Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…The temptation to become a government adviser under those circumstances would be painfully high. As to whether I could actually find some role there where I would not be morally horrified is a tough call. If I could get away with just being a teacher, if I have what I know, then to actually go and found a school and teach economics 1,300 years before the rise of modern economics and try to jump-start the Industrial Revolution and economic growth and social science and everything else. Emotionally, that would have by far the strongest pull on me. If that weren’t available, then there’s room in business, banking, moneylending, shipping. I think I could learn those. Wouldn’t be thrilled. But it beats rowing an oar. Here’s a general question I have for you about what you might call a Caplanian approach to things. It starts with aesthetics, but maybe it doesn’t end there. If I think about some of the things you like or love, I think of, say, 18th century classical music, Wagnerian opera, certain traditions within graphic novels, a number of TV shows — one would be Ali G — Chinese opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, Larry David. You could add much more to the list. It’s always seemed to me there’s a broadly consistent pattern behind all those tastes. But I’ve never been able to put my finger on what it is. Now that we’re all here today, I would like for you to tell me what that pattern is. What’s the common theme? For me, I feel like I have to start between splitting the comedy off from everything else. The comedy seems to be very different. But for everything else, for anything that presents itself as serious art, for me what I would say is, I like what some people love. If there is something where there’s a group of fanatical, devoted people who say, “This is the best thing in the world,” those are the kinds of things where at least I’ll say, “I want to try that. I want to see what that’s like.” A lot of times when I do this, I’ll say, “Wow, the people who fanatically love it are right. This is wonderful. There’s so much going on. You could spend a lifetime on this.” I remember once you described some Bach oratorio as chaff. I said, “Bach doesn’t have any chaff.” There’s no piece of Bach, no oratorio I couldn’t properly spend a month on. For me, anything, especially anything where it’s produced by someone who is a megalomaniac, who feels like what they’re doing is fantastic . . . I think about Wagner’s term for his work, the Gesamtkunstwerk, the complete artwork. “I, Richard Wagner, have composed the music. I’ve done the libretto. I’ve done the stagings. I’ve done the casting, everything. This is all a reflection of me, Richard Wagner.” Those are the kinds of things that pull me in. I remember once I was just wandering past opening day for The Hunger Games, which I was not particularly a fan of. But just to see a bunch of people who are in love with something, I was happy just looking at them loving this thing in a way that when I see someone half watching a sitcom while doing something else, that’s the kind of thing that depresses me. I just want to go and shut it off. If it’s worth watching, it’s worth watching with 100 percent attention. If it doesn’t motivate you that way, you need to find something else. Or else you might be wasting your whole aesthetic life!…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.