Interests
Interests
What am I not interested in and don’t enjoy? And what am I somewhat interested in but can do without?
I am not interested in politics—in fact I am repulsed by it—but I follow it closely for purely utilitarian reasons. I find it intellectually dismal if not abysmal. I am not interested in business or the stock market or “technology”. I am not interested in medicine and illness (though my son is a doctor). I don’t like Frank Sinatra. I’m not into dancing (though I used to be in my teenage mod days). I don’t care much for travel, though I’ve done a fair amount of it—too much effort, not enough reward. I’m not a keen gardener. I don’t like rap music. I can’t stand bad people.
I have a range of secondary interests, but not obsessions. I am interested in clothes and fashion, especially shoes. I have always been interested in humor, though a lot of it leaves me cold. I am interested in food and cooking and like to invent dishes (not easy). I’m very fond of nature, mainly animals. I like cars and motorbikes. I like Persian rugs. I collect guitars. Stamp collecting has its appeal. I like knives but not guns. I admire trees, but I’m not afraid to cut them down. I quite like swimming, but I don’t love it. Diving I enjoy more. Interior decoration is only mildly interesting to me. I can do without vases of flowers. I like cutlery and crockery. I favor an orderly fridge. I like nice people, but there are not too many of them. I find television worth watching, but selectively. I’m not a big opera fan, though I have seen many operas and enjoyed them (I prefer ballet).
Is there a pattern here? Are there many people with the same set of interests and antipathies?
I’d gather most people even cultivated folks and intellectuals don’t have the variety and range of interests- it’s a luxury of modernity and leisure. I’d wonder if it makes you better qua philosopher/
In my case I was born that way–books, sport, music. It’s just natural rather than cultivated. I don’t doubt it makes me a better philosopher.
I do find it odd you’re interested in the brain but not medicine, and the sense I get as for instance your thoughts on animals, it is hard for you not to use your personality ( forgive me your proprium in Allport’s sense) in your philosophical pursuits- you’re not a brain in a vat as some philosophers might come off or even sitting at a desk in a chair, you’re engaged in the world like the rest of us, even moreso. I’d add you’re self made in the sense of knowing what you like and don’t and not just thinking independently but finding your own way as a philosopher. Not a tremendous surprise
I think personality is part of philosophy–you need to have one. Peter Strawson once said to me at a philosophical gathering in Oxford, “There are some people here I wouldn’t mind talking to but none I want to talk to”.
Strawson also once said, “Hilary Putnam is a very sweet man, as he would be the first to agree”.
Luckily Medicine has been interested in you
I was compelled to take an interest in medicine, but I couldn’t be interested in it intellectually. I do find myself wanting to help people in a similar situation–physically, psychologically. It’s good if the doctors are slightly intimidated by you. Recovery isn’t automatic but has to be worked at.
I largely agree, but have no interest in knives, for example; and haven’t owned a TV in over 15 years. And it’s funny but just before you mentioned opera, I thought What about ballet and opera? (I don’t know why I think of the two together in the context of things that don’t interest me, but I do.)
Psychologists should investigate people’s interests as well as their intelligence and personality. I have been fond of knives my whole life; I used to carry a sheath knife all the time as a boy. Knifeaphilia–but also some knifeaphobia (especially sharp kitchen knives). Maybe it’s my interest in cutting in general.
I’m no psychologist, but I think that ordered fridge is the most telling of all the interests.
An orderly fridge, together with collecting guitars and stamps, merely indicates obsessional tendencies (to be distinguished from obsessions). “The Art of Psychotherapy,” by Anthony Storr, has an excellent chapter on the subject.
Not sure about that, I’m utterly obsessional about a number of things, but I leave a wake of destruction on my path to achieve them – I’ve spent three months working on the same recording and finessing stupidly small details to get the exact effect I want, my home studio is chaos and my fridge is a complete mess.
No one’s obsessional tendencies apply to everything he or she does. I’m obsessional about the placement of my books in my bookcases; my wife is obsessional about cleaning the house. Neither of us shares the other’s obsession.
