Survival course 2.0 - A matter of taste: tender opinions for soluble users

A world in black and white

The one about taste is a largely undervalued problem. Son of modern times, where the free circulation of information, unchained from the so-called official sources, created a downward levelling about every content available on the internet. Everyone talks and writes about everything, no matter how much knowledge has about, the only thing that matters is cutting off enough space to be heard by someone else.

Facebook educated us to black and white in the era of 16,7 million colours TV screen: I like it, thumb up; I don't, I ignore it and fight it (if I can). Frankly, since when the average population has competencies to express valuable opinions on a boundless multitude of topics? We all come from a generation of workers, well trained to respect rules as well as being obliging to superiors, who has never had enough time to focus on something else. And, when they had it, thanks to a low developed taste, they literally throw it into the loo.

We, ourselves, sons of "sectoriality", of the "better doing one thing in a proper way than trying 100 different ones", the same ones that after a bachelor it comes a master specialization, and then again another master together with another specialization - and I'm just talking about who has had the privilege to study -, we express opinions on everything without having ever had one for real.

Reality VS Truth

There was a time when who answered "A bit of everything" to the question "What kind of music d'you listen to?", was automatically labelled as someone with a low refined taste. Now things have changed, and knowing how to choose has become penalizing: only who answers "A bit of everything" shows to be really open-minded. Bullshits. Laziness, together with the eagerness of receiving an instant gratification for what just done or said, is silently killing everybody.

Of course, it's not just our fault. They taught us that. So far, the reality is merely perception, so nothing really exists but it takes life since it can be included in our sphere of possibilities. The less you know the wider the possibilities area, so that everything can be accepted, acceptable and plausible. In Ignorance's land, one is worth as one, just because the only alternative to this one is zero.

There's a heritage we carry on from decades now: where our competences cannot help us to say something valuable, we delegate this responsibility to those people who we perceive as, or they seem like, experts in their field. Result? Our opinion starts from a conformism substrate to which we add the "expert's voice" by absorbing some random smatterings or some set phrases, totally above our specific level of knowledge, because in this figure we acknowledge the right authority we're missing to exercise our judgment.

Remote-controlled opinions

What do you think about refugees? "Well, they speak another language, they're weird, ugly, poor, and they stink. Also, the guy on TV said that according to data - random numbers, random statistics - they're stealing our jobs." With this remarkable wealth of knowledge, this X person, a free thinker in a free world, will search on Google "refugees-problems-job" and will find immense literature about, ready to support that turkey idea born from an unusual stomach motion.

That very thought was raised in an ordinary morning - while catching a tube in his home-work stretch - when a man from a different ethnic group accidentally bumped his shoulder trying to get out of the train. In that moment, when trying to squeeze in before the other passengers have left the wagon, he thinks: "Those stupid immigrants, always on your way: they steal us jobs and then they come in our beautiful countries without manners, stealing our money and using our public trasports", said the man who before turnstiles invention has never paid a ticket in his entire life.

Ok, the topic is pretty dangerous and also my digression, even though sarcastic, might be an attempt to generalize a way more complex problem. Luckily, in my case, I just wanted to make a parody of something we all have experience with.

For the majority of people, freedom means the possibility to shout out loudly their own opinions, but nobody talks about the freedom to stay silent and listen to the others. Also, we must consider that our opinions, wherever they're going to, they constitute a mine of golden information to who has to sell us something. Targeted advertising is created for this purpose: strengthen certainty about something so to precisely identify that specific section of consumers and keep them as long as possible.

A debate, a collaboration, then growth and consequent development of taste, they go against the mass-production economy. Better having a bunch of ignorant which know all and nothing about everything, rather than forming responsible users, whom choices will have an impact on the society to several different levels.

It happens every day, every second, in every moment of our lives. We think about something and then we see it in front of us like a banner in our Facebook Home Page, or during the 10 seconds of advertising we must grasp on Youtube before watching a random video - thank God adblockers exists! - Idiocy needs to be strengthened and fed, at least from the companies' perspective.

Goods commercialization goes together with news production and vice-versa. The old concepts of good or bad are being substituted by the "it sells/it doesn't sell" dichotomy. Therefore, if shit sells well it is good. I mean, seriously? Well, there are loads of folks out there buying it, there must be a reason why...

An indolent generation

The reason exists, and it's before our very eyes. Expressing a valuable opinion requires an intellectual effort, a certain amount of time and a decent awareness of the sources used to get information. In a lazy and inattentive world, on which time is constantly eroded by works, family meetings, chats with a friend, a secret affair with a mysterious partner or tons of other bullshits, how many people are really capable to give a good contribution to whatever topic or discussion?

An example I like to use concerns about jazz music. Everybody knows jazz, or let's say most of the people know it and have an opinion about. Starting from the more straightforward "Jazz is boring, I hate it!" to possibilists "It relaxes me, but please not an entire CD..." or those blessed ignorants "I don't really listen to it, but I do like Michael Bublé", to the ones who speak by default and like only 'difficult tasks' without getting shit "Because listening to jazz is cool", even though the longest listening they experienced was in a random lounge bar while flirting with a work/university colleague. And I just mentioned those who don't listen to jazz.

Then we have the real listeners - among which a good percentage doesn't have fundamentals to really understand it -, and eventually, who plays it. If in your own life experience you didn't yet get that jazz is a proper language and not just a musical genre, you might fit in the firsts 4/5 categories. Keep in mind that they represent almost the whole range of opinions you will find around.

The same pattern can be applied to everyone's opinion about social, political and economic matters, cryptocurrencies, education, wealth, ecology, sport...All ready to say their ideas about, to make their voices resounding in the web's boundless abysses. Didn't you get that your opinions count only because in the future it will be easier to sell you something that you ignore at the moment, but that inexplicably you will have the need later on? It has never been so precious to learn how to choose, and not just because of taste, but for our own survival.

P.S. Translating it from Italian to English took me about 4 hours and the result will never be even comparable to a native speaker translation. Despite that, I hope to have made a sufficient job, at least to share my thoughts in a larger community than just Italian readers. In case you're familiar with my mother tongue, check the Italian version HERE

Enjoy!