Originality only requires being surprising within one’s own community

Evidence

A critical point about originality, however, is that choices never need to be original on an absolute, universal scale. They must merely be surprising within the community. A shortcut for great taste is arbitrage, finding easily procured things in one location and then deploying them elsewhere where they’re rare. Stylish teenagers from the Bronx in the 1970s would avoid shopping on nearby Fordham Road where everyone bought clothes, and instead take the subway down to Delancey Street in Lower Manhattan to buy “nice and fresh” clothes unavailable uptown. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 259

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘taste arbitrage’ as a concept — importing cheap rarity across geographic or social distances.
• SEED: ‘Taste arbitrage’ is a usable frame for an essay on how subcultural style (Bronx teens shopping downtown) actually works as cross-community movement rather than invention.
• XREF: connects to: Novelty is only produced from the familiar and well known — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1268; Entrenched formal expectations prevent critics from recognizing genre innovation. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 581; Intellectual originality can be a product of marginal social position — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 10 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Entrenched formal expectations prevent critics from recognizing genre innovation. #expands (0.90) — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 581
• People display originality within group conventions to signal difference safely #exemplifies (0.88) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 178
• Every act of imitation within a group simultaneously distinguishes that group from outsiders #expands (0.76) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 168
• Novelty is only produced from the familiar and well known #complicates (0.74) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1268
• Distinctiveness is tolerated only for those who already have high status #complicates (0.73) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 175
• Intellectual originality can be a product of marginal social position #qualifies (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 10
• Uncertain social subjects require a reflective imagination to meet novelty #expands (0.71) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 434