Mill, A Milquetoast?

 David K Lewis

David K Lewis was one of the better metaphysicians of the post-war environment, one of the few footnotes to Wittgenstein & Hume really worth reading. I don't agree with him about everything (for instance, he's a Bayesian), but I think he was onto the right track on a lot. He introduced the general idea of a "cooperative game", demonstrating one channel through which costless signalling could remain stable. This lead him distinction between 'Language' - the dead formal, metaphysical thing that is studied in logic classes - and 'languages' - the living, social & biological stuff that music is made of - which is very pretty. Of course, it's all in the Tractatus, but in it Wittgenstein dismissed probability and evolution which put W off course. Lewis had his flaws as well - his papers are full equilibrium analysis functionalist sociology, so he never explores a concept which exists for itself against the bodies it inhabits. People like Brian Skyrms, Josef Haufbauer and Simon Hutteger have worked to examine the theory out of equilibrium and impurely cooperative cases. The results have been robust - complete communication occurs in many models out-of-equilbrium behavior with probability one.

Lewis wrote extensively on ethics as well. His theory of meaning is an ethical theory - according to Lewis, your implicit promise to say sentences which are True is your continuing payment to the languages you inherited. His 1989 paper "Mill And Milquetoast" explores the ethical question of whether we should let other people believe falsehoods. Let's get into it.

John S Mill

Mill believed that the facts that your neighbor should believe things that you are certain are wrong give you no right to force her to change her mind. This is called "tolerance". It is a limited, merely intellectual tolerance but it is a tolerance. Mill's justification of this "tolerance" is pragmatic and utilitarian - at least overtly. I would be open to the proposition that Mill actually believed human beings should be given dignity and therefore rights. In this case the point of Mill is that even a cruel despot should be "tolerant" since "tolerance" has such enormous pragmatic benefits.

Lewis agrees with the conclusion, but not the reasoning. Partly this is because Lewis is not a utilitarian (even though he claims to not mind utilitarianism, his parenthetical aside on page 6 reveals his true, anti-utilitarian opinions). Even though I'm not a utilitarian either, I'm going to defend Mill.

Let's choose a particular one to be concrete. Given a particular economic system - such as the United States today - what is the optimal tax on a commodity?  Should we force the Diamond-Mirrlees level on society or put it to a vote? If we vote, should every level of taxation be allowed?

Mill proposes the later to both questions. This is "tolerance". Lewis attributes to Mill a few ground rules for defending "tolerance":

A. The justification must be pragmatic and utilitarian. This one is obvious.

B. We must take the other person's opinions seriously. We cannot argue that because the population is large each vote is harmless nor may we argue that because nobody takes an argument seriously it can be dismissed. Further, we cannot argue that a person should act differently on the flimsy ground that she is wrong - their subjective beliefs are not valued because they could be other beliefs.


Lewis summarizes Mill's major arguments for "tolerance" as follows:

1. A tolerant population is less error prone. It is well known that independent guesses at a number converge on the actual answer rapidly. A population that doesn't use social or physical pressure against extreme guesses - too low or too high - may actually converge faster than one that attacks extreme guesses because opinions are more independent.

2. The intolerant suffer from a 'fallacy fallacy'. Let's say the neighbor has exactly the right guess at the optimal tax rate - but defends it with a word salad political theory arising from the job system of Final Fantasy Tactics. If we oppress the latter nonsense, then we lose the former truth.

3. A tolerant population will tend to believe the right answer for the right reasons. If we always impose the Diamond-Mirrlees level, we can miss things. Let's say everyone pays the same rate of income tax - in particular, skilled and unskilled labor can't be distinguished by the tax system. It's well known that smart governments (even cruel ones) have universities. Why? Overpaying skilled labor in public production makes production more efficient. It's possible for society to get this right only if we allow opinions.

4. An intolerant population can lose track of purpose. We want the optimal tax on a commodity. But if we mechanically apply the Diamond-Mirrlees level it can become a sort of goal in itself. It becomes a taboo to use another level, even if Diamond & Mirrlees assumptions flagrantly don't apply. Some have argued that the 2% inflation rate has become this.

