This week I listened to a long conversation about one of my favorite topics of conversation: “good taste.” Good taste tricky. It is an endless source of bluff, shame and status anxiety. You want to have good taste, but only others can decide whether you have it. How do you accomplish that?
Talked about exactly that The New York Timescolumnist Ezra Klein with The New Yorkerjournalist Kyle Chayka. According to Chayka, author of Filterworld, about taste in the 21st century, taste is mainly about self-knowledge. Taste is “looking at the world around you and choosing from it what resonates with you, what makes you feel like you are who you are.” According to the men, good and therefore authentic taste is more important than ever. The internet as it exists now pushes us with algorithms to what we already know, or to what most people like. In this way, “a big blob of generic culture” is formed. And the average person is the ideal consumer in capitalism, so truly personal taste is nothing less than a form of social resistance. We have to learn yourself think, says Chayka.
Is that possible? Really think for yourself? Develop an autonomous taste? When I talk about taste, I like to start with my theory of the 'kitchen step of good taste'. That staircase has three steps. Anyone who wants to get started with their taste starts at the first step. For example with a composer like Mozart. This is beautiful, you think, I listen to Mozart, I enjoy it, this is high art, I have good taste. But then you step up a step. A different wind is blowing there. Mozart, that is actually just commercial, superficial kitsch written for effect. Not my taste. Just give me [insert ondoordringbaarder componist].
Now we're getting somewhere. This person really has good, individual taste. Until you take another step, to the third step. Whoever is standing there really gets it. I know the criticism of Mozart, he says. And yes, I understand why you think this is frivolous. But if you really listen carefully, you will hear that it is anything but superficial. Correct Mozart is a great one for the connoisseur. Checkmate.
In conversations about Russian classics (a robust marker of good taste in those beautiful thin-print editions), you often see this happening with Dostoyevsky. The 'good taste' novice knows: Fyodor Dostoyevsky is an important Russian writer of thick humorless books, so: good taste. On the second step are the Dostoyevsky haters. Following Karel van het Reve, they are sovereign in their judgment, not intimidated by Dostoyevsky's reputation, and declare that in fact he only presents banal, shouting characters in mediocre, long-winded style. People laugh about this at the top of the kitchen steps. Correct Dostoyevsky – so often misunderstood – is the pinnacle of Literature.
Those who know the three steps see them more often. Britney Spears is also often on the steps. Great music for the navive pop beginner, but the semi-advanced will find it an uninteresting mass product. Until you reach the third step, where you find the inevitable man who, enthusiastic about his own un-ironic sincerity about this, explains: but Toxicthat's a really good song.
And it's a good song too. But such a comment is also a declaration of one's own superiority above the snobbish listeners who focus on Britney's popularity with the masses. The appreciation for Toxic is not merely an expression of a refined attunement with your deepest self.
I confess that I, in turn, like to catch people on the second or third step, and that is another way of showing that I have it all figured out and that mine taste is beyond doubt.
You cannot escape the maze of 'good taste'.
When I mentioned this to a more well-read friend, my kitchen step theory, he lovingly pointed out that none of these were really original thoughts. “You are now just retelling a book by Bourdieu. read LaDistinction.” He was right. And yet he only confirmed my point. Even my ideas about taste are not entirely authentic, and do not just come from myself.
Eva Peek is editor of NRC.
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