Letters to Ukraine – 21

Can discrimination be desirable? Discrimination as prejudice: no. Discrimination in that other sense, meaning that we possess excellent judgement and good taste: yes. I wonder, has the word ‘discrimination’ become so conditioned by its political meaning that the alternative concept is itself discriminated against? Must we abandon bad discrimination’s good cousin? Pouring a great wine down the sink because it doesn’t taste familiar; dismissing powerful literature as rubbish because it leaves you unsettled instead of entertained; ignoring inventive music when it refuses to follow the latest pop formula… these are the kinds of ways in which someone perceives a difference, but (in my view) fails to discriminate. Through habit and conditioning, the difference here is automatically ‘coded’ as aberrant when, in fact, the perceiver might do better in rising to meet it. Is this why great art is so often misunderstood in its own time? Of course, good and bad will always be fuzzy notions; and we needn’t agree on ‘good taste’ anyway. In our fast-food age, however, is popular taste narrowing into certain acceptable ‘bands’ where the same few qualities are branded ‘good’ or ‘cool’? “Taste the Difference” is a popular advertising slogan in the UK; but is that difference necessarily welcome?

© Mario Petrucci, 2012