Lewis attributes to Mill, but discounts, two more reasons for "tolerance":

5. We may have a preference for diversity. Mill and Lewis has in mind a question - like the optimal tax rate - that we don't particular want diversity on for it's own sake. Time has shown that people like diversity a whole heck of a lot. The real problem is that if we introduce enough of this we trivialize "tolerance". Mill wants us to take opinions seriously, not giggle at how fun it is to disagree.

6. Tolerance can make us better as people and thinkers. This can be interpreted in a personal or a Hegelian way. Lewis is dismissive, but again doesn't give very good reasons. The real reason is that this option still doesn't give us a reason to take the other opinion seriously and not just as target practice.

Lewis also gives another reason that "tolerance" may be preferred. It might be that in"tolerance" in general costs so much more than "tolerance" (either individually or on the whole) that a society may prefer "tolerance" in reality even if not in theory.

David K Lewis

Phew! That sure is a long list of alleged benefits to "tolerance"! Mill believes that this list is strong enough to take on all comers, even within the limits he gives himself. Lewis, however, thinks that there is an in"tolerant" person who could knock Mill down.

Joseph de Maistre

Comte de Maistre was a French ultra-royalist and Catholic fundamentalist who sold his wares to easily flattered aristocrats. He pawned off on them all kinds of funny stories about how great the old days of monarchy were and wasn't afraid to give it a strong boost via telling bald faced lies to do it. Since he wasn't hemmed in by any need to tell the truth, his writing has a great deal of energy - centuries of warfare between petty princedoms suddenly become a thousand years of peace, the Houses of Borga, Medici and Sforza become infallible Atlases upon which the world can depend. He famously argued that the death penalty and the world's cruelty to innocents were the same and good - they both sent the blood of the innocent back to God. He didn't hold this belief very consistently. Somehow it was always both someone else's blood and someone else's duty to move it around. The princes that patronized him liked this part too.

Imagine Mill speaking in a young prince's left ear and de Maistre speaking in his right ear. The prince is to appoint the inquisitor who roots out heresy and sedition (the same thing to de Maistre). Should the prince appoint a cruel, vindictive inquisitor or a relaxed, "tolerant" one? Ol' de Maistre is telling Alexander I that he should prize order above all else and this means a cruel, vindictive inquisitor. Can Mill knock de Maistre down?

Lewis doesn't think so. Lewis thinks he can give de Maistre a sentence that overcomes any Millian argument:

"You might as well oppose the suppression of heresy on the ground that dungeons cost too much money."

What de Maistre is arguing is that the young prince should have 'lexicographic preferences'. There are various states of the world are like a vector. They might be written \( (Wealth, Knowledge, Order) \) or \( (Sex, Digestion, Energy) \). The entries of the vector are written in order of importance to the prince. In words, between any two states, the prince prefers the one with the highest value in the first different entry. Thus \( (2, 0) \) is preferred to \( (1,99999999999999999) \). No amount of changing the second entry will make the prince prefer the first state.

If the prince has de Maistrean preferences - as Lewis supposes - then there is no amount of arguing the nice points of 1-6 will help. Violent order is in the first entry, it is weighted infinitely more than what Mill can give.

Lewis argues that Mill only has one option - he must violate his principles. Either he can suppress de Maistres or he can refuse to leave the de Maistrean argument alone. He can argue that Millian order is actually better than de Maistrean order. This violates rule B.

John S Mill

But Mill has a counterattack. Lewis thinks he can beat Mill with lexicographic preferences, preferences that don't make a smooth utility function. But Mill also has lexicographic preferences! Lewis said somewhere that he was attempting to make unsystematic contributions to philosophy on the theory that there were enough systemic theories already. But Mill did not say this. Mill had/wanted to have a system. Mill can use all his arguments against de Maistre.

Lewis is right as far as he goes. You can't fight gains with infinitesimal changes. Lexicographic de Maistrean preferences would beat Mill's arguments *if* all Mill can only affect the later entries.

Did Mill make this mistake because he thought preferences always led to a standard real valued function? That doesn't sound like our JS Mill. JS Mill wasn't Jevons. Mill doesn't use explicitly represented, mathematically defined utility functions. On the contrary, in Utilitarianism Mill says

"Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness- that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior - confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides."

In short, Mill can have lexicographic preferences too! He can try make lofty preferences infinite in weight compared to base preferences.