I am counter-obsessional about desk-tidiness and bed-making.
I certainly think that nothing can be achieved without an “obsessive-compulsive” personality, i.e. passionate determination. As to guitars and stamps, it’s simply a question of aesthetics. I still have my childhood stamp collection.
It’s the love of rationality in general, or hatred of irrationality. Plus you need to be able to find stuff.
True, but maybe the fridge is about aesthetics too. You could be philosophy’s Poirot (although he’s not so keen on cats).
Everything is about aesthetics–“judgments of taste”. Tennis and motorcycling, fridges and footwear, sentences and selves.
The thing about fridges. In all the countries I have visited American fridges are by far the largest, often having a passing resemblance to a small bank vault, as they disproportionately dominate the space of even the small and average size U.S. kitchen. In the UK the biggest models are often termed ‘American style’. They are popular. So, it seems Americans have a greater propensity for hoarding perishable food. In such a circumstance orderliness is an absolute essential, not an “obsession”. Also a rigorous management system to avoid spoilage and waste should be standard in every home. I obsessively hate food waste.
I myself have two fridges and I am the only one with food in them. Perhaps the reason Americans have larger fridges is that they live further from shops and so like to stock up for a longer time–they don’t have shops “round the corner”. My mother’s quite small fridge was always nearly empty, with five people in the house, but it wasn’t far to get fresh food every day.
The lines Sondheim discarded:
Everything big in America
If you get the gig in America
Green Day: Don’t wanna be an American idiot.
Taste can be so subjective. – There’s no accounting for it according to Anne Radcliffe, whom I’ve never read, though I’m very interested in fictional terror, suspense and horror, -mainly in film.
I see I share a good few of your interests. I’m not really taken with fashion, rather the quality of clothes, cut and material; John Smedley and Sunspel for casual.
I own mainly Cheaney brogues and Chelsea boots for formal footwear. Brooks (Ghost 12 iteration) and Norman Walsh are my current favourite trainer brands.
also tick:
knives (I once boarded a plane for India wearing a Rogers sheath knife on my belt! Nothing happened.) I now concentrate on acquiring Japanese kitchen knives.
Food and Cooking
Nature (all aspects)
Persian (and Afghan) rugs
Humour
Tennis (play and watch) and most sports (except American football; excessive stop/start.) I prefer the rugby and association versions.
I also add most of your dislikes to the list. The exception being gardening and horticulture.
I’ve never felt that my interests and tastes were remotely arbitrary (“subjective”), so I’m glad you share many of them. It makes me think we have a natural kind at work. But what is its real essence?
Aesthetic Intelligence?
Is it all aesthetically motivated?
And there is the mystery. I doubt it is all aesthetically motivated.
My knowledge of ‘natural kinds’ is limited, so Its over to you on that head. If you have already done a paper I would be interested to read it.
It’s just the idea of groups of things naturally belonging together in virtue of their nature. Natural kinds of interests would include intellectual, musical, and athletic. The question would then be whether these also form a natural kind. We can see how musical and athletic interests could be united by the action of hitting, but how would that include intellectual interests?
On the face of it they don’t look compatible. What would marry them? Physical activities like sport and music are acts we might do, or appreciate, that provide fulfilment of a desire for pleasure; recreational exercise, winning, etc. Isn’t intellectual activity, such as reasoning, like that also? We may read and correspond for pleasure and the satisfaction of learning, solving problems, etc; are these not similar motivations to the former, especially when they converge on a particular subject? So thinking and performing particular acts have a mutually affective and reinforcing influence. There is a connection; each informs the other.
We need to unite a given set of interests; pleasure won’t do that. A person’s interests may have nothing in common that distinguishes them from other sets of interests, or there maybe a feature they all share, e.g., hitting.
So, I haven’t added to knowledge here?
Haway man, Colin. What do you think could be the connection, if indeed there is one?
I don’t see any real connection. I think I just like sport, music, and intellectual pursuits–as separate interests.
A perfectly good explanation.