WHEN SWILL IS SWELL

“Swell” and “swill.” One letter separates them. But what a meaning difference it makes.  

“Swill,” I remember as a term of my youth. It was common when people lived on farms.  There, the family’s pigs received, as feed, the “swill,” what was leftover from the kitchen. Naturally, a negative connotation followed. After all “swill’ was that which was rejected.  

“Swell,” by contrast, carries a positive connotation.   Initially it was a neutral term, it indicated a natural formation, something like a hill, or a gentle ocean wave. Today, the term’s more common use is in line with expressions of satisfaction and affirmation.  Two examples: the expression “that’s swell;” the 1937 song “Gee, but you’re swell.” In Easter Parade, Judy Garland

and Fred Astaire, dressed as hobos, got ironic mileage with their song “A bunch of swells.”

Could hobos be “swells”?  No and yes. If to be a “swell” meant well-dressed, then hobos would never fit the bill.  If, though, “swell” meant lovable, as in the song “Gee, but you’re swell,” then character would supersede clothing. Hobos could indeed be “swells.”

“Swill” is more uniformly derisive. Some of what accompanies the preparation of a meal is excluded, set apart, tossed out.  It is appropriately named “refuse.” Yet, even “swill” can undergo a valuational shift.

Take potato peelings. At one time, they fell into the category of that- which-is-to-be-discarded, i.e. “swill.” Today, we are

advised, for health reasons, to to eat our potatoes with their peels. What was once swill is now swell.  

It would be hard to find a human community that did not distinguish swell from swill, better from worse.  There is a lingering temptation, though, to reify the distinction. This results in the creation of an irrevocable, non-revisable, two-column list.  One side is labelled “good,” the other “bad.” We here come face to face with a lingering temptation: create a neat, oppositional, good/evil list. The temptation even has an official, historically-informed, name: Manichaeism.  This was a movement, based on a 3d century Babylonian prophet named Mani. It taught that creation had two sources, two ultimate powers, one good, the other evil. The two- value, double column list was little more than the practical application of this cosmic battleground.  

Any neat division equipped with  unquestionable valuations is bound to occasion a backlash (especially among the groups who fall on the negative side of things).  That reaction, quite understandable, can, nonetheless, be overdone. The excess lies in a proclamation that appraisals are nothing more than subjective impositions. Rather than leave neat bifurcations behind, this position simply creates another one: subjective vs objective. The Manichean assumes that existing value judgments are rooted in objective data.  The subjectivist claims that all evaluations are arbitrary, historically conditioned, contrivances. Either/or is not overcome. It is just reformulated.

“Swell” and “swill” help draw us into a more nuanced, more genuinely human, position.   “He’s a swell” was a way of identifying a spiffy dresser. Objective conditions, the kind of clothing worn, were readily identifiable. Then, as with “you’re swell,” the positive valuation was extended to character.

At this point the evaluation becomes a bit trickier. Without the obvious markers of expensive, stylish clothing,  mistakes are possible. Still the value determination is not just “subjective.” It’s a judgment. This means that although it has a subjective dimension (someone is doing the judging), it also has an objective one (the assessment is based on evidence, behavior, indications of character).

Similarly, what we judge to be “swill” can be up for for revision.  Potato peels, as mentioned above, can move from “swill” to “fit for our diet.”  This is not a purely subjective construction. It arises from information about the nutritional properties of potato skins and the physiological needs of mammals like ourselves.

Could we be wrong? Sure, that’s always a possibility. Future research may once again move potato skins from

“swell for humans” to “swill for pigs” The possibility of error is telling. It’s a sign of human inquiry.  Absolutists and relativists seek an escape from human limitations. One proclaims a perfect, already established, vision of truth. The other dismisses the human struggle to discover more fully accurate truths. Humans, it says, do not establish what is the case, but rather impose values.

For ordinary humans, though, enhanced intelligent awareness can mean that “swill” becomes “swell” and vice versa.