Let's look at what Mill is doing and why. Mill's boons are all to the same thing - discovery of the truth. This gives a hint on how Mill can try to beat de Maistre. Whatever de Maistre says about order and hierarchy, Mill can say this "Is it true we have order and hierarchy? The only way to tell this is if we have 'tolerance'.". Mill can do this to whatever the prince has first in his lexicographic preferences, Mill can always convert "'s' is desirable" into '''"'s' is true" is desirable'''. Mill can always try to put truth and therefore his arguments at the top of the preference vector.

Girolamo Savonarola

Again, more concretely. Mill can try to prevent the prince from appointing a Savonarola on the grounds that a Savonarola by overprosectuing punishes the faithful as well as the faithless and thereby erases the distinction between faith and faithlessness. Mill can say that discovering the truth of faithfulness requires a certain amount "tolerance". This is a reasonable argument. Mill's argument fits in nicely with Lewis's pragmatic reason for the concept of Truth to be instantiated - individuals in a society desire to have meaningful signs.

In short, Mill may have been many things, but he was not a milquetoast.

Why Should We Believe In The Truth

David Hume

There are two main rivers in modern thought. One is the English Philosophy based on a misreading of Hume. The English Philosophy emphasizes epistemology. What's the point of having weird objects if we can't learn anything about them? The other is the European Philosophy, and is - coincidentally - based on a separate misreading of Hume. It emphasizes ontology, the question of what kinds of objects exist. Epistemology is easy - if reliable witnesses exist the whole problem is solved.

Richard Rorty

Two sub flows within these rivers are called "ordinary language philosophy" and "pragmatism".

Pragmatism is primarily concerned with the reduction of the big concepts like Truth and Justice to simpler practical and evolutionary concepts. It began, like all philosophy, with the Socratic attempt to show that a truly good man will - by divine coincidence - be satisfied, if not happy.

Richard Rorty was one of pragmatism's ablest modern adherents. Rorty holds (with men like Peirce, James and Dewey) that, to quote Peirce, "The truth is a kind of efficiency.". Rorty gathered and sharpened weapons from all over philosophy and even science to defend his vision. He is almost infamous for using humor and sarcasm (saints be) to denigrate the "bad, old philosophy" that holds that there is something like Truth or even a first person point of view.

G K Chesterton

Pragmatist philosophy is reformist and scolding. You betta get rid of dis Truth jazz or you'll tie yaself in stupid knots. Contrariwise, the philosophy of ordinary language is conservative. The philosopher of ordinary language operates on the theory that languages and linguistic communities are highly evolved things and a lone philosopher far more likely to be muddleheaded than an entire linguistic community. Such a philosopher says, with Chesterton, "Dick, my friend, it will do you no good to tell me you don't what good Truth is. Only when you can tell me you do understand, will I let you fiddle around.".

To such a person, that Rorty, Peirce, James & Dewey's theories are wrong is as plain as South Dakota. The fact is, when ordinary people use the word "true". Let me give an example.

You can hear it, right? Darth Vader clearly says "Search your heart. You know it to be true!". He is referring to an event that happened in the past, not in the future. Certainly not future efficiency. All the pragmatist theories of the truth just don't correspond to a theory of how the word truth is used. All of Rorty's irony and sarcasm can't overcome the fact that this is the concept used and no other. He may as well mock those bad, old philosophers who have only two eyes.

Rorty the reformer comes in and says "Very well, sure he thinks he used that concept. But he really shouldn't. He certainly shouldn't say 'Search your heart.'. Vader should say 'If you think I killed your father, your fascination with the Dark Side will become mysterious and difficult.'. The important thing is not that Vader fathered Luke in the past, but what that means for the future.".

Charles Darwin

This is wrong. The concept of backwards looking capital T Truth did not evolve in this way or for this reason. Languages evolve in many ways. We know, for instance, that high dimensional signals are more stable in come signalling games than simple ones. In other words, mathematics teaches us that the birds sing beautifully. That sure is kind of it.

Math teaches us more than this. We know from the detailed analysis of signalling games by people like John Maynard Smith, David Lewis and Brian Skyrms when communities evolve meaningful signalling. Truth in language is a repeatedly evolved strategy for dealing with ambiguity. An ambiguous situation for a speaker & listener pair is one with many approximately equally likely outcomes. Communication becomes meaningful because the speaker can lead or mislead the listener.


