woman who had that McMansion hell website has a Patreon, and she recently posted a dive into what she calls Regional Car Dealership Roccoco, her term for the Trump architectural esthetic.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/mcmansionization-126873692
At the risk of trafficking in stereotypes, IMO DJT’s taste in decor (and many other things as well) can be attributed to “he’s a not very bright, rich old white guy from Queens”.
Shiny and loud == “klassy”
I enjoyed Cheez Whiz’s link, which was interesting and informative. I laughed at Regional Car Dealership Rococo (it’s perfect!), but it still left me obscurely uncomfortable.
Tempting and enjoyable as it can be to mock Trump, and his absurd and transparent pretensions, I couldn’t shake the feeling that sneering at someone’s ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of “elites” that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment. A sense of superiority, no matter how easily explained, always makes me question how justifiable such feelings are/can be.
I’m not preaching here – I’ve had to work out why I ended up feeling so uncomfortable after reading it and laughing, and this is just my first stab at trying to account for that feeling.
PS Maybe it’s because such matters in the UK are so absolutely coded by social class, and awareness of that and its myriad disadvantages is impossible to avoid.
Other than a “this looks like pictures I’ve seen” sort of observation, I really don’t have any room to criticize decorating choices. My wife and I always said that our style was “graduate students who occasionally had some found money” crossed with “people actually live in this room”.
Earlier this year I got tired of having to climb out of the futon and bought living room furniture that I sat “on” rather than “in”. It felt really strange to go shopping for furniture without my wife. Plain because I’m a graduate student at heart. Inexpensive because, well, I might only realistically need to get ten years out of it. Three pieces so that I can separate the granddaughters as needed to avoid “Grandpa, she’s poking me!” Everything else in this picture has a back story.
Looks like a relatively normal room. I’d describe it as grad student / working class (i. e. without a lot of excess cash), but with good taste.
In short, the inverse of excess money and no taste.
Well, the tone I got from that McMansion piece was how RCDC was a corruption of the thought-out sources it munges together that simply juxtaposes them without creating or defining any relationship beyond proximitry. Appropriation, if you will. What mockery there is comes from the analysis of the failure of the idea. Is the mockery undeserved? Is criticizing the asthetic taste of the President of These United States punching down?
Cheez Whiz: it wasn’t so much the piece I was talking about (as I said I found it interesting and informative), as the reaction it (most particularly the coinage Regional Car Dealership Rococo) provoked in me. While it made me laugh, to me the name RCDR had an unmistakeable whiff of class (de haut en bas) contempt. But then again, maybe that’s more just from an English viewpoint.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that sneering at someone’s ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of “elites” that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment.
I hear you. And, as someone who can be a snob about a number of things, I try not to make fun of or look down on other people’s taste. Whatever it is. With, you know, varying degrees of success. But I do try to avoid it, mostly because it’s rude, but also because it feeds the dynamic you describe here.
All of that said, we’re not talking about somebody’s personal taste and how that is expressed in their own home or appearance.
It’s the freaking White House, home of one of the three branches of the US government and residence of it’s chief executive.
Trump is a vulgar clown, and his residence in Trump Tower reflects that. I don’t care. Whatever floats his boat.
But that kind of garish, ostentatious display doesn’t belong in one of the the physical seats of our national government.
There’s a strong strain of punitive Jantelagen on the right these days:
You’re not to think you are anything special.
You’re not to think you are as good as we are.
You’re not to think you are smarter than we are.
You’re not to imagine yourself better than we are.
You’re not to think you know more than we do.
You’re not to think you are more important than we are.
You’re not to think you are good at anything.
You’re not to laugh at us.
You’re not to think anyone cares about you.
You’re not to think you can teach us anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
They feel small and overlooked and they fear that everyone else thinks that they are simple and stupid. And they have become fear-biters over it.
Ironic that they are so dismissive of the micro-agressions thing, since they have their own version of it going on all the time.
The only alternative, though, is to limit oneself to commonplaces and small talk, and not voice any opinion on any matter of taste.
I’ve become largely silent where my siblings and their families are concerned. Too many landmines lying about.
Trump is a vulgar clown, and his residence in Trump Tower reflects that. I don’t care. Whatever floats his boat.
But that kind of garish, ostentatious display doesn’t belong in one of the the physical seats of our national government.[Not to mention, of course, an historic building.]
God knows, I agree with that, and I have to admit that many of my tastes and attitudes are pretty snobbish. The Jantelagen aspect is also an interesting point. I realise I’ve never had any problem with mocking or criticising Ubu’s taste at e.g. Mar a Lago, possibly because he’s rich and fair game. I think it was the “Regional Car Dealership” thing that worried me.
