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  1. Feb 2019
    1. By this means, his sentiments are perverted; nor have the same beauties and blemishes the same influence upon him, as if he had imposed a proper violence on his imagination, and had for­gotten himself for a moment. So far his taste evi­dently departs from the true standard; and of con­sequence loses all credit and authority

      This is stuffed to the gills with assumptions. And while there is a good deal of boilerplate Enlightenment business going on, Hume also seems to be planting the seeds later authors will reap.

      Hume is requiring of the listener/taster/receiver, which is not new. "You think rap is good because you don't understand 'art' " is a common refrain. The elites have always used exposure to canonical works and forms as a method of discrediting those outside the circle, and have dismissed emerging works and forms as "lowbrow."

      What strikes me about Hume, and perhaps posthumanism (along with Foucault) would find this noteworthy, is that this "violence on" a person is not done by the community, but by the person themself.