Where Rorty is right is that the concept of Truth is instantiated in the world for pragmatic, evolutionary reasons. Forward looking ones. But he blunders by saying that it is thus for true sentences - blunders into ordinary, boring error. Backwards and outwards looking Truth exists and is useful - maybe even occasionally used in situations not so important.

Why does Rorty make this mistake? One is that if he were to admit Truth he would have to admit ethics. If backwards looking Truth is so dang useful, Truth ought to be made into a habit - this is the essence of pragmatism, the reduction of things to practicality. If Truth exists, then philosophy is not just a kind of writing, but an instructive kind of writing. Philosophy should encourage us to be reliable witnesses (not necessarily perfectly reliable). Heck, one might even say that if reliable witnesses exist, then the whole problem would be solved...

This would go against Rorty's biggest conviction. Rorty was a "structuralist". His view of society was that it was like a giant building, maybe a library. Sure, sometimes a book got out of place. Maybe there are mice or cockroaches to be exterminated. But overall, society as an organic whole is organized and everything has its place. He often talked of people being "programmed by their linguistic community" to use certain sentences. This is implicit social science ... the worst kind of social science.

In reality, communities are dynamic, evolving and structurally indeterminate. Further, even if a structure is in place, that doesn't mean that it implies anything on the individual level. A particle of water wanders randomly, perhaps quickly perhaps slowly, through a stationary cloud of fog...

Nannerl, Wolfgang, Anna Maria and Leopold Mozart

The so-called 'classical' style of music was meant to emulate the perceived simplicity and grace of ancient - or 'classical' - art (that it bore no resemblance to the music of those time was just a bonus). The best practitioners, such as CPE Bach, Joseph Haydn or Wolfgang Mozart, used stereotyped finger movements and chordal patterns to build large musical pieces quickly and have them played clearly. But it does not follow that a moderate amount of knowledge of this musical language makes Mozart's music predictable. Musical language is not a simple Markov process. Musical language sits on the top of Chomsky's linguistic hierarchy. Pretending that Mozart was just pushed by this social structure or that linguistic community is pseudo-scientific if it doesn't give us good hypothesis about Mozart's music.

Once we move beyond a structural equilibrium analysis, we can see that truth in signalling games is both common and observed. Individual and their problems come back into sight. Only then is the Truth plain.

Prolegomenon To Any Future Endogenous Growth: A Review Of Robert Solow's Siena Lectures

Robert Solow

This book is set of six lectures on the Theory Of Endogenous Growth given by Robert Solow at the University Of Siena in Tuscany, Italy in 1992. These lectures are extremely excellent: clear, perceptive and brilliant. Anyone who reads them will have a better idea what is right and (more importantly) what is wrong with this area of economics. Solow has a brilliant technical command of his subject, a philosophical wisdom about his profession and - it must be said - a brilliant way with words. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone, even if the only relationship with neoclassical economics they desire is spitting on its grave. The only caveat is that the lectures make fairly steep assumptions about the reader's ability to read math.

So, what is the Theory Of Endogenous Growth? To answer this, let's start with a simpler question - "What is Growth Theory?". To answer this, we will (somewhat artificially) divide all the thoughts and models of the broad economy into two parts: sickness and health. The theory of depressions & recessions, of inflations and deflations, of coordination failures throughout supply chains, etc. etc. etc. are the theories of sickness. One can study the sources of sickness - monetary & fiscal policy mistakes, movements of aggregate demand, unpredictable policies, sheer complexity of the economic system, unforeseeable economic shocks, etc..

Roy Harrod

This list of problems seem formidable obstacles to any economy, like mountains of disease. Back in the late 30's and yearly 40's, economist Roy Harrod formalized these ideas and found two major sources of illness in a (closed, growing) economy. These sources are: 1) the difference between expected investment and actual savings and 2) the difference between "natural" and actual growth rates. In 1956, Solow demonstrated that these two sources were actually one - if expected investment were always equal to actual savings (by some miracle), then the actual growth rate would also be the natural growth rate. By abstracting away from money and the business cycle, Solow was able to collapse all of the old theory into a few simple equations - simple enough to be checked against the data. The only problem is, of course, the assumptions of the theory are quite wrong...

