Awareness of culture’s mechanisms destroys the ability to hold earnest taste.

Evidence

Conventions function best when the population is ignorant of their existence. We have been cursed to understand the mechanisms of culture too well, making earnest taste nearly impossible. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 751

Categorization

• APHORISMS: A genuinely timeless admonition on the role of cultural knowledge, worth rereading long after the surrounding web discourse dates.
• XREF: connects to: Consumers deny status motives, claiming utilitarian reasons for purchases — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 295; No ‘real me’ exists free of social influence because brains rationalize desires — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 293; Rejecting taste weakens cultural capital and elevates raw wealth as status. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 775 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Under the culture industry the concept of taste has become obsolete. #qualifies (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 68
• Mere preservation of tradition destroys culture, not sustains it #complicates (0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 564
• Mass reproduction’s erosion of the aura destroys experience rooted in tradition. #expands (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 629
• Nationalist destruction of culture ironically proves that culture existed #exemplifies (0.70) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 381