Taste is a social mechanism relative to era and society, not an innate universal

Evidence

With John Waters vaulted into the highest echelons of good taste through celebrations of bad taste, we can fully dispose of any previous notions that taste is an innate biological preference or a universal aesthetic criterion. Standards of taste are always relative to the dominant conventions of the era and the society, and so the only way to make sense of taste is to analyze it as a social mechanism. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 244

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Bourdieu habitus theory this book draws on throughout, and to the notion that even ‘bad taste’ can become status through inversion. — connects to: Western elites long defined taste as the faculty of identifying beauty — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 241; Standards of taste are relative to an era and society, not universal criteria; Taste judgments measure personal skill, not just classify social position — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 250 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Standards of taste are relative to an era and society, not universal criteria #corroborates (1.00)
• Taste manifests only through social activity filtered by status value #expands (0.88) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 245
• Poptimism reframed taste hierarchies as elitist and valorized mass pop culture #exemplifies (0.88) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 859
• Taste registers historical experience because the individual is itself a historical product #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 167
• Tastes encode a whole choice of being rather than sexual or physiological facts #expands (0.78)
• Taste judgments measure personal skill, not just classify social position #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 250