Avoid Laziness: Dispute Tastes

A poet addressing an audience of 14,000?  It happened. The speaker: T.S. Eliot. The year: 1956. The place: a Minnesota athletic stadium.  How things have changed!  Today, beyond athletic events and rock concerts, stadiums are permeated by what has become most pervasive: advertising.   Best slogan for the last 60 years: from poetry to advertising.

Poetry is thick with allusions, references, ambiguity, the blend of sound and sense.  Its aim: revelation. The poet has something to tell.  Advertising relies on stripped down language.  It’s aim: manipulation.  The advertiser has something to sell.

Food studies people pay attention to advertising and its impact on health.  Now we have a philosophy book whose reflections begin by noting how ads are everywhere (see urinals, airplane tray tables, gasoline pumps). Not only that, the book uses the example of a cook both prominently and positively. Matthew Crawford is the author. The World Beyond Your Head is the title.  

Crawford’s concern is with “attention,” especially how our attention has been colonized by those with something to sell. He realizes, it’s a philosophy book after all, that this state of affairs was prepared by a general understanding of who we are, a particular “philosophical anthropology.”  This anthropology describes humans as minds (the “head” of his book’s title).  Things and events become neutral items providing data for the mind. We call these data “objects,” items in the “world beyond your head.” One outcome of this picture is expressed in ordinary language as “it’s all subjective,” or the food-related  “there is no disputing about taste,” i.e. the individual mind is the source of value.  Examined psychologically, such assertions reflect  laziness and self-interest. They combine an unwillingness to scrutinize value judgments and the self-satisfaction of the status quo. To say “there is no disputing about taste” is, in effect, to say, let’s not bother thinking about this, let’s leave things as they are.  Examined philosophically, as Crawford does, such assertions are part and parcel of a picture which, forgetting hands and stomach, artificially characterizes the human situation as  “head” and “world outside your head.”   

In the realm of food it is a commonplace to recognize that as the stomach-hand connection is interrupted, the more “de-skilled” we become. One example: the less we are able to cook.  In turn, this de-skilling renders us vulnerable to those who would gladly (a) provide the service and (b) shape our judgments.  Attention can be colonized because the de-skilling is  accompanied by  a loss of what alone can provide a defense: standards and measures for discrimination.

Crawford’s concerns are similar. The realm of “it’s all subjective,” thrives in the absence of justifiable, generally accepted criteria.  Why?  Without agreement on standards, we are empty, blank slates, ready for colonization. The colonization provides substitutes. On one hand, as qualitative criteria disappear, quantitative benchmarks, often “narrow economic considerations” become the default.  On the other hand, we are told to reach within and find our true selves, i.e. accept uncriticizable subjective feelings.   “The fact that these preferences are the object of billion-dollar, scientifically informed efforts of manipulation doesn’t square with the picture of the choosing self assumed in the idea of a “free market.”

In all of this, an overarching norm takes center stage: conformity. Why do the hard work of selecting quality-driven exemplars to emulate?  An obvious and easy (laziness again) standard is now available: opinion polls.  “We cannot look to custom or established authority, so we look around to see what everyone else thinks.  The demand to be an individual makes us feel anxious, and the remedy for this, ironically enough, is conformity. We become more deferential to public opinion.”

The best way to liberate attention from its colonizers is to multiply engaged activities, like cooking.    We then attend to our surroundings in ways that, (1) encourage us to recognize factors of significance built-in to surrounding conditions, factors open to reasonable discussion and debate.  Their  significance may be related to ongoing

projects  (what the “it’s all subjective” fans emphasize),  but  the what  and  why of significance are not of our making.   (2) Within any craft tradition there are masters and experts. We learn to appreciate, admire, and strive to emulate role models. It is genuine living models who serve as touchstones not some statistical mean.

Ours is a world dominated by those who have something to sell.  Conformity is crucial for them.  Confusing “norm” and “average” helps their cause.  Having a de-skilled populace is a great boon. Cooking and other hands-on activities allow openings for our liberation.  Crawford seeks to blend hands and mind. To his credit, he wants to make room for those who have something to tell.