Following Solow's ideas like greyhounds after a lure, the neoclassical theorists of growth - which is now Growth Theory tout court - abstracts from the business cycle and treats so-called "long run growth" (spooky scary scare-quotes roam across the land...). As a stylized fact, this growth is exponential, which simplifies analysis. All we really care about is the relations between various rates.

There are two unpleasant things about Solow's model.

One I've already outlined - it doesn't even talk about recessions, depressions and other moments of ill health. Why make the heroic assumption that all is right in the Keynesio-Monetarist side of the economy? Perhaps it Solow's natural Roosevelt-Truman WWII American optimism against Harrod's decline of the British Empire pessimism. Perhaps it was because Solow was just entering his 30s and Harrod was leaving his 30s. Whatever the cause, we will leave this alone.

The second is that the theory describes relations between the rates but doesn't give any reason that the rates should be one number and not another. No matter what stripe of economist you are, the natural growth rate of the economy should be given by something in the economy, not just postulated and "measured" (I hope you find these scare-quotes frightening!). When a parameter is given as part of the structure of a model it is called 'exogenous'. If a parameter is a exogenous to a model, then that model says nothing of interest about that parameter. Yet the growth rate matters to the central banker or politician as well - in the unemployment rate goes up or down how do we know it's because of a deep, permanent shift in the economy as opposed to a shallow slide that needs to be corrected so that it doesn't become an avalanche?

This second problem, of taking growth rate as a prediction instead of a predictor, would satisfy more souls. When a parameter is derived from it is called 'endogenous'. Therefore, this is the problem of 'Endogenous Growth'.

Trevor Swan

The Siena lectures begin with a lecture on merely Exogenous Growth Theory. The first chapter is a sort of refresher course with some subtle points that Solow will use in the other lectures. Solow exposits the now traditional Neoclassical Growth Theory from two perspectives: a "maximizing" perspective which emphasizes its Neoclassical & Theoretical aspects and a "behavioristic" perspective which emphasizes its Keynesian & Positive aspects

 In my earlier post, I talked about a textbook which emphasized the "behavioristic" Keynesian & Positive approach. The "behavioristic" approach has the disadvantage that some of the steps are purposefully arbitrary. It cannot really be extended, since every possible function is (in theory) allowed. Supposedly, we just filch a consumption function and check against the data. In reality, we take the consumption function from the other approach.

This arbitrariness is reduced very slightly in the "maximizing" Neoclassical & Theoretical approach. In this approach, the consumption function is derived by a bit of calculus from a utility function (a function which tells how satisfied the household is with a particular path of consumption over time) - which is itself arbitrary. Solow has some fun teasing the utility function ("a peasant household ... which goes on forever, with consistent preferences"). The only purely scientific advantage of the "maximizing" approach is that it suggests (to some) ways to extend to new theoretical vistae. Solow is forced to include the "maximizing" approach because such a vista is the goal of "Endogenous Growth Theory".

Solow concludes his exposition of Neoclassical Growth Theory with a brief summary. Consumption per head grows at exactly the rate of labor augmenting technological progress (given by the gods and the kings). The stock of capital grows at the rate of labor augmenting technological progress  plus the rate of population growth (given by the same folk). Output grows at the same rate.

Robert Lucas

Solow begins the development of Endogenous Growth Theory with a bit of a trick. He does not show Lucas's 1988 Endogenous Growth Theory model. Instead, he modifies the utility function (which, remember, is arbitrary) of that model slightly (perhaps Lucas would prefer "slightly" in scare-quotes). In Lucas's model, every moment not spent working is spent learning. That rate of learning feeds forward into the growth rate. The growth rate is now endogenous, determined by this learning rate. In this new Solow-Lucas model, consumers can enjoy leisure.

The result is illustratively disastrous. No matter how small the enjoyment rate of leisure is, the consumer will always take enough leisure to cancel out any endogenity of the growth. The model is not continuous in the parameter that gives the rate at which one enjoys leisure. At zero exactly, there is endogenous growth, away from zero - no matter how slightly - only exogenous growth is seen.

