The ethic of refinement

In this article, which he describes as an ’intellectual improvisation«, Adrien Faure theorizes on the refinement and ethics that can be built on this value.

Values move us. They determine our emotions, and our emotions determine our actions. For example, it's because I think freedom is an important value that I feel indignation when I see people's freedom violated. The indignation (emotion) then prompts me to want to put an end (act) to the violation of freedom (value). Because values play a crucial role in our lives, guiding our actions, we need to ask ourselves: what values do we need to adopt in our lives to fulfill ourselves as individuals?

The multiplicity and diversity of individuals makes it hard to imagine that there is one set of ethics, one moral code, for everyone. I'm inclined to think that there are certain types of individual (and perhaps also certain phases of life) for whom certain values will be more valid than for others. The key here probably lies in comparing different life ethics, so that each person can build the best possible life for themselves by selecting what suits them best. Reflecting on which values are most important to me, I came to consider an uncommon value (or at least one that is rarely considered, it seems): refinement. Let's explore what might be said about this value (think of this exercise as an intellectual improvisation - in the same way that actors sometimes improvise in the theater, I take to the stage with a bare heart and no prompter or predefined text).

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Why consider refinement an important value in life? After all, many seemingly simple things in life can seem worthwhile, such as food, working the land or, of course, sexuality. In fact, those things that a priori seem simple aren't so simple after all. Cooking and sexual fulfillment require practice, technique and a certain sensitivity (an emotional quality that cannot simply be acquired), in other words, a certain sophistication.

So, we approach and perform «simple» things with a certain degree of sophistication, and what is performed simply is less well performed than what is performed in a sophisticated way - if you're interested in this argument, you'll find a relatively similar one in the utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill. In fact, the whole history of mankind consists in overcoming its primary and basic conditions to achieve a higher degree of development, whether in the technical and technological, cultural (in terms of morals), artistic (and aesthetic), economic, scientific, political or philosophical spheres.

I see three main fields in which this refinement value could be instantiated, and that's why I'll speak successively of intellectual refinement, aesthetic refinement and emotional refinement. Let's take a look at them.

Intellectual refinement

A soft, slow, conformist, docile, indifferent mind is a dead mind. The masses led by fascists, the cannon fodder of the military, the followers of absurd sects, are all composed of this same «doxatic», sheep-like mind. The contemporary zombie is one who can neither think for himself nor think at all. He is the one who has no intellectual courage and dares not oppose error, foolishness or stupidity. Intellectual refinement therefore consists in embracing epistemic virtues: independence of mind, clarity of thought, respect for logic, originality (the ability to innovate), the ability to argue, and so on. In other words, we need to adopt a (etymologically) philosophical attitude: love of wisdom, hatred of foolishness - the two probably being equally important.

Aesthetic refinement

The mountain that rises in the rising sun, the flower that blossoms in spring, the youth that leaps into life - these are examples of beauty that are probably considered simple. Aesthetic refinement cannot, of course, consist in simply embracing these beauties, or even in merely cultivating a sensitivity to them. By aesthetic refinement, I mean artistic sensitivity to life, which could be translated into a maxim shared by dandies and situationists alike: make life a work of art. This can only be achieved by cultivating a number of character traits, which is why the next point is emotional refinement.

Emotional refinement

Passivity, indifference, inaction, cowardice, sickly fear (excessive, because fear of danger is healthy in itself), are emotions that lead us to the edge of the abyss and make us easy prey for the greatest monster threatening Western civilization, Baudelaire's Beast: Ennui. «Go fast, go wild.» Kerouac and the Beats have opened the way to the solution for quelling the Beast, which can be summed up in three traits: passion, exaltation and torment.

Passion first of all, passion for the things of life, intensity as a watchword, as body temperature, or, as Kerouac so masterfully puts it: «The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles, exploding like spiders across the stars.»

Exaltation then, as a capacity for enthusiasm for a cause, i.e. exaltation as a capacity for full moral action.

And finally, torment, as the romantic sublimation of pain or sorrow into an aesthetic emotion: suffering then becomes a narrative event within a more global framework, taking on an aesthetic value that removes some of its heaviness and weight from our lives.

That's all I feel able to say for now about this value of refinement, and the ethics we could develop from it. Let's conclude our intellectual improvisation with these few words from Guy Debord: «The individual must be exciting or not be.» Amen.

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