Should I Have a Favorite Color?
The trouble with who's better, who's best plus a dimensions analysis: Discerning versus Picky
I like colors but don’t have a favorite, much to my young daughter’s chagrin.
Children seem fond of favorite lists. They like and probably need ordering for the develop of their mental model of the world.
I don’t at all mean to imply that having favorites is childish or simple or shallow. Perhaps my lack of favorites says something about my tastes being shallow or at least not well formed.
Some of my friends seem to have strong preferences with ordered lists of favorites including subcategories. Others have strong preferences without such favoriting.
My daughter in particular when she was a bit younger could recite her top five animals (both a fictional and real animal list and a combination).
I very certainly have preferences and in some cases clear favorites (Boomer!). Yet as time goes on, the idea of favorites has faded for me. So too has my attachment to thinking in terms of linear rank especially along a single dimension.
Growing up I absolutely loved lists. The almanac was a great source that I endlessly enjoyed diving into. I bought and cherished a coffee table book that I think was titled The Book of Answers. I memorized nearly every statistic within it.
To me the ordering was essential. Yet one thing I have certainly come to realize in what I believe is my wisdom is how difficult it is to have ordered lists.
There are no clean categories. No unarguable way to delineate or even define what is largest, fastest, tallest, etc. much less best or greatest. The G.O.A.T. is a mythical concept.
Which brings us to a dimension analysis I would like to explore: Discerning versus Picky.
This will differ from previous and most future DAs in that I do think one is a superior quality to possess. Namely, it is better to be discerning while not picky.
Here are the ways I would describe/define each of these ends of this spectrum.
Discerning is:
Refined
Thoughtful
High status, but not necessarily high brow
Rationally discriminating
Vague
Adaptable
Consistent given adequate degrees of freedom
Picky is:
Crude
Arbitrary
Low status, but not necessarily low brow
Inconsistently discriminating
Definitive
Rigid
Potentially contradictory
Let me state now the elephant in the room that this has a very high risk of self-reporting bias. You are picky. I am discerning. Your disdain for pickles shows how uncouth you are. My rejection of vodka shows how esteemed my tastes.
We can avoid those pitfalls by focusing on generalities and process rather than outcome. Discernment is founded on reasons. Importantly one of those reasons can just be “I don’t like that.” However, it will more often be accompanied by more reasons. Often these will dominate the rationale.
A discerning person likes Luigi’s Pizza Shop over Tommy’s Slice House because the flavor seems more authentic or the menu is better thought through or their favorite three pies from Luigi’s are simply excellent and all of this is despite Tommy’s being much cheaper. And the discerning person admits that at some limit Tommy’s is a better value; hence, he sometimes prefers to go there.
A picky person likes Tommy’s over Luigi’s because “it is just simply better in all ways!” And even when it is not, that isn’t really something the picky person cares about anyway. “Besides that, Tommy’s has better service and a cooler vibe and . . . people only go to Luigi’s to impress others. They don’t really like it,” he protests. The picky person insists he would still prefer Tommy’s even if the prices were switched between it and Luigi’s.
Both the discerning person and the picky person are expressing true preferences. These are their tastes, and at the heart of each rationale is “I like this more than that.” But for the picky person it is more absolute, more defensive, less grounded, etc. On the last point made regarding the swapping of prices the picky person may be wrestling with The Elephant in the Brain.
Notice that one feature of discerning is vagueness. In this way a discerning person is never caught with egg all over his face for stepping out of character with a preference or even outright changing his mind on something. His worldview is broad and flexible enough that preferences change.
One thing that bothers me when I reflect back at moments when I’ve been picky or when I see it in others is how shallow it was in comparison to what was at stake. Is there really that much difference between McDonald’s and Burger King? So much that tonight at 11:30 PM after a long road trip when we all just want to get something to eat and then hit the bed at the motel we are going into round 3 of Clown vs. Your Majesty?
For that matter is it really that different that tonight we can’t go to cousin Eddie’s favorite steakhouse even though “everyone knows” The Old 96er is the best around? Substitute in Tavern on the Green and The Russian Tea Room if you like. This is not about high brow versus low brow as I said above. It is about reasoning. Good reasoning is high status even if we are talking about reality TV.
I think it is good to explore and hold preferences. Some of them very strongly. I admire those I know that have more extensive preference sets than I do. What is strange to me is when those preferences get more detailed, cherished, and elaborated upon than what the support offered for them can possibly afford.
Discerning versus picky is about demeanor as much as it is anything. I aspire to have discerning tastes that are not impaired by pickiness.