Solow demonstrates this very carefully and with great insight. But this result would not be shocking to anyone with mathematical ability. There is no reason to assume these extrema are continuous in every parameter. It doesn't take much thought to notice that fastest route between two points is teleportation. But it does spell grave difficulties for any supposed theory of endogenous growth. Without continuity one cannot have approximability. Even drunken man can approximate a straight line home but what does it even mean to approximate teleportation home? Nothing. This is destructive to the positive point of view. If you believe in the Lucas's 1988 Endogenous Growth Theory model, it no longer makes any sense whatsoever to think of the assumptions as maybe right-ish and test them out, one must be correct in a very divine way about the Solow Leisure Parameter being zero.

Paul Romer

In the third through fifth lecture, Solow examines and dissects various other endogenous growth models. This includes a Paul Romer model in which increasing varieties of capital goods determine growth, a Grossman-Helpman model where increasing knowledge allows one to make more and a greater variety of goods and an Aghion-Howitt model where innovations arrive randomly. All of these introduce further knife-edge assumptions to the stock neoclassical assumptions. Romer's paper is dependent on a particular institutional structure, Grossman-Helpma's paper demands a very particular function for the growth of knowledge on pain of producing infinite goods in finite time, the Aghion-Howitt model is contains many extremely arbitrary and unmeasurable elements - including the painful fact that endogenity is assumed rather than being a natural feature of the model.

Solow states and implies that these difficulties are representative of the endogenous growth theoretical literature. As far as I am aware, this is still true.

Robert Summers

In the sixth and final chapter, Solow looks over what was then the latest growth data. A cliche among investors states "Information is worth money, so macro data is free.". While not quite true, it isn't more misleading than a cliche should be. More over, since the endogenous growth models are related in very complex and non-continuous ways to exogenous growth models and each other, even with heroic assumptions the data do not distinguish among the models very well. It is my understanding that while the quantity and quality of data have improved significantly. However, this cannot fix the mathematical difficulties around discontinuity.

Robert Solow

This book has much to recommend it as an introduction and critique of the methods & minds within modern neoclassical growth theory. I feel that the real message of this book is that if we really want to understand growth, what we need is an empirically grounded micro-macro understanding of the actual process of innovation as it really occurs rather than piling arbitrary assumption on heroic assumption. Many - such as the philosopher Karl Popper - believe there is no scientific pattern to this across countries or over time. If so, a lot of high powered economists are chasing waterfalls...

Mozart, Wagner And Trash: A Review Of Shaw On Music

 George Bernard Shaw in 1894, when he ended his regular music column

There are two sorts of persons: Platonists and Aristotleans. A Platonist is the sort that has an idea of how things ought to be, whether it is a piano recital or a state. As such, every movie, book, nation, planet and computer program could be perfect but imperfection in execution prevents it. The critic is always and everywhere a Platonist, while res publica are not a person. An Aristotlean is an impassive sort who prefers what he likes and avoids what he dislikes not on any scale but simply as the offers vary. Platonists dominate our discourse despite probably not dominating us numerically. The only chance that Aristotleanism is allowed to speak up is when someone wants to give a Platonist view of what a critic "ought to be" - they should be strict Aristoleans when they oppose me and powerful Platonists when they are with me.

This book, a collection of writings on music written by George Bernard Shaw - the mad genius of the Fabians - is full of the indignant Platonist howling that the loftiest love song of Mozart must vibrate through a stuffy prima donna's undeserving vocal chords. Such a collection is valuable for two reasons: First, because Shaw is equally comfortable analyzing, contextualizing and criticizing Mozart at his best as he is among the submucousal glands of the throat; Second, because Shaw is a great writer whose venom and sweetness would have value even if he used them like Pauline Kael (randomly and without accuracy).

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart

Bernard Shaw claims multiple times in this book that he learned drama from music - from the evidence he gives this is likely true. But he worms music halfway to drama by having little patience for instrumental music. Shaw's interest is in singer/actors and his demands are rigorous: they must sing both Mozart and Wagner both perfectly and easily, they must show absolute selflessness by never requesting a bit of musical show off nor a bit of ham acting, they must always both mentally be in the scene artificed around them and of course they absolutely must have the same Platonic concept of the work as Shaw. Shaw, like most critics, can forgive any of the sins except the last.