The “Regional Car Dealership” thing is, to my way of thinking, less about class and more about a particular attitude towards salesmanship.
In the decade between my sophomore and junior year of college, I did (among other things) customer service work for a credit card, a homebuilder, and an internet start up, and rubbed shoulders with a lot of people in sales. Most of them were entirely indifferent to the merits of the actual product, and they often didn’t understand the actual thing being sold. You know the type. It was all about the hustle, and about status and appearances.
One of the memories that stuck with me from that time was the day that the sales manager at the startup put up a banner in the sales area that read “The world is run by C students” as a way to motivate his salespeople.
There’s a lot to unpack in that, between the sort of anti-elitism at the core, and the idea that C-student is a sort of identity to embrace. They would rather be clever than smart, and they relished the idea of their cleverness winning over their customer’s intelligence.
This is what I was thinking about when I saw “Regional Car Dealership.”
Interesting to compare Trump’s “style” with that at Hearst’s Castle.
sneering at someone’s ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of “elites” that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment.
I know a fair number of unarguably working class folks whose immediate reaction to Trump’s redecorated Oval Office was immediate sneering.
I’ve never been to either the Hearst Castle or the Carnegie Mansion in NYC. Are they really as dismally dark as they look in the photographs? Or is that an artifact of no-flash policies and old slow films?
Or alternatively, has four decades of living in Colorado where almost everywhere has huge expanses of glass spoiled me?
They would rather be clever than smart, and they relished the idea of their cleverness winning over their customer’s intelligence.
Leaving the gilded age aside, I was interested in this comment of nous’s. I recently had to explain that often, when English people said something was brilliant, we mean great, funny or marvellous in some way, as opposed to “brilliantly intelligent”. So I’m very interested in “clever” v “smart”, and either’s relation to intelligence. We don’t here use “smart” very much for that sort of meaning, in the UK it tends to mean something like posh (a smart address, a smart outfit etc). But, generally speaking, I don’t think we distinguish much if at all between clever and intelligent. Am I right in thinking that nous means here to imply that “clever” is different from “intelligent”? And if so, how? Could it be something like “crafty”, or “cunning”?
For me, the difference between “smart” and “clever” is mostly about scale. Smart operates on a larger scale than clever. The phrase “too clever for their own good” is illustrative. In computer programming, it usually means things like really obscure code that exploits some odd aspect of the programming language to make this routine run faster today, but that will turn out to be a maintenance nightmare in months/years to come.
I think that the difference between “smart” and “clever” is mostly a matter of culture (if that’s the right term). It’s about what you are good at.
Anybody can be clever. But to be “smart” you have to do well at the things that are valued by the formal education system. Not necessarily be highly educated. But able to do those kinds of things.
For example, a great auto mechanic may have struggled to get thru high school. But can be very clever when it comes to figuring out how to fix, or enhance, something mechanical. The formal education system doesn’t reward those kinds of abilities, so he very probably doesn’t get labeled smart. But nobody would argue against clever.
In contrast, you can be a Nobel Prize winner in physics or chemistry but struggle to do simple cooking or basic home maintenance, let alone auto repair. Which makes you smart, brilliant even, but definitely not clever.
wj,
Was Ted Kaczynski not both smart and clever? Just spit balling here.
I tend to think of “smart” as being driven by knowledge and “clever” as being driven by wits. It’s probably something like the Platonic difference between a philosopher and a sophist (even if the sophists are given a bum rap by Platonism). The clever person is less concerned with being right and more concerned with achieving their ends. Smart prefers appeals to logos and forming an stratigic,objective understanding of the situation. Clever prefers appeals to pathos and takes a more tactical and subjective approach.
I take it from the conversation here that my sense of those terms may be idiosyncratic?
Interestingly, none of you seem to be talking about “intelligent” as opposed to the other two words. It’s hard for me to get my head round, because as I say “smart” is not often used that way here – except in the case of something like “street smarts”.
I would say that most people in the UK who think about such things would think of “clever” and “intelligent” as almost synonyms, and that both (while frequently connected with education and knowledge) could possibly be present in exceptional people who have had almost no access to either, but who have what I think nous is calling “wits”. And then, there are people who are particularly gifted in certain ways, for example with an innate understanding of mechanical (or spatial) processes. At least, that’s how I understand the usual usage in the UK, but I may be extrapolating from my own and my (i.e. of age, education, social class) cohort’s conception. nous’s definitions @05.56 strike me more as something to do with personality, or turn of mind, rather than actual intellectual ability.
So maybe all our understanding of these terms is idiosyncratic….how fascinating this stuff is.
British usages have long interested me. GftNC’s observation that “smart” more or less equals “posh”, for instance.
