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The theory fails to predict important phenomena such as "strong reciprocity" the propensity to "irrationally" sacrifice resources to reward forthcoming collaborators and punish free-riders. Irritatingly for economists, people change their preferences mysteriously and irrationally. This is called "preference reversals".
"Your father, Mistress Thankful," said Major Van Zandt gravely, "has long been suspected of favoring the enemy; but it has been the policy of the commander-in-chief to overlook the political preferences of non-combatants, and to strive to win their allegiance to the good cause by liberal privileges.
Food preferences, no less than mental and moral qualities, are then created. Yet the children of both rich and poor are in these early stages either left to haphazard or entrusted to ignorant nursemaids. For those of us who were not born to the present system the transition to the new methods of wholesale cookery is an abomination, and to escape from them a matter of difficulty.
For instance, two men will argue about whether patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has feathers.
"Tone," to be sure, is a terribly vague word to use, but there is no other, and this whole meditation is over questions of tone. By their tone are all things human either lost or saved. If democracy is to be saved it must catch the higher, healthier tone. If we are to impress it with our preferences, we ourselves must use the proper tone, which we, in turn, must have caught from our own teachers.
Montenero had none of the jargon of connoisseurship: while his observations impressed me with a high idea of his taste and judgment, they gave me some confidence in my own. I was delighted to find that I understood, and could naturally and truly agree with all he said, and that my untutored preferences were what they ought to be, according to the right rules of art and science.
Enlightened as to the artist's political preferences by the bowl of his pipe, Combarieu complacently eulogized himself. Upon his own admission he had at first been foolish enough to dream of a universal brotherhood, a holy alliance of the people.
Such observations should cover everything about the child his movements, cries, impulses, sleep, dreams, personal preferences, muscular efforts, attempts at expression, games, favourites, etc. and should be recorded in a regular daybook at the time of occurrence.
The essential difficulty with all such arguments is that the aesthetic interests to which they appeal are personal, and depend on personal preferences. Most of us in such matters, having no special knowledge, and liking some variety of differing styles, modestly give way to the authority of any one who makes a profession of the art.
I am perfectly sensible that Lowell and Emerson outvalue many of the poets and prophets I have given my heart to; I have read them with delight and with a deep sense of their greatness, and yet they have not been my life like those other, those lesser, men. But none of the passions are reasoned, and I do not try to account for my literary preferences or to justify them.