prepare for an 'incoherent rambling'
The Holy Sultan of Brunei (rich dude and for the purposes of this exercise he can be thought of as omniscient) comes to all of you and says to you:"In one year I will return and to each true fan of dubstep music I will give a gift of one billion dollars."
However, at the time he says this, it happens to be that you don't like dubstep very much. You're 55 and haven't heard of it, you don't like 'electronic music', you are open minded but just prefer most other music to dubstep, or for whatever reason you, at that time, would not be deemed a true fan of dubstep. What can you do to become a true fan of dubstep in one year?
Well, it is not so complicated perhaps. Many have observed that we come to appreciate things more deeply the more familiar we are with them. This is why we speak of such things as 'acquired' tastes.
Thus, one proposal, would be to listen to a lot of dub-step music and do a lot of research on the meaning of dubstep musics and hope that through this process of familiarization you come to appreciate dubstep as a 'true fan' (which I assert can be understood as a function of 'taste' in dubstep).
And some might say, "No myzozoa, sorry, no amount of listening would make me a true fan of dubstep, because I have immutable and good taste(, and dubstep is bad)."
But they are wrong, because all the time people like things due to non-rational factors. This is why many luxury businesses essentially work off of a model that comes down to: people will buy anything if the price is high enough. Similarly, on remodelling ones' house, I have heard the upper middle-class say "the more money you spend the better you feel." And also those 200$ pre-messed-up jeans. People think club weed is better than the cheaper street weed too. People's actual consumption seems to be largely explainable by a tendency to conformity. After all how do you explain your own taste in clothing, why aren't you wearing a loin cloth or sans-coulettes (plz don't tell me you wear those btw, plz)? Habit, conformity, learning, acculturation, whatever you want to call it, drives individuals' tastes.
Thus, to the extent that individuals' can choose to do anything, such as change their habits, it is obvious that they can habituate their tastes.
And I have experienced this too as someone who follows a restricted diet, eventually cravings change. And this same possibility to change ones' tastes is not so different from the possibility for anyone to overcome an addiction or a bad habit. Tastes are not like some type of physical disease, maybe a bacterial infection that resists medication. Rather, tastes can be modified through behavioral adjustments and it is a significant part of becoming an adult for an individual to intervene in their own taste formation.
tl;dr I think that individuals can change their tastes through the conscious direction of learning, and that it is best that they do so.
Obv point out that 'intentionally' would have to be rigorously defined to comment on the possibility of acting intentionally, which could even be distinguished from acting 'under an intention'. This would become a relevant distinction when deciding to what extent it is within the individual's power to change their tastes, or if it is actually partially dependent on factors external to the individual's agency. And, when talking about what is 'possible' there are different kinds of possibility, such as logical possibility, ethical possibility, etc. Anyway, while the later issues (kinds of possibility) are important it is easier to investigate the topic via a practical scenario as opposed to looking at what the words could mean. Still, the example I will employ demands grappling with intentionality.
The Holy Sultan of Brunei (rich dude and for the purposes of this exercise he can be thought of as omniscient) comes to all of you and says to you:"In one year I will return and to each true fan of dubstep music I will give a gift of one billion dollars."
However, at the time he says this, it happens to be that you don't like dubstep very much. You're 55 and haven't heard of it, you don't like 'electronic music', you are open minded but just prefer most other music to dubstep, or for whatever reason you, at that time, would not be deemed a true fan of dubstep. What can you do to become a true fan of dubstep in one year?
Well, it is not so complicated perhaps. Many have observed that we come to appreciate things more deeply the more familiar we are with them. This is why we speak of such things as 'acquired' tastes.
Thus, one proposal, would be to listen to a lot of dub-step music and do a lot of research on the meaning of dubstep musics and hope that through this process of familiarization you come to appreciate dubstep as a 'true fan' (which I assert can be understood as a function of 'taste' in dubstep).
And some might say, "No myzozoa, sorry, no amount of listening would make me a true fan of dubstep, because I have immutable and good taste(, and dubstep is bad)."
But they are wrong, because all the time people like things due to non-rational factors. This is why many luxury businesses essentially work off of a model that comes down to: people will buy anything if the price is high enough. Similarly, on remodelling ones' house, I have heard the upper middle-class say "the more money you spend the better you feel." And also those 200$ pre-messed-up jeans. People think club weed is better than the cheaper street weed too. People's actual consumption seems to be largely explainable by a tendency to conformity. After all how do you explain your own taste in clothing, why aren't you wearing a loin cloth or sans-coulettes (plz don't tell me you wear those btw, plz)? Habit, conformity, learning, acculturation, whatever you want to call it, drives individuals' tastes.
Thus, to the extent that individuals' can choose to do anything, such as change their habits, it is obvious that they can habituate their tastes.
And I have experienced this too as someone who follows a restricted diet, eventually cravings change. And this same possibility to change ones' tastes is not so different from the possibility for anyone to overcome an addiction or a bad habit. Tastes are not like some type of physical disease, maybe a bacterial infection that resists medication. Rather, tastes can be modified through behavioral adjustments and it is a significant part of becoming an adult for an individual to intervene in their own taste formation.
tl;dr I think that individuals can change their tastes through the conscious direction of learning, and that it is best that they do so.