I remember reading somewhere that, at one time at least, a “clever” horse did not mean a witty or intelligent one but rather a well-formed or well-outfitted one. I wonder whether that’s still true in the UK.
In the US, would “a clever work-around” and “a smart work-around” mean exactly the same thing? Or is there an articulable distinction there?
–TP
How fascinating, I have just looked up smart in the OED and the main usage for e.g. clothes seems to be “Attractively neat and stylish, relatively formal”. It’s true, I can imagine if someone asks what you think of an outfit, and you don’t know them all that well and want to reassure them you might say “very smart”, but generally speaking most people I know would use it in the way following, which is “Fashionable, elegant, sophisticated; belonging to or associated with fashionable or high society.” Like so much else in UK English, it looks like it might be more class-coded than I realised.
And just before those two usages, despite what I have said before, the following: “Clever, intelligent, knowledgeable; capable, adept; quick at learning, responding intelligently to a situation, etc.; astute, shrewd; (of an action) characterized by cleverness or astuteness.” In my experience this usage is rare here, although possibly more common as a result of American movies, literature etc.
How fascinating, I have just looked up smart in the OED and the main usage for e.g. clothes seems to be “Attractively neat and stylish, relatively formal”. It’s true, I can imagine if someone asks what you think of an outfit, and you don’t know them all that well and want to reassure them you might say “very smart”, but generally speaking most people I know would use it in the way following, which is “Fashionable, elegant, sophisticated; belonging to or associated with fashionable or high society.” Like so much else in UK English, it looks like it might be more class-coded than I realised.
And just before those two usages, despite what I have said before, the following: “Clever, intelligent, knowledgeable; capable, adept; quick at learning, responding intelligently to a situation, etc.; astute, shrewd; (of an action) characterized by cleverness or astuteness.” In my experience this usage is rare here, although possibly more common as a result of American movies, literature etc.
The distinction between “smart” and “clever” noted by US commentators doesn’t, so far as I’m aware, exist in British English.
I think “smart” here refers to intelligence, unless the context makes it obvious that it refers to dress.
GftNC’s suggestion that “smart” can mean “posh” is not part of my idiolect. Bryan Ferry, for example, has always seemed to me to be smartly dressed, but never posh.
The distinction between “smart” and “clever” noted by US commentators doesn’t, so far as I’m aware, exist in British English.
I think “smart” here refers to intelligence, unless the context makes it obvious that it refers to dress.
GftNC’s suggestion that “smart” can mean “posh” is not part of my idiolect. Bryan Ferry, for example, has always seemed to me to be smartly dressed, but never posh.
I think both smart and clever are secondary terms, the base meaning of smart was painful or cutting (Ouch, that smarts!), while cleaver was probably to split up or divide (hence meat cleaver), which constrasts with dull, so both point out the ability to break things down into smaller parts. I imagine in a closed village society, being intelligent could be disfavored a bit, because it would be disruptive.
I think both smart and clever are secondary terms, the base meaning of smart was painful or cutting (Ouch, that smarts!), while cleaver was probably to split up or divide (hence meat cleaver), which constrasts with dull, so both point out the ability to break things down into smaller parts. I imagine in a closed village society, being intelligent could be disfavored a bit, because it would be disruptive.
I would add that my perception of American English has both “crafty” and “cunning” as something that is intentionally deceptive, where “clever” is not.
I would add that my perception of American English has both “crafty” and “cunning” as something that is intentionally deceptive, where “clever” is not.
I doubt that “clever” has got anything to do with “cleaver”. It might be related to “claw”.
I doubt that “clever” has got anything to do with “cleaver”. It might be related to “claw”.
Michael – My use of clever doesn’t necessitate intentional deception, it just makes room for it in the name of getting the job done – which probably means that it maps well onto your usage of “cunning.”
Michael – My use of clever doesn’t necessitate intentional deception, it just makes room for it in the name of getting the job done – which probably means that it maps well onto your usage of “cunning.”
found this
https://blog.oup.com/2023/11/clever-hans-and-beyond/
possibly clever is related to clamber and climb, in the sense of being nimble.
found this
https://blog.oup.com/2023/11/clever-hans-and-beyond/
possibly clever is related to clamber and climb, in the sense of being nimble.
In computer programming, it usually means things like really obscure code that exploits some odd aspect of the programming language
I used to refer to that as “stunt programming”. And, have been guilty of it, more times than I like to admit.
I blame C++, which offers more opportunities for general pointless wise-guy trickiness than another language I’ve bumped into.
the difference between “smart” and “clever”
I always think of “smart” as being innate intelligence, while “clever” is more about what you do with it. In particular, clever seems more about finding creative solutions to problems.