I am of the opposite opinion, musically (and on a great deal besides). I think singing is somewhat annoying and doubt that any piece of singing longer than a few minutes could ever be worth hearing. Meanwhile, I could listen to hours of "absolute music" - as music without singing is so inaccurately called - without boredom. I have no interest in opera or music drama and positively dislike musicals.

When Shaw says "The music of the 18th century is all dance music", he speaks the truth as far as the sentence goes. But when he extends beyond this he finds that it must imply that all "absolute" music is without ideas. This is just misplaced concreteness. One might as well say that because books were originally written speeches they can contain no ideas. If we followed Shaw's rationalization to its end, the only piece of absolute music is Handel's "Water Music" - a bit of background music for some wealthy landlord. And maybe it is. If so, we need some new word for the work of Bach, Brahms or Duke Ellington.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner

Anyone for whom music is primarily a dramatic art form must believe that singing is the supreme art and composing lyrics for the voice the best possible poetry. Shaw, compelled by this logic, compares Shakespear (Shaw always spells the English Guillaume's name in this fashion) to Wagner to Shakespear's loss. When Juliet comes to stage to moon over Romeo she launches into a quite unrealistic mannered legalistic musing on the nature of names and naming. Shaw, who presumably has much experience in this area, tells us not what a young lady would do in this situation. Wagner, meanwhile, may have Isolde merely sing "Oh Tristan, Tristan, My Tristan, Tristan!" over and over again in pleasant metrical pattern. Much more realistic, says Shaw.

This is not a high standard for realism.



Shaw's dramatic music love is not just for drama but specifically German drama. For him, opera essentially begins with Gluck who taught the Italians not to bow to their prime donne and write appropriately dramatic music. The opera then reached its height with Mozart, for whom form and expression were as simple and affectationless as breath and defecation. Opera was then fortunately destroyed by Wagner, who - instead of worrying terribly about which chord followed what and smoothing out rhythms - simply played whatever music the poem called for at a moments notice. If this should be in D and that in E-Flat, so much the worse for D and E-flat.

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi

Shaw's dislike for Italy is so deep that he has difficulty praising Verdi (incapable of writing for the voice) even as he grudgingly admits Falstaff is a masterpiece. This essay is a masterpiece in the form of "the critic angered by greatness". Nothing sets up the ire of the Platonist as the brilliant and successful pursuit of someone else's goals.

To give another example, it is obvious that Shaw's immense dislike of Rossini is a dislike not of Rossini's methods (which he disparages extensively and accurately) but of Rossini's goals. Rossini is writing neither for himself, musicians nor for thinkers but for that hideous abstraction "the common man". Shaw detects that Rossini thinks even less of the common man than even Shaw himself - this is more certainly more true and more damning than any technical detail Shaw hauls out.

Shaw in 1879, when he published his first novel

Shaw is an inveterate author, which is rather different from being a writer. He doesn't just fill up column space. Shaw is always noticing something concrete when listening to abstract music and deriving abstract thought from the concrete scenes. Anyone who has read The Perfect Wagnerite has seen the second but it is the first which occupies most of this volume. A trip to Bayreuth in 1894 brings pages of invective against the shoddy craftsmanship of German instruments and attacks on the competence of German singers (though he praises their instructors - the first essay makes clear why this seeming contradiction holds). As a result, Shaw is often most interesting when he leaves behind his subject. For instance, during an essay on Beethoven, he gives the best and only definition of jazz - "the old dance band, Beethoveniszed". This is no defect.

Shaw was - as a matter of course -  completely mad. But he was also brilliant. This pose isn't a general review of his thought and writing. If I could take the time, I would recommend The Perfect Wagnerite, his brief but excellent Fabian Essays on economics, the 1938 movie Pygmalion and a bit of forgiveness for an old Irishman who wrote far too much & lived far too long.

Shaw On Music itself, meanwhile, is an excellent book for anyone with an interest in music, drama or the arts in general. In these cranky old essays I can detect the enthusiasm of the fan and lover despite the Platonistic personality burning through. Anyone who can read criticism for pleasure will enjoy this book, even if (like me) they have no interest in music-drama. People with an interest in "pop culture" reviews will also gain by this book, I think, because of its de-mystifying approach to works that are now considered classics. If you imagine a book of essays by the average music blogger who was also a Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, then you have a good estimate of what this book is like.