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troutman · 09-09-2014, 11:25 AM

Defending the guilt in guilty pleasures

http://www.avclub.com/article/defend...view:1:Default

Jennifer Szalai kicked things off last December in The New Yorker with “Against ‘Guilty Pleasure’,” in which she essentially argued that guilt shouldn’t apply to the consumption of popular culture. Some ethical behaviors—like visiting a brothel, Szalai suggests—made sense being labeled “guilty pleasures.” But when it became an evaluation of art or entertainment, “guilty pleasure” became an epithet that let others know that “one takes pleasure in something but knows (the knowingness is key) that one really shouldn’t.” In other words, it’s a way to say “I know this is crap, but all the same…” The problem with these arguments is that pleasure isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition.

The problem is that Szalai is confusing “guilt” with “shame,” as though they were the same thing. They’re not. Shame is public; it’s a feeling based on how others see you and your behavior. Guilt, by contrast, is self-directed; it’s private, and has to do with how you, and you alone, evaluate your relation to the world around you. The former is what Szalai is railing against, and she sees the use of “guilty pleasure”—mistakenly, in my opinion—as an expression of that public judgment. But if you enjoy something, and there’s some guilt involved, it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with other people. It’s because you yourself have issues with that piece of pop culture.

Rather than condemnation for enjoying violent movies, or crude cartoons, or the soft porn of Fifty Shades Of Grey, we instead celebrate them, offering up homilies to our enjoyment. This isn’t a strengthening of the debate: It’s the critical equivalent of the “red-state/blue-state” partisanship of our politics. It asks us to cast aside doubts and uncertainties about the culture we partake of, and unequivocally name all enjoyment as good. And if, God forbid, we stop and acknowledge that a book we’re enjoying is predictable, or trite, or simply bad writing, then perhaps we don’t really enjoy it after all.

09-09-2014, 11:25 AM	#79
troutman Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Crowsnest Pass Exp:	Defending the guilt in guilty pleasures http://www.avclub.com/article/defend...view:1:Default Jennifer Szalai kicked things off last December in The New Yorker with “Against ‘Guilty Pleasure’,” in which she essentially argued that guilt shouldn’t apply to the consumption of popular culture. Some ethical behaviors—like visiting a brothel, Szalai suggests—made sense being labeled “guilty pleasures.” But when it became an evaluation of art or entertainment, “guilty pleasure” became an epithet that let others know that “one takes pleasure in something but knows (the knowingness is key) that one really shouldn’t.” In other words, it’s a way to say “I know this is crap, but all the same…” The problem with these arguments is that pleasure isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. The problem is that Szalai is confusing “guilt” with “shame,” as though they were the same thing. They’re not. Shame is public; it’s a feeling based on how others see you and your behavior. Guilt, by contrast, is self-directed; it’s private, and has to do with how you, and you alone, evaluate your relation to the world around you. The former is what Szalai is railing against, and she sees the use of “guilty pleasure”—mistakenly, in my opinion—as an expression of that public judgment. But if you enjoy something, and there’s some guilt involved, it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with other people. It’s because you yourself have issues with that piece of pop culture. Rather than condemnation for enjoying violent movies, or crude cartoons, or the soft porn of Fifty Shades Of Grey, we instead celebrate them, offering up homilies to our enjoyment. This isn’t a strengthening of the debate: It’s the critical equivalent of the “red-state/blue-state” partisanship of our politics. It asks us to cast aside doubts and uncertainties about the culture we partake of, and unequivocally name all enjoyment as good. And if, God forbid, we stop and acknowledge that a book we’re enjoying is predictable, or trite, or simply bad writing, then perhaps we don’t really enjoy it after all.