So, a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart, but might not be able to figure out how to change a tire without a user’s manual. Smart, but not clever.
The exemplar of clever is the crow.
In computer programming, it usually means things like really obscure code that exploits some odd aspect of the programming language
I used to refer to that as “stunt programming”. And, have been guilty of it, more times than I like to admit.
I blame C++, which offers more opportunities for general pointless wise-guy trickiness than another language I’ve bumped into.
the difference between “smart” and “clever”
I always think of “smart” as being innate intelligence, while “clever” is more about what you do with it. In particular, clever seems more about finding creative solutions to problems.
So, a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart, but might not be able to figure out how to change a tire without a user’s manual. Smart, but not clever.
The exemplar of clever is the crow.
my perception of American English has both “crafty” and “cunning” as something that is intentionally deceptive
When my step-son was born, my wife’s Scottish then mother-in-law took a look at him and said “What a cunning child!”.
One of the most interesting things to me in language is that way that words in languages that are more or less imposed on people – English on the Scots, in this case – get re-purposed to suit local meanings.
See also “overstand” in Jamaican patois, which re-tools “understand” to have a richer meaning, one that is not completely captured by any standard English word (except perhaps “grok”).
my perception of American English has both “crafty” and “cunning” as something that is intentionally deceptive
When my step-son was born, my wife’s Scottish then mother-in-law took a look at him and said “What a cunning child!”.
One of the most interesting things to me in language is that way that words in languages that are more or less imposed on people – English on the Scots, in this case – get re-purposed to suit local meanings.
See also “overstand” in Jamaican patois, which re-tools “understand” to have a richer meaning, one that is not completely captured by any standard English word (except perhaps “grok”).
a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart
Or clever enough that you can get a pretty high, at least way above chance, score on a multiple choice test if you eliminate the (2, sometimes 3) obviously wrong choices and then just guess at random. (Versus guessing at random among all 5. Or, worse, just leaving it blank.)
If asked how I know, I’ll take the 5th, thank you.
a kid who aces his college boards is probably pretty smart
Or clever enough that you can get a pretty high, at least way above chance, score on a multiple choice test if you eliminate the (2, sometimes 3) obviously wrong choices and then just guess at random. (Versus guessing at random among all 5. Or, worse, just leaving it blank.)
If asked how I know, I’ll take the 5th, thank you.
wj: to make your strategy work properly it requires generating an actual random choice.
PRO TIP: #2 pencils used for multiple-choice have 6 sides: using a pen to impress ‘dots’ in the wood, 1 dot, 2 dots, etc for the sides. Need a random number? Roll the pencil. Fast and easy.
Computer tests mess that up, dammit.
wj: to make your strategy work properly it requires generating an actual random choice.
PRO TIP: #2 pencils used for multiple-choice have 6 sides: using a pen to impress ‘dots’ in the wood, 1 dot, 2 dots, etc for the sides. Need a random number? Roll the pencil. Fast and easy.
Computer tests mess that up, dammit.
Or, you could just go: pick the first of the remaining choices the first time, then the second the next, then the third (if there happens to be one). Repeat as you go thru the test.
True randomness, or even pseudo- randomness, isn’t required. The folks creating the test will have done all the randomizing necessary
Or, you could just go: pick the first of the remaining choices the first time, then the second the next, then the third (if there happens to be one). Repeat as you go thru the test.
True randomness, or even pseudo- randomness, isn’t required. The folks creating the test will have done all the randomizing necessary
Side note on “smart” and “posh”: Bryan Ferry is an interesting case. Working class, but attended that crucible of 60s upward (and other directions) mobility, art school. Fine Art degree, then teaching til music career. Clearly an aesthete by temperament (easily seen), he wears Savile Row suits and hunts to hounds (was married for 22 years to an upper class girl who hunted from the time she was 12). Of course this does not make him “posh”, but really in today’s world it’s hard to miss his identification.
All this being said, it is good to be reminded that when I pronounce on “normal usage” in the UK, it is coming from a particular place of (as I said before) age, education and social class. I must remember this when giving such confident declarations in the future!
Side note on “smart” and “posh”: Bryan Ferry is an interesting case. Working class, but attended that crucible of 60s upward (and other directions) mobility, art school. Fine Art degree, then teaching til music career. Clearly an aesthete by temperament (easily seen), he wears Savile Row suits and hunts to hounds (was married for 22 years to an upper class girl who hunted from the time she was 12). Of course this does not make him “posh”, but really in today’s world it’s hard to miss his identification.
All this being said, it is good to be reminded that when I pronounce on “normal usage” in the UK, it is coming from a particular place of (as I said before) age, education and social class. I must remember this when giving such confident declarations in the future!